


He Deserves a Shot (At Being Happy)

by ChronicOlicity



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: (until they do), F/M, Felicity POV, Flommy friendship, Imagining Arrow season 2 with Tommy being alive, Olicity centric, Oliver pov, Tommy & Diggle being bros, Tommy Merlyn is Alive, Tommy POV, Tommy being Thea's big brother, Tommy in Season 2, arrow season 2, olicity will they won't they, pre-season 2, season 1.5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2018-07-14 19:38:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 49
Words: 505,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7187378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicOlicity/pseuds/ChronicOlicity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><b>Short version:</b> an AU where Tommy Merlyn didn't die, and is around for season 2 of Arrow.</p>
<p><b>Long version:</b><br/>Tommy Merlyn has spent most of his life being an expensive disappointment to his family, but now he's a part-owner of a semi-successful nightclub in the worst area of town (it's seriously looking up) alongside his best friend, who — after five years on a deserted island — decided to come back to be a freaking vigilante. It's a long story, one that's longer than Tommy wants to remember, but it took the Glades collapsing and the death of one of their best friends to get him officially done with being a troublemaker. Nothing interesting. Just running a nightclub, and trying not to get into any trouble.</p>
<p>Oliver's been gone god knows where for most of the summer, which means he's stuck being the big brother to the guy's snarky little sister, whose boyfriend "Ron" seems completely set on getting himself killed. An afternoon of test-driving Verdant's new cocktails gets interesting when Felicity Smoak and John Diggle show up asking (more) questions about where to find Oliver, and Tommy has to decide whether he wants to keep his new rule.</p>
<p>Spoiler alert: he doesn't.</p>
<p>  <b> -COMPLETE- </b></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chireusette](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chireusette/gifts).



> So this was inspired by Chireusette/Pillow-Mountains/Bruni telling me aaaaaall about meeting Colin Donnell at the Paris Con (so glad you had a great time and some amazing photos!!!). She's hitting 2000 followers pretty soon and this is an early present for her fantastic, multi-fandom (but mostly Olicity) blog.  
> It's also payback for all the incredible encouragement she's sent me over the last two months or so, and the super inappropro Whatsapp discussions about Stephen Amell's ass.  
> Not that I'm complaining.  
> Enjoy, sweetie *MUAH*

Tommy sniffed cautiously at the contents of the cocktail glass. Given the lack of guinea pigs available for easy commandeering, he’d been reduced to test-driving his own drinks on a sun-drenched Wednesday afternoon.

As part-owner of a semi-successful nightclub.

Inside an old steel factory.

Alone.

God, responsibility had a way of sounding pathetic in the harsh light of day. Not that he’d had much experience in the area, since his memories of anything before four P.M. were usually of the REM sleep variety. Hard drinking and harder partying had a way of making the daylight hours dagger-like to the retinas.

Up until six months ago, at least.

Tommy turned on his heel, hunting for the picture he kept behind the bar, and raised his glass. “This one’s for you, sweetheart,” he said, toasting a smiling picture of Laurel Lance.

The drink went down easy, fresh liquid silver for the Verdant specials — if only he hadn’t overdone it on the crushed ice.

“ _And_ that’s brain freeze,” he said, gluing his tongue to the roof of his mouth like he was in third grade again and had overdone it on one of Raisa’s famous blue grape and cherry snow cones.

His fingers were still pinching the bridge of his nose when his phone started to buzz in his back pocket. Tommy put it to his ear without looking at the display, also without unsticking his tongue from its brain freeze battle station. “ _Hurroh_ ,” he said.

“Tommy? Are you drinking again? Jesus, it’s two-thirty in the afternoon.”

Tommy’s tongue unglued itself with a faint _pop_. “McKenna Hall,” he said, still wincing from the head-twinge. “It’s two thirty-one, actually, and I’m not drinking. Actually, I’d like to revise my previous statement, detective. I _am_ drinking, but it’s cocktails. Not that I drink cocktails on my own, in the middle of the day. I own a nightclub — it’s all good.” He stared up at the ceiling with the phone still pressed to his ear, shaking his head at his inability to sound like he wasn’t a pervert/alcoholic in front of old friends. “Did you call to check up on me?”

“Okay,” McKenna said, still sounding suspicious. Not without good reason, but that was another story, for another time. “No, I’m not calling to check up on you. It’s about one of your employees, actually, a…”

Papers shuffled, and he could see her looking through the crammed (but meticulously ordered) docket on her desk for a file, sitting ramrod straight in the purely terrible office chair SCPD had assigned her. Jesus, the unnameable color alone was a crime against humanity, not to mention the level of lumbar support that _had_ to be some kind of health code violation —

_Not the point._

“Ah,” McKenna said, flipping through pages. “Roy William Harper — Jr. He was brought in last night for assault while attempting to make a citizen’s arrest.”

Tommy shut his eyes and let his head sag forward, touching his chin to his chest. Here he was, running a business he only part-owned, a couple months into the _Big Brother_ role (thanks to Oliver going AWOL to Lian Yu), and — somehow — he’d also adopted a twenty-ish-year-old kid along the way. “What was it this time?” he said tiredly.

“A few would-be muggers outside Big Belly Burger,” she said. “He almost put one of them in the hospital. The captain wanted to call the DA himself, but he ended up changing his mind.”

“You mean you talked to him,” Tommy guessed. “Flirted a little? Used some dirt on him? Baked some cookies?”

“He’s gay — clean as a whistle — and allergic to gluten,” she said. “In that order.”

“So…teacher’s pet, then.”

McKenna laughed, but through closed lips — like she was refusing to let him score a point in their ongoing game of _Detective Hall Doesn’t Actually Hate Tommy_. “I told him that I knew his mom, and he was going through a rough patch at home. I also said I’d keep him out of trouble…which is why I’m calling. I can’t keep bailing him out of trouble, Merlyn.”

_Uh-oh_. The last name treatment. Cop friend was about to drop some ultimatum-level seriousness, which naturally meant that Tommy went sprinting in the other direction, right into the wall of inappropriate humor.

“You know I love it when you call me _Merlyn_ ,” he said. “It makes you sound like a sexy math teacher.”

McKenna snorted. “Ms. Rodriguez? Yeah, I heard what the two of you did at the ten-year reunion. You’re lucky her husband isn’t a cop.”

Tommy felt like he’d lost a point somewhere. “Didn’t know you knew about that,” he muttered.

“Merlyn, I’m serious. The city’s cracking down on citizen vigilantes,” she said. “The captain would _love_ to make an example out of a hotshot like Harper. The DA too. Quentin Lance just cinched a promotion heading up the anti-vigilante task force, and their mantra is getting justice for what happened on the night of the Glades collapse. The city doesn’t need another Hood, even if he’s wearing a red Abercrombie zip-up.”

Tommy didn’t answer immediately. His eyes were fixed on the photo — _the_ photo. Dinah Laurel Lance, in loving memory.

She was laughing, not into the camera, but at the person taking the picture.

The same person who’d taken the photo from the frame with shaking hands and put it up at the bar, _after_. After the hospital, after the police station, after the drinking and smashed everything. After the night in front of the Queen mansion hearth, passing a bottle of vodka between himself and Oliver, forgetting that there were tears on his face and a hole in his heart where one of his best friends used to be.

He was great at being in photos, all smolder and cheekbones, which was why the discovery that he could barely handle a beginner’s polaroid came as such a surprise. A laugh-yourself-to-tears discovery.

And _god_ , she’d laughed. They both had, and somehow — thank god — he’d clicked the shutter at the exact right moment, one perfect picture in a series of uncontrollable thumb cameos and blurred beige goops against the garden backdrop.

“I’m sorry,” McKenna said, in a very different voice. A voice that meant they weren’t playing the game anymore. “I shouldn't have mentioned it. I thought you knew.”

“I saw something in the papers,” Tommy answered, offhand, as though he didn’t have a weekly ritual of calling Dinah every Sunday afternoon, just to keep her company while she graded student papers.

As though he wasn’t keeping an eye on Quentin’s visits to the doctor (not damn near enough in terms of frequency), as though they didn’t run into each other at the gate of the cemetery, both carrying bouquets of white roses and stargazer lilies with bold pink hearts, and make the silent pilgrimage towards the twin graves resting quietly side by side in the shadow of a weeping angel.

“Have you heard from Oliver?” she asked.

Tommy shook his head before he realized that she was on the phone. “Uh — no,” he said, deliberately not thinking about the last time they’d seen each other, or the last text message sent from an unknown number from an unknown location.

Well, technically unknown.

_Hard to find_ was the 18th Century pirate’s version of _unknown_ , and that was enough of a classification for the middle-of-nowhere that was Lian Yu.

“He’s been in Europe since the funeral. Jet-skiing. Water-skiing. Lots of skiing. You know Oliver — after his dad, Laurel was just…”

“I know,” McKenna said. “We all grew up together. It’s like…losing an arm. You never forget what it was like, before.”

Tommy looked down at his fingers, flexing them as he considered it. A phantom limb. Turning to say something over his shoulder before he remembered that Laurel wasn’t behind him to hear it, thinking of a joke and reaching for his phone before he realized that the phone — _hers_ — was off, sitting in a locked desk drawer back at the mansion with a shattered screen.

He’d always been good with words, but this time, McKenna had beaten him to the perfect metaphor.

Not that he’d wanted first prize for it anyway.

“Anyway,” Tommy said, sidestepping the conversational pause, a yawning gap where the silence didn’t stop either of them from knowing exactly what was being said. “This was fun, and I’ll talk to my idiot employee-slash-Oliver’s sister’s boyfriend. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay,” she said, and it still sounded suspicious. But in a different way. “Hey, my shift ends before opening time. How about I swing by with Chinese food? Jade Dragon?”

A grin spread slowly across Tommy’s face. “But you hate me,” he said. “How do I know you won’t spit in the duck spring rolls?”

“Please, like you’d see that as an issue. You keep saying that’s the only way you’re ever getting my DNA in your mouth — which is true, by the way.”

“I guess we’ll never know for sure.”

He knew McKenna was smiling. “I guess not,” she said. “See you later, Merlyn.”

“You will indeed, Detective.”

They hung up at precisely the same time, and Tommy smiled at his phone for a stupid second longer before he returned it to his back pocket.

The over-iced experimental cocktail he left sitting on the bar top, and leaned back to continue his staring contest with Laurel’s picture. She wasn’t the only face there — after the Glades disaster, Verdant had become a local watering hole of sorts, one of the few places miraculously unharmed by the destruction, and Tommy had made an executive decision (after a few nights of pouring drinks and trading stories with the bereaved) to start a memorial corner for the dearly departed. Now there was a collage of photos from all over the neighborhood, flanking bottles of vermouth and bourbon and rows of polished glasses, all warm, smiling faces and preserved moments. Parents, children, sisters, brothers, friends.

Tommy didn’t want to presume what the photos meant to other people, but to him, it was a reminder that Laurel Lance had loved the Glades. She’d dedicated a career to making it better in CNRI, and there was no way in hell that she’d have closed Verdant down when it brought jobs and benefits to an area that needed it more than ever.

Apparently the club was turning into a homing point for wannabe vigilantes too.

“This one’s for you, sweetheart,” he said, quieter still, and went back to work.

* * *

“Working during the daylight hours, Tommy?” Thea said, tossing her clipboard onto the bar top and sliding a coaster from the dispenser. “ _Invasion of the Body Snatchers_ , or what?”

Tommy was already shaking out his newest cocktail for his _de facto_ little sister, a perfect blend of (enough) ice and classy booze, served in a frosted glass. “You know, one of these days, you’re gonna have to stop being surprised that I’m taking Verdant seriously. Your brother is currently in Europe, and I’m here pouring cocktails for his little sister, free of charge, by the way.”

“Hey, who took over Ollie’s share of the responsibility?” Thea jabbed her pen at him with one hand and reached behind the bar for a dish of peanuts. “Rooney practically scalped you for the bourbon supply, and you didn’t even realize he was doing it.”

“Disregarding the fact that someone your age shouldn't even _know_ the going rate of bourbon per glass, much less the going rate in _bulk_ , you needed something to do that wasn’t hooking up with your delinquent boyfriend.”

“Excuse me,” Thea said. “ _Reformed_ delinquent.”

Tommy smirked, and poured the cocktail out into a perfectly iced glass. “My mistake. Try it — I’m thinking of calling it the _Shooting Star_.”

Though the crinkle in her nose made it _very_ clear what she thought of the name, Thea took a classy sip and raised her eyebrows. “Not bad. Terrible name, but that’s really good.”

“ _That_ — is gin, violet liquor and chartreuse,” Tommy said proudly, dropping a paper umbrella into the glass. “Sure to make the ladies…”

Halfway through the sentence, his caveman instincts realized that he was talking to his best friend’s little sister — practically his too — and slammed into a rapid reverse.

“…drink responsibly and head home alone in a licensed taxi service,” he finished, sliding the drink a little further away from her.

Thea narrowed her eyes at him. “Nice save.”

“Thanks. I try.”

The door banged open like it had been kicked, and Roy made his entrance with a cart full of the booze delivery. Tommy endured the obligatory kiss-and-greet from the two lovebirds by polishing a glass under the pretext that he was in need of a mirror (disregarding the perfectly functional one behind the bar).

“What’re you doing after work?” Thea asked, with a goopy smile that made a muscle in Tommy’s cheek twitch.

“Depends how hard my boss makes me work,” Roy answered, completely ignoring Tommy (their working relationship in a nutshell). “Why? Got plans?”

“Mm…I was thinking sushi. _But_ — only if your boss lets you go. Wouldn’t want to give her any trouble.”

“But that’s why she likes me.”

Tommy had heard just about enough. “O- _kay,”_ he interrupted, bringing his arm down like a traffic barrier, the kind that stopped cars from getting run over by a passing freight train.

In this case, said freight train was Oliver, and Roy was the guy tied down to the tracks. Tommy was the one driving the Corvette and taking crappy pictures for the snuff reel.

Dark, dark stuff.

“Conversation over,” he said. “Roy, I’m gonna need you to do inventory on the supply closet. We’re restocking soon and I need to know everything we have. In extreme detail.”

“ _Tommy_ ,” Thea said, well aware that it was intentional busywork.

“Don’t worry, I’ll drive him to get some California rolls and tuna maki if it gets too late.” Tommy winked and rapped her clipboard with his knuckles. “I think I heard the office phone ring. Catch you later, kiddo.”

“You know what? I don’t even want to know.” Thea shook her head and slipped off the bar stool. She stood on her toes to kiss Roy’s cheek (how she didn’t cut herself on it, he didn’t know) and started off towards the upstairs office.

Silence. Bone-crunchingly awkward silence.

Roy seemed content to let it stretch on, staring matter-of-factly back at Tommy like he was the one running the show.

“Detective Hall just called,” Tommy said, only belatedly realizing that there was no way of going about this conversation without sounding like he was a disappointed parent.

“She said you were arrested last night for beating up some guy outside Big Belly. What the hell? We had a deal — no more beat-downs or I tell Thea what you’ve been up to.”

_Goddammit._

“You never said _arrested_. You said you’d only tell Thea if I got myself thrown in jail,” Roy pointed out. “They never charged me. Oops.”

This was why Tommy never wanted kids. But instead of digressing into what was sure to become an embarrassing bicker session, he shifted gears. Roy Harper definitely thought he was as tough as a crowbar on the outside, but there was a marshmallow center somewhere in that kid, and Tommy was going to make sure it kept him off the vigilante track, one way or another.

So he reached for a beer mug and filled it to the perfect height of foaminess (nice way for all those years of drinking to pay off), before sliding it across the bar top to Roy.

"Listen, Ron —"

" _Roy_."

Tommy wagged his finger. ”No, _Roy Harper_ is the name of my sorta-sister’s boyfriend, not the adrenaline junkie with a death wish stomping the streets of Starling City, picking fights with the kind of upper body strength he doesn't have. Yeah, I've seen you with your shirt off. If a guy comes towards you with a knife, you should be running in the opposite direction like everyone else, not making citizen’s arrests all over the neighborhood.”

Roy pushed the beer away from him. ”Look, I'm not talking about this to you, okay? You were born with a silver spoon shoved up your a—”

" _Hey_. That spoon was a family heirloom."

"You don't get what it's like, seeing everything go to hell around you and people being afraid to do anything about it.” Roy’s face was taut with suppressed rage, and if the guy had some beneath-the-surface anger issues, the surface was about as thick as saran wrap. “That's the world I grew up in. You're just too used to living in a mansion and a fat bank account to do anything about it."

"Look, Rory —“

" _Roy_."

“Don’t care. Look at me,” Tommy said, gesturing at himself. “Do you know how many women I have on my radar right now? Now why would I waste that memory space on remembering some adrenaline junkie's name when he's probably going to be in a hospital bed — best case scenario, by the way — and kicked to the curb by next Wednesday? When I could _really_ be remembering Yolanda the wine supplier and her favorite drink? Very dry gin martini with a twist. See how I have space for that because I _don't_  remember Rick Halpert?”

Roy folded his arms. ”Yeah, I hear she sells great Herpes."

Hand up again. ” _Hey._ It's a French wine, pronounced the French way. Like _Er-pay_ , I'll have you know."

"Sorry, I didn't get French tutoring and Bow Tie DIY,” Roy snarked. “I learned how to climb a chain fence and throw a punch."

"Okay, I'm sensing that we're about to get into some uncomfortable measuring contests right now. My point is — as part owner of the nightclub where you work, I have fifty percent of a say over your next paycheck. That fifty percent might be pretty useful if Thea finds out about that car wreck in the Glades last night. You get me?”

“I’ll sleep on it, boss,” Roy said, managing to make _boss_ sound like an insult. He picked up a box of vodka for the supply closet, a move that seemed to target Tommy's demonstrably middling upper body strength, reinforced by the fact that his eyebrows were condescendingly raised. “While I’m _not_ doing inventory.”

“Acknowledge my dominance over you!” Tommy called after him.

Roy gave him the finger without turning around.

Tommy shook his head at the bar. "Another win for Merlyn."

* * *

Tommy had his back to the doors when they nudged open. “Sorry, we’re closed,” he said, barely glancing at the clock. “Come back in…four hours.”

“I’m not here for the drink and dance — though I’m sure it’s very nice, generic music and partial hearing loss aside. Not that I’m saying your club isn’t the _hip and happening_ place to be, I mean, there was a stabbing around the corner last week. Then again, there’s stabbings everywhere these days —”

Somewhere in the middle of the detour-filled monologue, Tommy heaved a sigh, a big one. “Felicity, I told you I don’t know where he is.”

“Whoa, hey, is that any way to treat a friend? Friend-adjacent? Partially trusted confidante?” she said, climbing onto a bar stool while Diggle raised his hand in greeting.

“Tommy,” he said, and they bumped fists.

“Hey, Digg — what can I get you?” Tommy tossed the rag over one shoulder with a mild flourish, enjoying one of his rare moments of proud masculinity in front of Oliver’s physically imposing bodyguard.

“Just coffee, thanks. Black. I’m technically still on the clock.”

Tommy gave him a look. “Your client’s not even in town. Do you just stand by an empty chair and pretend Oliver’s texting in it?”

“Might be easier if you told me _where_ I could find my client,” Diggle said. “Then I wouldn’t have to keep an eye on that empty chair.”

Tommy huffed in amusement. “Nice try. Answer’s still _I don’t know_.”

Felicity set her bright red tablet on the polished bar surface and unfolded it with a click, flexing her fingers like she was about to perform practical magic. Or — fix the office computer he’d accidentally crashed after downloading an email with questionably virus-free content.

“So, according to my previous extrapolations, there’s absolutely no way Oliver’s really in Ibiza, unless he’s staying in a shack rated one-star on Tripadvisor. The hotel his family frequents hasn’t processed any of the Queen credit cards —”

“Did you _hack_ the hotel in Ibiza?” Tommy said.

She ignored him. “— and no hits showed up on his passport. Now, based on everything we — including you — know about your best friend’s off-road tendencies —”

Tommy thought it was an elegant way of summarizing Oliver’s year as the Hood. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

“— he’s good at staying under the radar. Now, since he’s avoided using his passport — sketchy legal territory there — my guess would be someplace with heavy smuggling networks. I know he has a few Bratva connections, which points to Moscow and maybe St. Petersburg, but as you know, the Russian mob can be pretty touchy about answering questions from total strangers. Even if one of them’s wearing a cute dress and her best lipstick. So unless you want the next time you see me to involve a lot more holes — I mean bullet holes, and yes, that sounded better in my head — do me a solid and tell us where to find him?”

As impressed as Tommy was with her extensive interpretation of educated guesswork, it was still a poker game, and he was better at bluffing, if not the actual _winning_ part of it. Hence, Tommy carefully schooled his face into revealing nothing. He had years of experience at _not_ being the worst liar in their friend circle, and he wasn’t about to give it up for one of the biggest secrets he’d kept.

Neither of them looked particularly convinced.

_Damn._ He was getting rusty.

Beside Felicity, Diggle cocked his head as if to reinforce the fact that the jig was up.

“Look, from what you’ve told me, I’m pretty sure Oliver owes you ten times over for saving his life, but he went away to get some space. He — _we_ — grew up with Laurel. You don’t just get over losing someone like that, and I’m going to wait until he’s ready to come back.”

Tommy served up their drinks, ordered or not. “So let’s just have a drink and talk, like friends, because we are. One black coffee, and one Violet Blush. New on the menu. Not the coffee — we don’t serve coffee here. Coffee’s for friends only.”

The _Shooting Star_ had been retconned.

Felicity played with the paper umbrella in her drink, her expression nothing less than understanding. “You think we only want him back because he’s the Hood.”

Tommy uncapped a beer for himself and shrugged. “With the city the way it is, I don’t blame you. Copycats running around everywhere — it’s chaos. Oliver could bring it all back to zero in a second, I know that much.”

For a second, he felt his heart lift, his spine straighten, as if the thought of Oliver picking up the bow again to save Starling was some kind of beacon, some kind of hope.

Tommy knew Oliver’s state of mind too well to believe that.

“But he won’t want to,” he said, with finality. “He couldn’t stop my father from bringing down a city, and Laurel…she’s gone. Oliver never used to blame himself for anything, but he’s gotten real good at it since he got back from the island.”

“And you’re okay with your best friend living the rest of his life in some corner of the world alone?” Diggle questioned. “His mother’s about to go on trial, his sister’s alone, and his family’s company is about to be scrapped and sold for parts. The Oliver we know wouldn’t stand for it.”

“Yeah?” Tommy said. “Unfortunately, I have dibs in that area. I’m sorry about both your jobs if Stellmoor International wins the buyout, but I’m not going to tell you where to find Oliver if all it means is you bringing him back to watch his family’s legacy crumble. I can’t protect him with a bow and arrow or fancy kung-fu, but I _can_ protect him by making sure he’s out of the crash zone when it happens.”

“What makes you think all Oliver can do is watch?” Felicity said. “What makes you think he can’t save Queen Consolidated from being taken over? Just for starters, by the way.”

Tommy laughed without meaning to. “Oliver owns half of this place,” he said, tipping the beer bottle at the dance floor. “Now his share of the work’s being managed by his eighteen-year-old sister. I love Oliver, but he’s not a businessman.”

“Neither are you, and Verdant’s reporting record profits. You’re the only leisure-related business in the area keeping their head above the water,” Felicity answered, without missing a beat. “You and Oliver could turn Queen Consolidated around, and that’s barely even exhausting your options.”

Tommy glanced at Digg, who looked unfazed. “God, you’re actually serious,” he said. “What, did you draw up a master plan for QC’s recovery already?”

Felicity flipped her tablet around to show him the series of data tables and document bundles just waiting to be used. “My supervisor underestimates how much work I can finish before I start getting bored.”

Tommy chose to maintain a diplomatic silence, opting instead to have a drink. He took a long drag of ice-cold beer, simultaneously scrolling down the painstakingly detailed recovery plan on Felicity’s computer while he shot sneaky glances at her out the corner of his eye.

She seemed unaware of the scrutiny. “Hey, this is _really_ good,” she said, pointing at the purple cocktail. “I think I just found my new favorite drink. But I think I have to pee to enjoy it.”

Diggle made a noise under his breath, like they’d established a warning system for her verbal slip-ups.

“I _mean_ , I need the bathroom,” she laughed. “ _Not_ that I’d automatically have to pee while drinking this — because that would imply some pretty poor personal hygiene, am I right? Okay, I’m gonna go now. Be right back. Forget I said anything. _Obliviate_.”

Tommy watched her amble off in the direction of the toilets. “Was that _Star Wars_?” he said, intentionally dense. “Wait, don’t tell me — _Doctor_ something. Is that his name? _Doctor Something_?”

“Shut _u-p_ ,” she called back, over the sound of a closing door.

Tommy laughed into his bottle of beer. “Sometimes I wonder if her mom pissed off a shaman while she was pregnant with Felicity, and the dude cursed her into having the worst luck with human language ever.”

Diggle chuckled. “Maybe. Felicity doesn’t talk about her mom too much. Sore spot.”

Tommy exhaled. “Yeah, I know about those. Sure I can’t get you a beer, man?”

Diggle shook his head. “Nah, with me it’s Tennessee whiskey or nothing.”

“Respect.” Tommy went back to the plans again, trying to recall the parts of his business school education that he _hadn’t_ opted out of. “Man, I really wish I hadn’t skipped that accounting class.”

“What happened?” Diggle said, sounding not at all surprised.

“A girl.” Tommy smiled a little, and took another sip of his drink. “ _The_ girl, actually. Laurel said she wanted to go to Miami — there was something about a white bikini — and I was an idiot. She was with Oliver, I was never gonna do anything, but I still went. Long story short, I missed a final and flunked out of school.”

Diggle’s smile mirrored his. “Happens to the best of us.”

“At least Carly chose you,” Tommy said, with complete and reckless honesty. “Even if it was just for a while.”

They’d had the conversation before, albeit with slightly different shading each time, but Diggle had the remarkable talent of making a circle feel like a path forward, like he wasn’t just banging his head against a corner and waiting for something to stop hurting.

“It wouldn’t have worked out,” Diggle said quietly. “Too much history. It took me and Carly a while to see it, but we got there — eventually. Oliver and Laurel would have seen it too.”

Always a conversation about the _what if_.

A part of Tommy wondered if he was a little masochistic, prodding an open wound before it even had a chance to scab. As little as they had in common, what with day jobs (night ones too, apparently), life experiences and general preparedness to handle adult life, Diggle had proven surprisingly easy to talk to in the months that Oliver had been gone. The guy knew what it was like to lose someone, and sometimes Tommy thought that he’d come by Verdant on purpose, despite knowing Oliver wasn’t around, just to make sure he wasn’t alone in the aftermath.

As hard as it was for him not to feel a little territorial about being Oliver’s best friend (maybe a little more than _little_ ) Tommy had to be grateful, because at least it’d meant that Oliver hadn’t been totally alone in his crusade.

Plus, Diggle was an incredible, _understated_ level of cool.

Tommy went back to reading for a few seconds, but from what he could understand from it, Felicity Smoak had been _busy_. Like she knew Oliver would need all the support he could get. Like there hadn’t been the slightest shadow of a doubt that he’d be back.

If that wasn’t love, he didn’t know what was.

“Hey — uh,” Tommy said, trying to sound as casual as he possibly could ( _smooth as a Violet Blush_ , the tagline read) “Felicity wouldn’t happen to have a _thing_ for Oliver, right? Because this…is some insane smarts she put together.”

Diggle unsuccessfully hid a smile in his coffee cup. “What’s it to you?” he asked.

Tommy’s look in return epitomized the sarcastic _please_. “Look, Felicity’s a great girl — dislike of fine beers aside — and I'm trying this thing where I _don't_ set girls up to get their hearts broken by me or my best friend. Call it amassing good karma.”

“Take my word for it,” Diggle answered. “Whether Felicity has a crush on Oliver or not, she’d still be trying this hard to get him home. She doesn't want anything for Oliver except for him to be a better person, and whether or not they get together has nothing to do with that.”

“Bullshit,” Tommy said, but without much conviction. “How’d the dummy manage that?”

Diggle seemed to appreciate his affectionate designation of Oliver as _the dummy_. “The way I see it, the universe messed with him for five full years before spitting him back out again to face the world. Maybe someone like Felicity is their way of making up for it.”

Tommy didn’t know which part surprised him more — the fact that it had taken him this long to catch on, or the fact that Diggle had just been watching it all happen from the side and said absolutely freaking nothing.

Suffice it to say there had been a steady march — oh, who was he kidding — an all-out Mardi Gras of women in Oliver’s life, of which there had been a fair share of catastrophic endings. Tommy knew this because he’d sometimes volunteered to be the shoulder on which to cry, which had paid off in various ways he wasn’t necessarily proud to admit.

An IT girl in the family company, who had minimal self-filtering mechanisms and a truly frightening proficiency in hacking (a _hobby_ , of all things) would not have been first on his list of Oliver’s friends.

Note — past tense.

There were two things that really stood out about Felicity ( _she still refused to tell him her middle name_ ) Smoak.

The first thing — and the most obvious — was how incredibly intelligent she was. If Oliver’s superpower was the bow and arrow, Felicity’s was her brain, and Tommy had always carried a special kind of respect for women who were unashamedly smarter than he was (not a very competitive category, but still).

The second thing — and this was a _lot_ more understated — was how generous she was with the sunshine that seemed to follow her wherever she went. There were different kinds of smart in the world, the kind that made someone feel small, and the kind that made someone feel like they could do anything — whether it was to invent the world’s first self-flipping pancake, crack the mystery of human flight, even save the _world_. Malcolm fell into the first category. Of that, Tommy had ample experience to back it up.

Felicity was the second, and Tommy wasn’t surprised at her being part of Oliver’s team. Not in the least.

Even if nothing had actually happened yet.

“Should we tell them?” he asked.

Diggle rocked so far back in his chair when he laughed that Tommy was prepared to make a grab for him. “ _No_ ,” he said. “Where’s the fun in that?”

Before Tommy could question the pure evil of that suggestion, a door slammed somewhere in the club, and Felicity re-entered the main floor with a _phew_. “Sorry, I always get so caught up reading the graffiti on the walls,” she said. “I almost peed myself trying to find out whether A.J. really did end up heart-ing K.N.”

Tommy frowned, vaguely recalling the drawing in question. “You mean the one under the band poster?” he said.

“Mm-hm.”

“Yeah, that’s not a heart,” he said briefly, and gestured to the part of the human anatomy it _actually_ meant. “Trust me, I asked.”

Felicity made a face into her drink. “Oh. Good for them, but _oh_.”

After a brief, but meaningful glance in Diggle’s direction, Tommy rested his elbows on the bar and beckoned her a little closer. “Hey,” he said. “Can you keep a secret?”

There was a gleam in Felicity’s eye when she planted her arms firmly on the marble and leaned forward, so they were genuinely face to face. “You know, the last time a guy asked me that, I ended up helping him fight crime in an underground basement. That’s a pretty tough act to follow.”

Tommy grinned in spite of the secret he was about to tell, because there was something about her that made lying a special kind of impossible.

"Lian Yu. Oliver mentioned a guy in Hong Kong who ran flights into Pyongyang,” he said, writing out what he remembered about the name and address. “I went looking for him in Hong Kong a couple years back and I talked to him myself. The guy’s legit. My geography's pretty nasty, but I think the island's a pit stop on the way. It’s one hell of a transfer though — you sure you want to do this?”

“Well, we’ve only been asking for the last two months,” Diggle said sarcastically. “Why would we be serious?”

Felicity was trying to get a better look at the napkin, but at such an extreme angle that he shifted the pen from one hand to another before she broke her neck (mildly ambidextrous, one of his incredibly sparse talents). “Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything," she said, and added hastily, "not that you’re a horse — but Lian Yu has some pretty impressive square footage and I’m pretty sure some genius decided to booby trap every square inch of that thing. Do you know where he’d be?”

“ _Also_ something Oliver mentioned,” Tommy said, adding a diagram to the bar napkin. “I’d check places one to three, and if that doesn’t work, light a bonfire and start singing. He likes Billy Joel — you know any songs?”

“Give or take a few lines,” she said. “You’re messing with me right now, but I _will_ sing Billy Joel on full-blast if someone gives me a mic. Which you already know from karaoke night.”

Diggle plucked the napkin from Tommy’s grasp and patted Felicity’s arm with the other. “C’mon. We’d better get going if we want him back in time for the Stellmoor bid.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, and hopped up to kiss Tommy on the cheek. “I know what this means to you.”

Tommy shook his head. “When you find Oliver, give him a message from me,” he said. “ _Stop working on your tan and get back home, you beautiful bastard._ Can you do that?”

“Should I ask about a souvenir too?”

“Nothing made of rock. I want something shiny.”

Felicity laughed. “Will do.”

Tommy watched them disappear into a sunny weekday afternoon before the door creaked shut again, leaving him alone in the bar. After a moment of consideration, he reached over and drained Felicity’s half-finished cocktail, shaking his head like he was getting water out of his ears.

Because he was about to do something very stupid, and unfortunately, keeping him out of _stupid_ was something Laurel Lance had done best. Usually by the scruff of his neck. “Oh, I’m gonna regret this,” he said, to her smiling face above the bar, like they were having an argument of their own. “But someone needs to pull his head out of his ass.”

Then, quieter still.

“He deserves a shot at being happy, right?” he whispered.

_Goddammit, Merlyn._

The rag went flying into a shelf of glasses when he tossed it aside and he was ducking under the bar in a second, trying to get one arm in his jacket while he ran for the doors.

“Hey guys — wait up!”

Because if he was going to do something stupid, why the hell not?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's definitely the potential for continuing this one, (with more Oliver Queen) but it's first and foremost a present for an incredibly awesome person. Hope you enjoyed it! :D
> 
>  
> 
> **Edit:  
> **  
>  Wow, guys! Honestly was not expecting that kind of reaction to a one-shot. I guess we all miss Tommy Merlyn, eh? Anyway, I do have some ideas bouncing around in the old cranium, and Chireusette has definitely OK-ed them. So I guess there's no reason not to go ahead and write a little more :D


	2. Paging Oliver Queen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Hellooooo. Guess who decided to continue this? Thanks for reading and expressing an interest in seeing more! Really wasn't expecting it, really lovely to get the feedback, so there we go. For how the rest of this is (hopefully) gonna go down, check out the notes after the chapter.**

Somewhere over the North China Sea, the rust bucket around them gave a gigantic lurch. It was a sudden gust of wind at their tail, strong enough to rattle _something_ loose on the exterior.

In a purely literal sense, Tommy Merlyn _was_ in a plane. It had wings, a pilot, and those whizzing motorblade thingies. But from the standpoint of someone who'd been flying first class — if not private jets — his entire life, he was pretty sure a plane was supposed to be able to remain airborne without shrieking like a banshee every — oh — fifteen minutes. Even if it was too small to fit anything more than a pilot, two dudes and a blond IT girl, and there was a pronounced absence of troublingly attractive flight attendants offering hot towels.

But smuggler flights into Pyongyang weren't exactly the kind of competitive market that demanded quality control.

"Everybody doing okay?" Diggle asked, sounding remarkably unfazed by the fact that any second could mean their imminent fiery demise.

The death groans of the plane meant that Tommy had to yell himself hoarse to be heard. "Apart from the fact that I'm about to revisit my lunch again?" he shouted, "I'm good!"

"Felicity?"

Both Diggle and Tommy turned towards the front of the plane, where there had been a conspicuous lack of conversation since takeoff (or the _thud-crash-holy-crap-we're-not-on-ground-anymore_ ).

"Bet you're wishing you'd taken that benzo right about now, huh?" Tommy called. "Could have slept through the whole trip — woken up on dry land, being carried by an incredibly handsome young man.”

“No thanks,” Felicity said, gripping the one and only frayed seat-belt she’d insisted on strapping herself into. “If I’m going to die in a plane crash, I reserve the right to scream my head off before I go _smoosh_.”

Personally, Tommy thought the use of the hypothetical was overly generous. But given Felicity’s advertised fear of heights, she got a free pass on being teased. Especially since he was another teeth-jarring thud away from an embarrassing bladder situation he hadn't been expecting for another forty or so years.

Diggle sat forward a little to grip her shoulder. “Felicity, you’re not gonna want to hear this, but the last place someone with a fear of heights should be sitting on an airplane is the front seat.”

“I think you could have ended that sentence with _airplane_ , period,” Tommy said, silently wondering if the back of her neck had always been that white, or if it was the complete absence of blood above the collarbone area. “You sure you don’t want to switch with Digg? I brought a deck of cards and a pocket of hard candy.”

Felicity shook her head, her ponytail flying. “I called dibs because it was the only seat with an actual _seat-belt_ ,” she answered, as obstinate as he'd ever seen her — and he’d seen plenty during the two-month crash course in the force of nature that was Felicity Smoak. “Just…remember Newton's laws. Which definitely, one hundred percent work.”

"Absolutely," Diggle said, like he was promising something. “Simple aerodynamics."

"Isaac Newton?" Tommy said, and Diggle gave him a warning look along the lines of _shut up_. "They didn't fly planes when he was around, right? How'd he die?"

In theory, Tommy meant for the question to be reassuring. Because obviously, Isaac Newton couldn't have died in a plane crash.

In practice, maybe he shouldn't have used the word _die_.

Felicity's answer was a muffled gagging sound, accompanied by the rustle of a barf bag, but Tommy had been around the party circuit too much to get the sympathy pukes. Though it was usually in a different setting. “Sorry,” he said, to everyone in particular, and went back to pondering their demise.

The rattling window at his back was streaked with grime, and even a quick wipe from his jacket sleeve didn’t seem to do much to unsettle it. From what he could see through, the plane seemed to be flying low over the water — which was unreassuringly storm-gray and jagged with choppy waves that bore an unsettling resemblance to rows of shark teeth.

Oliver _really_ needed to appreciate the fact that the three of them — but mostly him — had made the trip to Lian Yu. Or there was a slight chance Tommy might pull the _M_ word.

 _M_ for _Married_ , just so he could divorce the moron and kick him to the curb. No alimony, and full custody of the kids.

“We should be there soon," Diggle said, glancing out from his side. "The pilot said it was only four hours out."

In Tommy's recollection, the pilot they'd met on the Guangzhou border hadn't said anything _per se_ , not to his English-limited linguistic capabilities anyway. But there had been a lot of gesturing and forceful pointing, and Felicity trying to mime _slow down_ while she broke out a voice translation program. "Aw. You speak Chinese?" Tommy asked, always interested in learning more about what he didn't know.

"Only numbers. He said _si_ a lot," Diggle said, pronouncing it like _suh_ , instead of Tommy's favorite word in Spanish. "Means _four_ in Chinese, which I'm assuming is how long it takes to get there."

Something vaguely important pinged at the back of Tommy's head. He'd dated a girl from Hong Kong, during one of his brief stints in college. She'd laughed at him for sticking his chopsticks into a bowl of noodles as a convenient placeholder while he went for the fried potstickers hands-first — which led to an inevitable conversation about _no-no_ s in Chinese culture, most of which his caveman memory had deleted out of irrelevance.

Except for the fact that _four_ in Chinese, while actually meaning _four_ , was pronounced a lot like the word for _dead_. Because that seemed kind of important.

Which, if one considered the state of the plane and the weather outside, was not the best kind of linguistic gray area to have.

"Uh," he said.

The pilot started jabbing at the windshield, turning in his seat to yell a string of unintelligible Chinese at them.

Even to Tommy’s lack of a pilot license, that seemed unsafe. ”Dude, keep your eyes on the road!" he shouted, which went completely and summarily ignored.

More frantic gesturing and even faster Chinese, but Tommy — like everyone — snapped to alert at the one recognizable phrase.

_Lian Yu._

"I think that means we're here," Diggle said, reaching under his creaking seat for what looked suspiciously like a getaway parachute.

Tommy stared at him in a total lack of comprehension until Diggle — fitting the straps to his shoulders — said, in a supremely offhand manner: "You've gone skydiving before, right?"

"Yeah, but — wait, _what?_ "

"You said the parachutes were just a precaution!" Felicity shouted from the front.

"Yeah, on the off-chance we actually _got_ here," Diggle answered. “We’re in the drop zone — it’s now or never. The pilot's on a schedule and he’s only expected back in Pyongyang with cargo, not three American citizens.”

"I think I'd rather start learning North Korean," Tommy said meekly.

Felicity pointed at Tommy like _yes, I'm with that guy_. "I have a great app for that."

Clearly unimpressed by their serious declaration of staying-puttage, Diggle threw Tommy a parachute pack (smacked straight into his breastbone), and beckoned to Felicity like a parent trying to coax a child into the first day of school. "C'mon, Felicity," he said patiently. "Time to go."

" _NO_ ," she said.

* * *

City-destroying undertakings and karaoke nights aside, Felicity was pretty sure the true test of friendship was hearing someone scream her lungs out while parachuting from a smuggler's plane, then witnessing said someone throw up on a beach about one millisecond after landing, and still wanting to stay friends.

Or maybe he wanted to keep things casual — she hadn’t had the time to check.

Tommy rubbed her back in obvious sympathy. "At least you didn't throw up while we were falling," he said, in the conspicuous absence of anything more comforting to say.

Diggle (AKA her jump buddy) discarded the used pack and kicked the voluminous parachute fabric to the white sand. "Yeah, thanks for waiting until we hit the ground. Everyone good?"

Felicity spat out a mouthful of bottled water. "Good," she coughed. “Couldn’t be better."

It must have been Diggle’s army training that kept him cool as a cucumber — even in the strange terrain of a jungle island, where the amount of information they had would probably fit on a floppy disk with space to spare.

Tommy was evidently in the process of taking in his surroundings, doing a full three-sixty in the sand with his head in the air.

Felicity straightened up, feeling the lukewarm sea air raise hairs on the back of her exposed neck. The island viewed from above was more or less shaped like a crescent moon, with smaller coves pocketed within the interspersed geography, but it was impossible to tell now from where they stood on the beach. Sharp crags of sky-piercing rock took over where the dense green foliage of the jungle fell away, one inhospitable terrain picking up the slack from another. The landscape had a way of feeling both vast and isolated at the same time, like a desert where the only depressing certainty was that the sand would never end. The mountains in the distance cut an imposing shadow against the otherwise gray sky, five white peaks curving ever so slightly towards them like the claws of a resting beast from myth, ready to snap shut at any moment.

The more Felicity absorbed, the more she realized how precisely little she’d understood about Oliver’s time on the island. It was bad enough that he was as close-lipped as a clam when it came to sharing, but for Lian Yu to be basically _indescribable_ without actually having set foot on the sand…

It was the loneliest thing Felicity had ever learned about him.

Tommy had been unusually quip-less for the last few minutes, and she quickly found out why. He was staring transfixed at an eerie construction, left on the sand to the elements and weathered as though it had always been there.

A two-faced mask — one side jet black, the other fiery orange — had been stuck onto a straight shaft of driftwood, slumped slightly forward as though it was a real head bowed in prayer. Or submission. As though the sight wasn’t skeevy enough, there was a feather-shafted arrow driven straight through the eye, and Felicity didn’t want to check if the arrowhead was blackened from exposure, or from something more biological.

It was clearly a quasi marker — meant to convey some kind of message — though without further context (or a helpful visitor’s plaque), the only thing that sprang to mind was a grisly warning to _GET OUT_ , hellish island-style.

“Oliver never mentioned this,” Tommy said, and she knew he was speaking to himself.

Diggle seemed to have interpreted the shish-kabobed mask as an invitation to get his gun out. “Oliver doesn’t mention a lot of things,” he said bluntly. “Now that you’re in on the secret, sometimes it’ll seem like you know even less than when you were in the dark.”

There was nothing malicious in Diggle’s statement, just his characteristic brand of _no-bullshit_ , but it still triggered a protective instinct in Felicity to leap to Oliver’s defense, even if he wasn’t around, or _cared_. “I don’t know how he could,” she said, a hand curled around Tommy’s sleeve as she gave the island another once-over. “How do you find the words for _this_?”

The wind seemed to gust even stronger at that, carrying her words into the rustling trees.

“You’re probably right,” Diggle answered. “But if there’s one thing last year taught us, it’s that no one can and should do what Oliver does by himself. We owe him that much — to remind him that he’s not alone.”

On the subject of reminders, they were on a time-sensitive deadline too, not just for Queen Consolidated, but for Oliver himself. If anything, seeing the island for themselves reinforced how incredibly hard it was to leave, and Oliver had too much to live for to spend the rest of his days in a middle of hellhole nowhere.

Tommy nodded, his expression scarily muted at the reminder of the stakes. “Okay. Location one. Let’s get the dummy home.”

* * *

Oliver was crouched in a tree. His feet were planted on a thick branch — heavy enough to support his weight — and he waited, still as a cat, for prey to stray into his sight line. The muscles in his arms were well-practiced in the art of staying inert for long periods of time, bow raised and an arrow notched to fire, hovering between the precise balance of stillness and an instantaneous reaction. He could hear the animal moving closer, light on moist ground, only barely disturbing the undergrowth as it moved.

The plane was gone. Oliver had listened to it thunder overhead, followed it to the edge of the cliffs to make sure it passed Lian Yu without incident, just a coincidence on the way to something else.

Now he was hunting.

A black pelt gleamed in the sunlight, and a nose snuffled somewhere, paws investigating the trap he’d laid in the heart of some vines. Oliver breathed slowly on the feathered shaft of his arrow, and angled it to fire.

A branch snapped somewhere to the west, and Oliver’s arrow went inches shy of its intended target. Too fast to see, the animal bounded off in alarm and vanished into the trees, alerted by the sound of intruders.

He cursed silently, and would have reached for another arrow to start again, except —

“Shouldn’t we be listening to the trees?” said a voice. “Following bird calls or the…direction of the sun or something? Because I swear we’ve passed that rock twice now, and I remember because I thought _huh, guess what looks like a pile of poop in a jungle_? We are _so_ lost.”

Oliver’s grip tightened around the trunk, because he hadn’t expected to hear that voice — not here, _never_ here. The clear voice brimmed with nervous energy, but it was still — and always — colored with a smile, the kind of smile that chased away the storm clouds just by _being_.

 _Felicity_.

“You don’t go camping a lot, do you?” came the very dry answer.

The stubborn knot of tension between his shoulders dissipated instantly, a knee-jerk reaction to recognizing a friend and ally. Diggle — of course. Of course he’d be with her, the two of them coming to find him. The only question was: _how?_

What happened next dispelled any further need to ask. “Guys, I think I see something,” said Tommy, his voice echoing through the dense leaves. “This way.”

It was official: Oliver had visitors.

* * *

“Sorry,” Tommy said apologetically. “I really thought I saw something in the trees.”

“Probably a wolf,” Diggle said, pushing through a clump of bushes with leaves like elephant ears. “Bolted when it heard us coming.”

Tommy went a little whiter — which was saying something, considering how he’d already been pretty bloodless since the third time they’d had a close shave with something clawed. “Let’s just say I’m hallucinating. I like that — I like that a lot.”

Felicity always had a witty answer at the ready (and she did) but between the being out of breath, trying not to trip on the mixture of vines and tree roots underfoot, while _also_ keeping up with the stride of two much taller (and probably fitter) hiking buddies — she decided to put a pin in it for later.

Diggle was on navigation, army-style with a compass and the satellite navigator she’d rigged up with Tommy’s intel, which left the latter with the miscellaneous duties that included keeping an eye on her.

A narrow stream ran across the moist black soil and vines, fast enough to raise splashes on the rocks that dotted the bank. Tommy hopped across without much difficulty, but he planted one foot on a rock and reached back for her.

“Need a hand?” he said. “Only need to pay the ferryman if he gets you across.”

Felicity grabbed his arms and picked her way around the rocks sticking through the running water. “You can’t charge for having sweaty hands,” she said, stepping onto dry land. “Well, you could, but no tip.”

Tommy clutched at his chest. “You wound me.”

“You love it.”

Diggle seemed to be leading them up and over a ridge in the landscape, but he stopped mid-step, so abruptly that Felicity’s nose almost smacked into his very solid bicep. He was looking around at the trees, his fist still raised in the wordless signal for _stay put_.

“What’s wrong?” Felicity whispered.

“Thought I heard something,” Diggle murmured, his eyes moving slowly across their surroundings as though he was scanning for threats.

Almost immediately, Felicity felt something at the back of her jacket and jumped — but it was only Tommy’s hand, holding on while he looked left and right. “Wolf again?”

“Wuss,” she whispered.

“Better than being giant dog food,” he answered, out the corner of his mouth.

Nothing about Diggle’s stance suggested he was relaxed, but he lowered his gun slightly and dropped the warning signal. “Must have been my imagination. Let’s keep moving.”

The ridge started to slope back downwards, and they fanned out during the descent, Tommy and Diggle marching, Felicity practically jogging between them.

“Guys, I really think we should try singing _Uptown Girl_ ,” Tommy said, sidestepping a clump of ivy. “Oliver’ll lie about it, but swear to god it’s his favorite song. Felicity — blast those pipes.”

"Only if you do the harmony," she answered.

"God help us," Diggle muttered.

With a dramatic flourish, Tommy cleared his throat in preparation to sing, and Felicity was still laughing at him when her foot hit the ground again.

_Except._

It was a combination of several things. The soil underfoot had been spongy, with a pretty solid give to it, which meant that there was an instant sense of _wrongness_ when her foot landed on something flat and hard — metal. There was the smallest _click_ upon contact, like a catch sliding into place, and the faintest sound of ticking.

But she had a feeling it wasn’t the oven timer kind.

Diggle had turned back the moment he heard, and their eyes met with instant understanding.

A landmine.

“Digg?” Her voice was unsteady with suppressed panic. _What do I do?_

Tommy said a bad word. “Can you disarm it?”

Her mind was racing through the possibilities — Diggle was the IED expert, he’d proved that with the Dodger collar. Coincidentally, another explosive something she’d _also_ been on the receiving end of. But the landmine was an indeterminate age, featuring an unknown design and sensitivity. The only thing they _did_ know for sure was that it was weight-sensitive, and the slightest shift in her left foot could and would blow them all sky high.

Diggle pulled out a knife and started to crouch. “It’s okay, Felicity. I’m going to take a closer look — I need you not to move. It’s very important that you stay very still.”

Felicity uncovered her mouth. “The wiring on that thing could take ages to dig for,” she said, her voice just barely shaking. “Displacing soil mass could trigger the explosion anyway. We need some kind of weight to offset mine, or —” she swallowed “— you guys could just leave me here and find Oliver. Y’know, not wasting time, and all that.”

The whole _gallows humor_ thing sounded a lot better in her head.

“Hey,” Tommy said fiercely. “I will go over there and pick up that gigantic boulder as a weight, but we are _not_ leaving you behind. And more importantly, do you have _any_ idea what Oliver’s gonna do to us if he finds out that we left you standing on a landmine?”

It was so unexpectedly reassuring that Felicity let out a gasp of laughter, though it probably ended up sounding more like a yelp. Tommy managed a shaky grin at her reaction and probably would have gone for a hug if Diggle hadn’t kiboshed that with a warning to stay back.

“You definitely have a better bedside manner than Oliver, but save the hugging for later,” he cautioned. “Felicity, I’m going to try and disable it now, so —”

“You can’t!”

The shout echoed through the trees from above, and Felicity’s head snapped around so fast she almost gave herself whiplash, hardly daring to hope. The sun blazed behind the figure standing on a branch, glinting off a set of broad shoulders and the total and complete lack of a shirt. If that wasn’t enough of an identifier, the bow in hand and effortless balance at the insane height of sixty feet (at least) pointed to only one person.

Tommy swore when he recognized his best friend, breaking off into shaky laughter. “You have _got_ to be kidding me,” he said.

Oliver didn’t seem to have heard. Or had the frame of mind to respond. “Everyone else, back away. Felicity —”

He raised the bow and fired a clean shot into the leaves, followed swiftly by the sound of a rope pulling taut.

“— don’t move.”

The fact that it was a terrible idea ( _reckless_ , _reckless_ was the word that might have occurred to her right about then) seemed to have gone clean out of her head, not with the way she trusted — and still trusted — Oliver Queen, unconventional methods and all.

Around the moment Oliver stepped cleanly off the branch and swung towards her, Felicity instinctively flung out her arm to catch him.

It _caught_. It most _definitely_ caught.

Six feet or so of pure muscle and disciplined training collided straight into her by the sheer momentum of the downward swing, and Felicity’s feet weren’t on the ground anymore.

Though to be fair, it had unceremoniously exploded behind them, pelting them with bits of rock and loose soil.

 _Them_ being Oliver’s totally shirtless waist up, which was still pinning her in place after the landing. The landing had slammed all and any air left in her lungs, leaving her dazed. She blinked and lifted her head, ears ringing from the close-proximity detonation. In her peripherals, she could see Tommy and Diggle on their stomachs, having dived out of the way before the big boom.

But in her immediate and direct field of vision was Oliver, more specifically, his inhuman specimen of a face and body. Disregarding the pelvic alignment situation (very, _very_ much aligned), they were virtually nose to nose, their eyes momentarily wide with unguarded surprise.

Wait. Why was _he_ surprised?

Not the point.

_Um…hi._

_I missed you._

_Your chest is still nice._

_Thanks for saving my life._

Typical that she went with exactly none of them. “You’re — um — you’re really sweaty,” she said, reaching up to adjust her glasses with one hand.

The observation seemed to snap them both out of it — whatever _it_ was. It was only after he slid his arms out from around her waist did she realize he’d been holding on the whole time. That when her knuckles inadvertently brushed against his bare ribs on the way up to her face, she swore she’d felt him start, as though her touch was charged with static. That he’d taken a little too long to ease up on the lower body area, as though having his weight on her — around her — was something… _okay_.

More than _okay_ , if she was being honest with herself.

They were both still breathing hard, and Felicity’s wishful thinking had no trouble in conjuring up an explanation as to why.

Tommy spat out a mouthful of dirt and sat up. “What kind of _psycho_ puts a landmine in the middle of a jungle?”

That did it.

Oliver lifted his head, his expression back to the usual level of grim. “You shouldn’t have come here,” he said.

* * *

Tommy almost put his arm through a wall. The inside of the broken fuselage was so thickly overgrown with leafy vines that it was impossible to tell what was just a curtain and what was actually a drop hazard in the form of a person-sized hole.

Diggle grabbed the back of his collar before he tumbled straight through said hole (embarrassing) and set him back on his feet. “We would’ve emailed, but this isn’t exactly a wi-fi hotspot,” he said.

The comment was directed at Oliver, who was on his knees in front of a military-grade equipment chest. Not because it was a mini fridge and he was trying to play a good host, but because it was the only thing around that was wide enough to act as a bench while Felicity got a cut on her forehead patched up.

“You could have asked me,” she said, looking around as though she was trying to gauge the best place to install a router. “Your friendly, neighborhood IT expert. Would’ve charged you the friends & family rate.”

That got a corner twitch from Oliver’s mouth, an unwilling smile. “Not worth the commute.”

Felicity laughed, and Diggle smiled too. There was a familiarity to it, old habits and inside jokes. Oliver got to his feet and did something — or a series of things — that Tommy honestly never thought he’d see from his best friend.

The most clinically boring way to describe it would have been a quick check for concussions, but that would have been completely inadequate (and un-Tommy-like) to encompass the way Oliver raised his hands to either side of Felicity’s head with a murmured word, tilting it back using just the tips of his fingers. The way he fought a smile at the faces she made while he inspected her eyes and ears, shaking his head like he was saying _nice try_.

Bearing in mind this was the exact same guy who'd once sent a ladyfriend (one of the many _Fun Time Bedroom Buddies_ ) a can of _Senõr Jalapeno's Mega Chilli Firebeans_ soup after she'd passed on his booty-call. To clarify: not an actual can of soup. He'd texted her the picture. No message, just an unsolicited picture of something he'd found in the pantry.

 _God_ , how things changed.

“Any buzzing in your ears?” Oliver asked, turning her slightly to the side. “The noise from a proximity detonation —”

“—can cause hearing loss, I know,” she finished, and gave him a look. “Apart from the usual voices, Dr. Queen? No.”

“Patient Felicity,” Diggle said teasingly. “Now you know how it feels to be in the chair.”

Felicity _psh_ -ed under her breath and gestured at herself, in all her jungle-trekking glory. “Who wouldn’t want _this_ hovering around them with some ace bandages and Bactine?”

There was dirt down the front of her shirt and leaves in her hair, not even mentioning the perspiration situation, but Tommy thought it spoke volumes that Oliver was still looking at her like she was the best thing since _Vigilante Weekly_ rolled out the latest model of the automatic arrow sharpener.

He was guessing.

If Tommy wasn’t so immediately amused by the fact that Oliver was doting on Felicity (and completely oblivious to it), he might have been annoyed that he hadn’t gotten the same VIP treatment. He was pretty sure he was growing a bruise (did people say that? _Growing_ a bruise?) around his stomach from landing on a tree root earlier, but the last thing he wanted was to have his shirt off and be in competition with Oliver’s ego-deflating upper body.

Though the sight of it did take some getting used to.

( _Not_ in that way.)

It had probably been intentional avoidance on Oliver’s part, but Tommy hadn’t really seen him with his shirt off since he’d gotten back from the island, and it was a shock to him — the extent of the injuries that could heal, but still leave a scar. Which — to him — didn’t seem all that much like healing at all.

Claw marks, deep cuts, what looked like a _bite_ of some kind on his hip, and tattoos — virtually unintelligible. Tommy was starting to understand what Diggle had meant about feeling more in the dark than ever, even if he was technically supposed to be in the know.

Clearly, he had a non-dictionary compliant interpretation of the phrase.

“Antiseptic cream?” Felicity said, reading off the back of the open tube. “So you _are_ happy to see me.”

Oliver smoothed down the corners of the bandage, and his hands lingered around her face. “I am,” he said quietly, “happy to see you.”

Their mirrored smiles were surprisingly shy, and Oliver ( _goddammit_ ) was the first to pull away.

“I know why you’re here,” he said, turning to look at them. “And the answer is _no_. I’m not going back to Starling.”

The bulk of the addressing seemed to be directed at Felicity, as though he’d automatically singled out the one person most likely to give him trouble. But she only lifted her shoulders and looked at Diggle and himself with good-natured exasperation. “Well, wouldn’t be much of an intervention without a struggle.”

Oliver didn’t smile.

It was Diggle’s turn to throw his hat into the ring. “It’s true that the city needs the Hood, but we’re not here because of the vigilante. You had every right to walk away from that, and after what happened —” a brief apologetic glance at Tommy “— no one could blame you.”

Even Tommy knew that the first instinct at someone being mentioned was to look in that person’s direction, and right on cue, Oliver’s gaze skittered past him, as though he was avoiding eye contact.

And Oliver never looked away first.

“Oliver, Queen Consolidated needs you back,” Felicity said. “The Undertaking wrecked havoc on the company’s share prices and with your mother facing trial…Stellmoor’s going to snap it up and sell it for parts. Which will put a _lot_ of people out of work, including — probably — a very blonde and very talkative IT specialist.”

The team dynamic between the three of them was practiced, habitual, Diggle and Felicity making their own arguments but in a tag team, Oliver visibly softening — if only just a little — at the sight of his friends. But the dummy still said nothing, watching them from his place in front of the wall like none of it was moving him in the least.

There had been an invisible wall of awkwardness between Oliver and Tommy, dividing the conversation in a way he definitely wasn’t used to. Until finally, Oliver looked up, and Tommy met him head-on.

Which of course, he reacted to in a completely non-deflective way. “Nice place you got here,” he said lamely, as the personification of the awkward pause stretched out on the metaphorical _Awkward_ couch and reached for an _Awkward_ beer. “Totally beats that cabin in the Poconos.”

“Please tell me they kidnapped you,” Oliver answered, so seriously that even Tommy couldn’t tell if he meant it.

Diggle cocked an eyebrow at Tommy, as though he was saying, _ouch_.

He couldn’t blame Oliver for being a few issues behind on his news subscription — deserted islands didn’t have the best connectivity plans. He couldn’t blame Oliver for wanting to believe that his best friend hadn’t drawn them all a map and a gigantic neon arrow to his location, despite the implicit understanding that he’d promised not to. No hard feelings there; they’d both gone their separate(ish) ways with the belief that space was what everyone needed.

No, it was the fact that after hearing Diggle and Felicity out, he was still trying to pretend like there wasn’t a single reason for him to go home… _that_ gave Tommy his first twinge of annoyance.

And he’d earned that right to call Oliver out on that, by virtue of being one of the few people still left who’d known him _before_ , and knew him _after_.

“Yeah, Oliver, the only reason why I’d be here is because your team put a bag over my head and _made me_. Jesus, is that really what you think?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his voice at the perfect level of flat. “But I told you because I didn’t want to lie to you, and because I thought you of all people would have wanted me to stay on the island.”

Tommy appreciated the first part. The second? Not so much. Not just because it turned a floodlight onto the micro-fractures in a friendship he’d thought was still standing strong, but because now — face to face — he wasn’t as sure as he’d been back in Starling.

Oliver knew it, and he pressed his point. “You know me. I can’t do anything to help my mother, or my sister, and I can’t save Queen Consolidated, just like I couldn’t save the Glades, or stop Malcolm, or…”

“Laurel,” Tommy finished, putting his finger on the crux of the pain. And there was — for him, anyway. Always and forever. “That wasn’t your fault.”

“Malcolm dropped a building on her because I couldn’t stop him. If that’s not my fault, I don’t know what is,” he said simply.

It was a conversation on a different wavelength now, Tommy and Oliver, wrestling with the complexity of their friendship. It was one thing for Tommy to want to protect Oliver, even if it meant giving him a few thousand miles of space, but it was another to know how they were supposed to go back.

Time and space couldn’t change the fact that Laurel was gone. Or the fact that Oliver was a vigilante, with a serious ability to make some difference in the soul of a city.

Life went on, and there were things in Starling City that demanded Oliver’s attention.

It was one thing to know it, and entirely another thing to say it out loud, much less convince two people doubting that it was even possible.

Tommy’s fingers clenched themselves into fists at his side, and Oliver reached for his bow again. “I’ll see you off,” he said quietly, and walked towards the door.

* * *

A wave swept towards the beach with a roar, and Tommy listened to it crash against the jagged black rocks under his feet. But his back was to the sea, because in front of him was the grave of a man who had been — and probably still was — family to him.

 _Robert Queen_ was scrawled across a piece of driftwood, propped carefully on a bed of smooth stones that looked like they’d been painstakingly gathered from the forest. Beside him were three more graves, progressively darker in coloring according to how recently they’d been laid. Another mystery, the murmured names carried away by the wind.

Oliver and Diggle were talking around the landing gear of the small plane he’d used to get himself to Lian Yu in the first place. As far as he could tell, Oliver was planning to wave them off with it — even if it meant saying goodbye to his return ticket off the island, and Diggle was still trying to stop it from happening.

Tommy felt like complete crap, and it wasn’t even because he’d made the trip to a hellish island. It was because he’d convinced himself that he was okay, that they were all okay, and seeing Oliver in person again would just solve all of it — only for him to fall spectacularly and completely on his face.

Classic Tommy Merlyn. Never looking before he leaped. Never following through on anything, not where it counted. Never anything more than a burden.

_Never, never, never._

“I’m sorry,” Felicity said.

Tommy jumped. He’d been so zoned out staring at the graves that he hadn’t heard her come up behind him.

The temperature had been dropping steadily all day as they inched towards nightfall, and she was wearing a borrowed parka at least two sizes too big for her, carrying a flask of hot tea because she’d probably heard his teeth chattering from across the beach.

“ _You’re_ sorry?” Tommy said, gratefully accepting the steaming drink. “You brought me along as a secret weapon, and I failed. Epically. That was _bad_. Worse than the time I tried to be an Olympic swimmer.”

Short version: he’d decided to fill the swimming pool with booze instead, because it was the easier way to get chicks than actually taking something seriously for once in his life.

Felicity stuck her hands in her pockets, looking more curious than anything else. “Putting a pin in the _swimmer_ thing for later, I don’t think you failed.”

Tommy’s knee-jerk reaction was to burn his tongue on the hot tea. “ _‘Ow_ _so_?” he asked, tongue poking out of his mouth.

“You and Oliver just went through a big loss,” she said. “The both of you loved Laurel, and that was a whole other level of _complicated_. Of course you’re not sure how to go back, because you can’t.”

Tommy squinted at her. “The reviews on _Yelp_ told me your pep talks were supposed to be better than this.”

Felicity smiled a little and pulled back a loose strand of hair blowing against her cheek. He could tell that she was used to this, the unhelpful resistance from dummies unwilling to sit down and take her advice without a few sarcastic comments.

“You can’t go back because it’s the past. Everything happened, and to act like it didn’t...isn’t just impossible, it’s disrespecting the memory of the person you lost. What the three of you have is complicated, and I can’t pretend to understand that. I didn’t know Laurel either, but I know she means the world to you…and Oliver. She must have been incredible.”

Tommy wondered how anyone could admit out loud that the person they were in love with still carried a torch for someone else, without sounding like they’d been forced to swallow hot ash. He’d been there when he’d assured himself that there was no room for him between his two best friends, and it was a special — indescribable — kind of pain.

Whether that was still true where Oliver was concerned  — whether it had _been_ true at all, given what he’d seen — the fact that she so obviously believed it was enough to chalk another line in the list of reasons why Tommy respected Felicity Smoak.

It hurt to take a breath, and Tommy couldn’t pretend it was because of the cold. “She was,” he said, finally. “But that’s just it. I don’t…see how I can do that. I don’t. It _can’t_ be honoring someone’s memory if you move on, because that’s just leaving them behind, and I won’t do that to her, not —”

_Not again._

Tommy couldn’t seem to blink fast enough to clear his eyes, and Felicity watched with nothing but understanding, as though she’d stood exactly where he was at some point in her life.

“ _Moving on_ isn’t the same as leaving someone behind. Moving on is putting the pieces back together and refusing to let your life be split into a _Before_ and _After_. Moving on is remembering that person you loved — _love_ — and choosing to live, boldly, because you’re keeping a piece of them alive too.”

Softer now: “We owe them that much.”

Tommy cleared his throat and looked up at the sky, the tears stingingly cold in the wind. It was weird, how little he minded. The cold seemed to sharpen the colors in front of his eyes, the outlines and shadows of everything else, as though a dial had been turned somewhere to pull the focus back to where it was meant to be.

He could see.

And he was pretty sure he knew what he wanted to say to Oliver.

“Felicity?” he said, turning to look at her. “Thank you.”

Another smile, soft and sad. “Anytime.”

* * *

“All set,” Oliver said quietly.

This time, Tommy was ready for company. He hadn’t moved from his thinking spot in front of Robert’s grave, and judging from the way Oliver knelt to brush a minuscule speck from the piece of driftwood with his father’s name, resting his hand gently over a stone, it was something he understood on another level.

“The weather’s clear,” he continued. “Which means I can fly you back to Hong Kong.”

“But that’s as far as you’ll go, right?”

Oliver brushed sand from his hands, but he didn’t straighten up, or even look up from the ground. “A car will be waiting to take you to the airport, and you all have seats on the next flight back to Starling.”

“I'll take that as a yes,” Tommy answered, and crouched beside him at Robert’s bed of stone. "It's a good place to rest. By the sea. Robert always loved boats."

It was a fond silence now, and Tommy smiled at a random thought. "Remember how he used to take us onto the bay for the Fourth of July? Christmas, New Year, anytime there was fireworks — you, me, Thea, your parents, out on the Queen's Gambit. I think he even taught me how to steer, but I barely remember it now. God, what a waste."

"It was," Oliver said, almost a sigh. "He loved you."

"He was a good father — more than a dad to me than Malcolm ever was." Tommy's eyes were stinging again, and he stared hard at a rock. "So thank you. For burying him here. You dug the grave yourself, didn't you?”

Oliver nodded. “The first few days after we washed up here,” he said. “I’d never dug anything before in my life. Scraped my hands raw doing it. I barely knew how to carve, much less write my father’s name on a piece of wood.”

“You were punishing yourself,” Tommy guessed. “As always.”

The last part had been unintentional, but too hard to resist. Oliver didn’t protest; he only nodded again. “It was my fault. Dad killed himself to save me.”

“And you think Laurel dying had something to do with you, which is why you’re punishing yourself too. By staying on Lian Yu…forever.”

Oliver’s eyes were closed. “I couldn’t save her. I was too late. If only I hadn’t taken so long with Malcolm, if only I had stopped him sooner, before the Undertaking even happened, maybe she would’ve —”

“ _Bullshit_ ,” Tommy said, almost spitting the words. “You knew her as well as I did. She wanted to save the world, and she made her own choices. You may have had reasons to be sorry in front of Laurel, but even you can’t hold yourself responsible for what happened.”

“I _can_ ,” Oliver insisted. “Don’t push me, Tommy. Just know that I can.”

“Why?” he demanded. “Because you loved her? Because you had a picture of her the whole time you were gone? Because she was the love of your life?”

Oliver flinched at each pause, his forehead pressed to his clasped hands, jaw working furiously to bite back the words Tommy knew he was provoking. He was breathing hard, because each word had been a knife to him too, hurting him as much as it did Oliver.

“Tell me why you’re punishing yourself for Laurel Lance and I swear I’ll leave you alone,” he said fiercely. “I’ll get on that plane and I’ll never look back — just tell me why you’re cutting yourself off from everyone you care about, for something that wasn’t even your fault. Tell m—”

“Because I _wasn’t_ in love with her,” Oliver said, so quietly that Tommy almost didn’t hear him. “Because she wasn’t the love of my life.”

Silence. Tommy sat back on his hands, the breath knocked out of him from the admission, even if he’d suspected it. Even if he knew it was one of Oliver’s overactive jumps to self-flagellate. Because Oliver said it like a shameful secret, something he couldn’t bear to say out loud.

“I miss her, and I’m devastated that she’s gone, but it’s because I lost one of my closest friends…to something that never should have happened in the first place. Not because I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with her, or because I loved her — I did, but not that way. Not for a long time. I thought I did, and me not realizing that is what broke the two of you apart. You lost time with her, you both lost time with each other, and I know for a fact that you loved Laurel, better, and _more_ than I ever could. You were what she deserved, and not a day goes by that I won’t regret taking that time away from you and her.”

Tommy thought he’d been prepared for the conversation, because deep down, he’d guessed as much. He knew Oliver better than anyone in the world, in his bones, no matter how much the outside changed. The vigilante secret, the Hood…those were just skin-deep compared to Oliver’s heart, his soul.

He knew the lengths Oliver would go to atone for a supposed sin, and self-imposed exile to the worst place of his life was nothing short of that.

Tommy honestly didn’t know if it would ever stop hurting. He didn’t know if a future without _Before_ and _After_ was possible.

But he did know that it wasn’t worth the cost of losing his best friend and brother.

With that singularly clear thought in mind, Tommy reached across to lay his hand on Oliver’s shoulder, and was silently relieved to see that he didn’t shrug him off.

“Oliver, as your best friend, I have a solemn duty to extract your head from your sphincter,” Tommy said seriously. “Now is one of those times.”

“That’s not funny, Tommy.”

“It’s not supposed to be, because I’m one hundred percent serious. Your head's seriously stuck up your ass if you think _any_ of that is true. Everyone screws up. _I_ screwed up with Laurel. But I’m not going to run away and punish myself for something I can’t even be sure I did. Someone very smart told me that the worst dishonor I could do to someone’s memory is stop living because they’re gone, and you — right now — are _not_ living.”

On the subject of living, Tommy’s attention was drawn to the two people standing on the beach. Felicity had her head on Diggle’s shoulder, her arm looped through his, the two of them talking quietly on the beach.

Watching them, Oliver’s expression was wistful, but he squeezed his eyes shut and looked back at his hands, like he was silently reprimanding himself for daring to hope.

“ _Stop it_ ,” Tommy ordered. “Stop — letting — yourself die. You have everything to live for. Your mom, your sister, your friends… _me_. I need you, and I’ll always need you in my life, Ollie. No matter what. I forgave you the second you became my brother, and nothing you can do will ever change that.”

The tightness in his chest was easing, like each word, each  _truth_ , was setting him free. “So move forward. Don't forget Laurel, but do what you did with your dad and _live_. Come back to Starling City and start by saving your family’s company. It has nothing to do with your life as the vigilante — it’s about your life as _Oliver_. _That_ is who you are, first, and last. Your name is Oliver Queen, and you are _not_ going to spend the rest of your life here.”

Oliver lifted his head, his expression very still. Then — the greatest relief of Tommy’s life — he nodded.

"Thank god." Tommy practically lunged at his best friend, making sure he got a hug in before Oliver changed his mind. "You beautiful, dumb bastard."

Oliver's hand was on his back, and he drew a ragged breath, like a drowning swimmer finally breaking the surface of the water. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s time to go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Okay, so I basically had no plans to continue anything here, but you asked, so clearly there's an interest in reading about Tommy Merlyn in season 2. (Same, guys. Same.) I love the adorable heart-wrenching jerk, so I'm more than happy to bang away at my keyboard.  
> \- I don't have plans to cover every single Arrow episode from season 2, because that would get pretty repetitive. The scene in the fuselage in this chapter gave me a bit of trouble because I don't like writing scenes verbatim. Feels like cheating, which is why I added the stuff about Oliver playing doctor and the conversation by Robert's grave (I can't actually remember if it was by the sea, but quasi-artistic liberty was taken).  
> \- Obviously some plotlines won't necessarily work without Laurel, but I'm always open to suggestions if there's something you'd particularly like to see.  
>  **Update schedule:** some of you might know this, but my other stories have absolutely no update schedule whatsoever. Sorry *bows*. BUT things change, so I'm planning to post every  Wednesday, cuz there's no Arrow and that sucks. I post on Singapore/Hong Kong time, so it might technically be Tuesday to friends in the States :) Check back then, and if there's nothing, assume I've gone back to old habits and am full of shame. But I already have next week's chapter lined up, so that's good :)  
> ANYWAY.
> 
>  **What I plan to cover:**  
>  Chapter 3 - still 2.01 territory, dealing with Oliver coming back from the island and Isabel's evil villain evilness, and the whole thing with the copycat Hoods.  
> Chapter 4 - Dollmaker. I get it if you're surprised, because Laurel was the prize pig up for the slaughter, but I have an idea for it. Prime vagueness right there ^^  
> Chapter 5 - RUSSIA EPISODE. Man, do I have fun plans for this one. Lord help me. They're evil.  
> [NOTE: not entirely sure about the Vertigo episode. Personally, I love it, but again, the issue with being repetitive. Let me know if that's something of interest and I'll try to rethink it.]  
> Chapter 6 - Barry Allen comes to town. Also slightly evil plotting here. [This may take up two chapters, again, playing it by ear]  
> So that's all I have so far. It's very much S2A-oriented, but if I post once a week (which I am planning to do, hee) then we'll all be a lot closer to the end of hiatus, so yay!


	3. Another Way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Wednesday, everybody! So at a certain point in the chapter, you're gonna want to start listening to "Terrible Love" by Birdy :D Also, apologies for the word count (8000), but it really ballooned on this one.

“I don’t remember the last time Oliver Queen ever sat still in a car I was driving,” Diggle said, as they slowed at an intersection. “If the light turns green and you haven’t pulled a Houdini on me, I think I might have a heart attack.”

Oliver knew Diggle was needling him out of good intentions, albeit tinged with some annoyance that he’d let Oliver slip his watch on the first day of work.

“I could if I wanted to,” he said seriously, “but it looks like I have a lot of catching up to do.”

“ _Right_ ,” Felicity said, swapping the file in his hand for another. “Not because the car’s security system is digital and being controlled from my phone. Fingerprint-locked, just BTW, so the only way you’re jumping out into traffic is if you get my finger.”

All this, she said while rooting through the pile of documents between them in the backseat. At the front of the car, Tommy burst into snorting laughter, a fact he made exactly zero effort to conceal. But Oliver did, successfully converting his amusement into a dry cough.

“Now _that’s_ a pickup line,” Tommy said. “Classic.”

In response, Felicity leaned forward and flicked Tommy on the neck in a way that Oliver distinctly remembered getting reprimanded for, except he’d done it to Thea under Moira’s watchful eye, give or take ten years ago.

Oliver watched them over the briefing he was meant to be reading about the Stellmoor takeover. He hadn’t imagined that Diggle or Felicity would get along with Tommy as well as they did, not with the only commonality they had being out of the picture — which was a conceited thought. Because Tommy was famously adept at being likeable, and he’d met two of the most important people in Oliver’s life.

Still, watching Felicity laugh with Tommy made his insides twist in a way he could only describe as discomfiting. Oliver was perfectly capable of charming the people who existed outside the bubble that was his work as the vigilante, but he’d long since dropped the pretense in front of Diggle and Felicity.

Which meant that Tommy — who was still Tommy — was well ahead in terms of being preferred company.

Oliver cleared his throat and went back to reading. He’d tried not to think about it on the island, but he knew Queen Consolidated had to be struggling in the wake of the Undertaking. For a company with as strong a legacy as his family’s, their CEO admitting to involvement in a city-destroying mission was nothing short of betrayal, and people weren't likely to forget it.

Felicity had pulled absolutely no punches in her summaries — not that he’d expected her to. But reading them still made him uncomfortably aware of how much he’d missed by dropping out of college and deliberately distancing himself from the family business, even after he’d come back from the island.

The journey back from Lian Yu had rapidly turned into a catchup session spearheaded by Felicity, wielding a level of tactical precision that had Diggle's input written all over it. Tommy had been party to more than his fair share of last-minute cramming (the night before the Econ final they’d failed stood out in particular), but even he had taken on a share of the responsibility, especially where Verdant, Thea, and Moira’s trial was concerned. Between the three of them who’d stayed, they each had their own area of expertise. Felicity’s was QC, Diggle’s was the situation in the city, and Tommy’s was everything else.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Felicity said, after Tommy conceded defeat, “there’s a meeting between the board of directors and current investors this afternoon, which pretty much just means Stellmoor International and you, because —”

“— they’ve acquired forty-five percent of the stock in Queen Consolidated and my family controls the other forty-five,” Oliver said, and looked up from his page on ICT strategies. “Which leaves the last ten percent I need to get control of by Friday.”

Diggle glanced at him in approval, and Tommy whistled appreciatively. “Our boy’s all fired up to take on the competition,” he said, and extended his fist. “Just try to remember — and this is only kinda important — that the ultimate goal is to slice and gut you like a trout in fishing season.”

Oliver narrowed his eyes in confusion. “What?”

In answer to his question, Felicity produced another file and flipped it open to show him the contents. “Stellmoor International’s Vice President of Acquisitions,” she said, her tone making it perfectly clear what she thought of the person holding the position. “AKA the person doing said slicing and gutting. She looks angry in pretty much every photo, but has the leggy model thing down pat.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow at the picture. He hadn’t been expecting _that_. “Isabel Rochev,” he read. “MBA, Harvard Law, and gold medal gymnast. So that’s only…three things I don’t have.”

Tommy scratched behind his ear. “Yeah, but you _almost_ got the bronze medal that time. Eddie Fung just _happened_ not to land on his face. He was totally going to — saw him wobble.”

Diggle looked intrigued. “State competition or varsity?”

“ _Sports day_ ,” Tommy whispered.

Felicity reached past Oliver for Tommy's waiting fist bump. “I _knew_ keeping you around was a good thing. Solid info bomb, Merlyn.”

“So the board meeting,” Oliver interrupted, before they could start something like a _thumb war_ or worse. “Rochev won’t be expecting me.”

“No, she won’t. But that doesn’t mean you should underestimate her,” Felicity said. "She knows you don't have the funds to purchase the last ten percent by yourself — and no investors on the horizon."

"Which is bad," Oliver said. "And what am I supposed to expect from Rochev?"

“Right. That. I was appointed interim supervisor of IT because Kenneth decided that a CEO criminal trial and a city-wrecking earthquake was a good time to cash in his 401k and skip town — which is a _whole_ other story — but the board doesn’t want to make personnel changes until after the dust settles on the ownership issue, so I’ve been stuck at the meetings and I _swear_ she made the Chief Security Officer cry with a pie chart.”

“Agreed,” Diggle said. “I got the same vibe with Helena Bertinelli and we all know how that one turned out.”

Oliver glared, not least because none of his friends seemed to disagree.

“ _So_ I guess it’s a good thing that I’ll be there to make sure you’re not thinking with your downstairs man parts,” Felicity said, with a little wave. “Should I bring a taser, or would that be overcooking it? And by _it_ , I mean _it_ the situation — just to be clear, I have no interest in going anywhere near your man parts. Not that there’s something _wrong_ with them, because…”

Tommy mimed a throat-slashing motion.

“…I’m sure you have a lot of — happy — customers,” Felicity said, and immediately slapped a hand to her forehead. “God, now you sound like a hooker.”

Oliver ignored the flush creeping up his neck and turned back to Isabel Rochev’s flinty gaze. Just sizing her up on paper, he knew Diggle wasn’t wrong in making the comparison to Helena, even if the specifics of lethality differed in both category and degree. And his relative blameworthiness, but that was an entirely separate conversation.

“Well,” he said dryly, “if I were a prostitute, at least I’d know only _some_ of my clients wanted to kill me.”

Tommy winked. “Day’s still young, buddy.”

* * *

“Well, look who decided to show up for work,” Roy said sarcastically. “I think my respect for you just hit a new low.”

“Missed you too, Hansen,” Tommy answered, and sucked in a deep breath of _home sweet second home_. “B.O., tequila, and day-old perfume. Good thing to know this place didn’t hit a new level of classy under new management.”

Roy was on his way down the office staircase (doing _what_ , Tommy did not want to know) with the gigantic cleanup broom slung over one shoulder, because why not. “Depends on how you define _classy_.”

Tommy pointed at something on the ground. “Is that a _condom_?”

They passed each other at the foot of the steps, and Tommy ducked just in time to avoid the accidentally-on-purpose swing of Roy’s broom handle. “Beat up any more street thugs while I was away?” he asked, on his way up.

“No, but I could probably give a sucky boss a concussion if I tried.”

Tommy clicked his fingers at Roy as he pushed into the back room. “Progress.”

Thea was hunting behind the desk for something. “Hey,” she called. “Surprised you didn’t tag along for the board meeting with Ollie.”

Using only two fingers, Tommy picked the reading light off the ground and returned it to its previous position on the desk. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the upset office phone and the stapler in Thea’s hands left very little to the imagination. “I see you’ve been taking out some frustrations on your boy toy downstairs,” he remarked, wondering if there was a family-sized dispenser of Purell big enough to cover the office. “Would you _mind_ taking them — him — it — out somewhere else? I actually _use_ this desk for tax stuff.”

Thea had the phone to her ear, checking the dial tone. “Sure, _now_ you do, but I remember a time when you _used_ the desk in the mansion library with that exchange student from Corto Maltese.”

“ _Hey_ , she was a linguistics major and the desk had some ‘linguistically significant’ carvings. It was…research.”

Thea had perfected Moira’s sarcastic brow-raise, and Tommy almost found himself shuffling his feet under the fib.

“Whatever,” he said, and went back to his clipboard. “Did the bourbon guy try to to short-change us again?”

“Nah, Roy set him straight.” Thea had the TV remote now, flicking mercilessly past the home improvement shows (on mute) Tommy kept in the background when he was trying to nap.

“A do-gooder, that one,” he said, studiously avoiding the subject of how her _do-gooder_ had a habit of punching out gangbangers and drug dealers. “Did you know you can recreate a Liberace bathroom with just fifty bucks at _Home Depot_?”

“Not sure that really goes with the grunge-y, earthy vibe you’ve been cultivating for Verdant,” she said off-handedly. “God, can the press _stop_ using that picture? Ollie looks like a serial killer.”

Tommy barely had time to glance at the screen before his phone started buzzing. “You’ve reached Tommy Merlyn, respectable business owner, how can I —”

“Not the time, Merlyn,” McKenna said. “Queen Consolidated was attacked. You —”

Tommy was running before he even knew why, taking the steps two at a time. “Tell me,” he said.

* * *

The office floor seemed to have become host to a swarm of uniforms: paramedics, security, and SCPD. Felicity swore she could hear the press cameras clicking away thirty floors below, if not see a throng of them surrounding the lobby from the shattered windows. She just hoped none of them had gotten there fast enough to get a shot of Oliver’s _Tarzan_  moment — falling out a window wasn’t necessarily her best side.

Oliver was on the opposite side of the room with Diggle, having just apologized to Isabel Rochev for the shootout that had been A) _zero_ percent his fault, and B) completely more destructive than it needed to have been, if her memory of his capabilities served.

But that was for later.

“I thought they’d stopped sending you into the field, detective Lance,” she said, sidestepping a patch of broken glass to approach Laurel’s father.

“It’s sergeant now,” he corrected, so curtly that she almost backed off, rebuffed. “Got promoted last week.”

“Sorry, I know — I heard,” Felicity said, acknowledging the slip. “I would’ve sent champagne, but it seemed like a conflict of interest.”

Quentin squinted at her. “Why? Because you’re still working with the lunatic who brought down the city? Or because my job as head of the task force is to make sure he gets brought in to face justice for what he’s done?”

Felicity stared right back. “I was never working with Malcolm Merlyn, sergeant,” she said, quietly emphasizing the difference.

Quentin’s smile was like broken glass, but he didn't argue the point. “ _Was_ , eh?” he repeated, with a touch of bitter humor. “Make sure it stays that way or I might have to arrest you next.”

Felicity swallowed her retort, because it wasn’t fair, not after what Quentin had lost, to blame him for doing his job — even if it was a tad overzealous and tinged with bitterness. The vigilante was still officially a public enemy, and the personally devastating aftermath of the Undertaking had given the sergeant even less of a reason to bend the law.

“How are you, det—sergeant?” she asked. “Tommy says you’ve been keeping up those doctor’s appointments.”

Quentin softened slightly at the mention of Tommy. “That kid minds too much for his own good,” he answered. “I’m fine. Blood pressure’s just a little high. Don’t see why I gotta give up Big Belly.”

Felicity smiled. “Don’t we all.”

“Any idea what these copycat Hoods wanted?” he asked. “Did they say anything?”

She shrugged, feeling oddly territorial about Oliver’s signature line. “Besides a bad impersonation of the actual vigilante?” she said. “No. They were after Oliver. Black hoods, masks, assault rifles — army issue MK 17s, I’m guessing — and they started shooting up the conference room. It’s a miracle no one got hit.”

Quentin was eyeing her with suspicion again. “How does an IT girl know about service rifles?”

Carefully avoiding another look in Diggle and Oliver’s direction. “Uh…video games. _Call of Duty_ ’s my jam.”

_Lie._ Diggle picked them out from the second the copycats started firing, but since she wasn’t technically hanging out with him — and his client Oliver Queen — as far as anyone knew, there was no need to draw a bright squiggly circle around the three of them with a giant red crayon.

Especially since the person standing in front of her was the guy _officially_ in charge of hunting down the real Hood.

“Huh,” Quentin said. “You’ve got good eyes. Let me know if you think of anything else, and —” he pointed the pen at her face “— stay away from that masked lunatic. If today’s anything to go by, nothing good happens when people start thinking he’s got the right idea.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t worry, sergeant,” Felicity said, her gaze zeroing in on Oliver with laser precision. “I have a feeling he’s laying low.”

* * *

Tommy burst into Oliver’s office. “What the hell happened? Are you guys okay?”

Oliver was trying to get a better look at the cut on Felicity’s forehead, which had since reopened after he’d pulled her with him out the window. “We’re fine, Tommy,” he said, reaching for a piece of sterile gauze with supreme nonchalance. “How’d you even hear about it, anyway?”

Tommy looked hurt. “Okay, first off, _ow_. You’re welcome for running all the way here to check on my best friend, because this body was not made for anything more than a casual _saunter_. Second of all, I heard about it because McKenna called me from the precinct — and did you seriously think that your family’s company being attacked _wouldn’t_ get live coverage? There’s a helicopter buzzing around outside.”

Diggle went to the window and peered out. “Better hope they didn’t snag any footage of Oliver Queen playing Tarzan.”

“My words exactly,” Felicity said, adamantly refusing to sit still while Oliver applied pressure to the cut. “And to quote someone else’s — what the hell happened?”

Oliver looked at her in puzzlement, his mind racing through the possibilities behind why she was so visibly irritated with him. “Is this because I got Isabel out of there first?”

The irritation morphed into momentary confusion, like she had no idea what he was talking about. “What? No. I’m asking why you didn’t stop those guys from shooting up the boardroom and almost _killing_ you and the board of directors.”

“You forgot Isabel Rochev,” Diggle added, and Oliver saw that he was already taking up a mediator’s position between him and Felicity.

“No, I didn’t,” she said mutinously.

“ _Wait._ ” Tommy’s hands were out in front of him, a universal sign for _hold your fire_. “I’m obviously missing something here — but you did try to fight back, right?”

Felicity raised her eyebrows at Oliver in expectation. “Ask him,” she said.

Shooting her a severe look of his own, Oliver pressed firmly on the open cut again, in spite of her obvious wince. “I didn’t stop them because it would have given Isabel and the Hoods a very good idea of what Oliver Queen is capable of, and that would have been impulsive, and unnecessary. Diggle and the security team handled the situation.”

Diggle inhaled sharply. “Third person,” he muttered. “Always reassuring. But Felicity’s not the only one with questions, Oliver. Especially if you plan to blank out in the middle of a fight like that, I need to know. You got the board and Stellmoor out of the conference room first, so why didn’t you take on those Hoods after that?”

Oliver didn’t answer. He sensed Tommy was watching him, and so were the others. Felicity’s previous attempts to fend off medical attention had been ineffectual, so she took hold of Oliver’s hand — not firmly, just for a second — and slid off the edge of his desk.

She returned his hand back to his side before letting go, and he felt the remnants of her touch like the cling of static. “Why didn’t you fight?” she asked softly.

“I told you, I didn’t come back to be the vigilante,” Oliver said, his voice low enough to match hers. “I came back to be Oliver Queen. My family and my family’s company are the only things on my mind. The Hood is finished. I’m done with that part of my life — all it does is stack up a body count.”

“And I’m sorry for saying this, but that’s never bothered you before,” Felicity said, aglow with the ferocity of her belief in him…and maybe the disappointment.

It was a sentiment Oliver was acutely accustomed to, especially where his actions were concerned. His gaze traveled past her shoulder to Tommy, and understanding dawned on the latter’s face.

Because Oliver remembered every word he’d said, just as well, if not better.

_You’re a murderer. A killer._

_You’re my best friend in life and now it’s like I don’t even know you._

Tommy took a step forward, and from the way he struggled to speak — fumbling for what to say — Oliver knew he was thrown, that he’d honestly never intended for his words to have the effect they did.

But they had.

“Oliver, I didn’t mean it,” he said. “I was angry with you…and jealous. I didn’t mean what I said — you know I didn’t.”

Oliver nodded. “Doesn’t mean you were wrong. I told myself that I kept my family in the dark to protect them, but that wasn’t the whole truth. I did it because it made what I did as the vigilante — the killing, the body count — _easier_. It was easier not to have them look at me the way you did, when you found out who I was. I can’t do that again. I can’t… _bear_ for Thea or my mother to look at me like I’m a murderer, so please don’t ask me to.”

“I get it, Oliver,” Diggle said. “I really — honestly — do, but that’s not what we’re asking you. A soldier isn’t called back into battle to be a killer — he’s called back to protect home and country. Being the vigilante was never about the body count.”

Some distant part of Oliver recognized the truth in Diggle’s words, but the closer, ever-present part that controlled his doubts, his fears, knew better. So Oliver stepped back — away from Felicity, Diggle, and Tommy — to lean on the edge of the desk, his hands in his pockets.

“But it was part of it, and as long as it’s me under the hood, it will be,” he said. “Because when I pick up that bow, it’s killed or be killed. That’s what kept me alive, and — _that_ — is why the Hood is dead.”

There was a silence following his words, a long-overdue death knell for Starling’s hooded killer.

Until —

“Then find another way,” Felicity said abruptly. “You found a way to survive on the island. You found a way to come home. You found a way to save a city everyone thought was beyond saving. You said you’re Oliver Queen, and it sounds to me like that guy has a serious problem with giving up."

Oliver's denial was already on his lips, until he made the mistake of looking her in the eye. That was all it took, for the words, all the denials and the contradictions to just... _stop_. Because she'd have seen right through them anyway.

They were both very still. It was the feeling of laying himself bare for someone else to see, past pretense and self-preservation, right down to the bone. It was something Oliver Queen would never have done six months ago. But there it was, and instead of feeling his own vulnerability at her searching eyes, he was reassured by the understanding he saw in them. Like she'd known him his whole life.

Her eyes — had they always been that blue?

“So find one,” she said, much softer. “We’ll be waiting for you.”

* * *

Tommy was in the middle of writing a strongly worded email to his vodka supplier about reasonable delivery windows when he decided it was a good place to reach for a beer. Because some booze would hopefully ice the _thump-thump_ headache he was getting in time to the music downstairs.

Unfortunately, he knew from experience that the _thump-thump_ only went away with something a little stronger. “Was the DJ at Verdant always this terrible, or am I just not drunk enough?” he wondered aloud.

McKenna didn’t move from her position by the window, two fingers keeping a gap in the blinds parted, but she _did_ deign to give him a snarky comment. “Neither. House music is pretty much terrible either way.”

Tommy toasted her. “Walked into that one, didn’t I?”

“As always.” McKenna may have been smirking.

Tommy slid out from behind the desk (recently given the Purell treatment) and sidled behind her to get a look out the window. An earlier version of himself would _definitely_ have turned it into a sleazy move, but he was still jet-lagged from the international back and forth (not to disparage Oliver’s piloting skills), and if that wasn't enough of a bubble-burster, McKenna’s gigantic sidearm was _right_ at the back of her belt.

Talk about making someone feel inadequate.

“Sure I can’t get you one of these?” he asked. “I think you might be nicer to me when you’re buzzed.”

McKenna didn’t turn, even if his chin was almost touching her shoulder. “I’m on a stakeout, Tommy. The hoods have never left a target alive before — typical that Oliver’s the one to fumble his way into that distinction.”

Tommy hissed through his teeth. “Harsh,” he said. “Are you this mean about all the guys you’ve dated?”

“You say that like there’s a busload of them somewhere,” she answered, her eyes still searching the throng of people below.

It was somehow darker near the window than it was near the desk, shadows cut with pulsing strips of violet light that shifted in time to the music. Tommy didn’t remember the last time he’d been this close to anyone before — which didn’t make sense, because there was Oliver and Felicity (who he practically tackled on a daily basis), and he was pretty sure he’d bear-hugged Diggle at some point.

A different _anyone_.

McKenna had come in detective mode, which was to say _boringly practical_ , but she’d left her hair straight and loose, and some of it fell past her ear to sweep her cheek. Tommy stared at it for so long that he expected someone to slap him in the face and yell _perv_ (ages since the last incident), and a very death-wishy part of him wondered what it would be like to brush it back for her.

“If I feel so much as one _look_ on my ass, I’m going to slap you into restraints,” she said, and Tommy’s bubble of warm fuzzy feelings popped — in favor of uncontrollable laughter.

“Hands — and eyes — off, I promise,” he said, holding up his hands. “But tit for tat — you’re not actually here as a detective. You’re just here ‘cuz you’re worried about me.”

McKenna rolled her eyes. “Try the eighteen-year-old girl running this place. But I’m sure they’ll get to you eventually. Everything about their pattern suggests escalation, and taking out Malcolm Merlyn’s only son seems like a good way to go out with a bang.”

“Try to sound less blasé about it.”

The snark went ignored, not when the smart-thingies in McKenna’s detective brain were clicking away. “You’ll be fine. Verdant’s change in ownership was never made public. As far as anyone knows, Oliver still owns the place. The Hoods must be pissed that he dominated the media coverage instead of the mayor’s shooting — decided to go straight for the big guy.”

“Wow, Oliver really does have a talent for pissing people off,” Tommy said to himself.

McKenna glanced at him. “He’s in good company,” she said, and laughed when Tommy rubbed the ice-cold beer bottle against her cheek in retaliation.

“Cold as your dead heart,” he said, after she’d snatched it away. “At _least_ take a drag of that. You went through the trouble of stealing it from me.”

Tommy and McKenna stared each other down, like they were kids who’d stolen a bottle of fancy wine from the cellar and were playing chicken.

Which was a game Tommy _excelled_ at.

“You’re happier, you know,” she said, watching him in a way that made him want to shuffle his feet. “You were always happier when Oliver was around — annoying, but in a charming way. Usually it’s just annoying.”

Tommy chuckled at the last part, and lifted his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “He’s my best friend.”

“Moron,” she said.

“Cop,” he answered.

There was a charged silence, and Tommy thought to himself — _a different kind of anyone_.

Whether McKenna noticed — or cared — he didn’t know. Her face somehow both teasing and serious, she toasted him and raised the bottle to drink.

Except it slipped through her fingers and smashed into the ground, because at that very moment, a gun went off downstairs.

* * *

“Where is Oliver Queen?” bellowed one of the hoods.

A minor perk of being the club’s owner included knowledge of the architecture, even the extra parts Oliver had added to make for an easy getaway. That part — Tommy left out, but he and McKenna still sneaked down a back entrance from the office, down to the now-silent club floor.

There were three — no — four of them, circling the club with sawed-off shotguns and military-grade assault rifles. The stage for the DJ was partially on fire, the front of the turntable sporting a new constellation of shotgun pellets, and Tommy scanned the cowering crowd frantically for Thea’s face.

_Please be making out with Roy somewhere._

_Please be making out with Roy somewhere that isn’t here._

“We know he’s back in town. We know he owns this dump. Where — is — he?” said one of the hoods, the last three words each punctuated with a burst of gunfire.

At the question — and the shriek of someone at the other end of the gun — Tommy started to lunge, but McKenna pinned him against the column with her forearm, giving her head a forceful shake.

“People are going to _die_ , and Oliver’s not here,” Tommy hissed.

McKenna’s arm didn’t ease up on his chest, not for one second. “I’ve called for backup,” she whispered back, just as furiously. “They’re five minutes out — we just have to stall. Don’t play the hero, Merlyn.”

“Get —”

She shoved him again, this time with the brunt of her weight, which meant their faces were just inches apart. “What would Laurel want you to do?” she said.

That made him freeze — just like she knew it would.

“ _Roy!_ ”

A blur emerged from the crowd and full-on tackled Shotgun. They spilled across the ground, and in the moment of confusion, Tommy managed to force McKenna off him. That panicked voice — he’d have recognized Thea anywhere.

“Tommy!”

Too late — he’d heard Thea, but so had the hoods, and she was being hauled to her feet by one of them, an arm around her throat. In hindsight, it was an incredibly stupid decision, but Tommy changed course from intending to help Roy out with his fight, to body-slamming straight into the hood that had Thea.

Of _course_ it had to be the biggest one out there.

_What would Laurel have wanted?_

To protect the people she loved.

Besides, she’d always had a problem with staying out of fights.

McKenna’s gun went off; he could hear her fighting with one of the hoods, but Tommy had his own to contend with, and in classically terrible timing, his brain kept flashing important information behind his eyes — a belated warning that charging into the fight was a beyond-terrible idea.

Oliver had ninja moves and the ability to turn anything into a weapon.

Laurel had a cop dad and incredibly painful fists.

Tommy had a very punchable face.

A face that was currently prime target number one for an elbow to the teeth. Tommy ducked out of pure instinct and the arm swiped harmlessly over his head, though just barely. Roy was a pale blur under the strobe lights, but Tommy saw him twist around and yell something that sounded a lot like " _moron!_ ", pointing at the floor.

Right on cue, a beer bottle bumped against Tommy's hand and he snatched it off the ground, smashing it straight onto Big Dude’s head like in the movies.

_Pause for dramatic effect._

Instead of dropping like a stone, Big Dude just gave his head a shake, glass shards raining from the folds of his hood.

“Seriously?” Tommy said, just before Big Dude’s gun gave a highly threatening click.

The only silver lining was that Thea rolled free in the middle of the struggle, which left Tommy wrestling with the bigger guy and his assault rifle. Which — he felt compelled to add despite inappropriate circumstances— was _not_ an euphemism.

_What would Oliver do?_

_Not that._

“Tommy!” Thea screamed.

“Get out of here!” he yelled, shoving his full weight against the hood in an attempt to keep the gun pointed away from actual people. Gunfire peppered the ceiling anyway, glass and concrete dust raining down on the screaming crowd.

Thea shrieked again, and it was because another one of the hoods had made another grab for her. Tommy looked instinctively at the sound, and missed the butt of the gun flying towards his skull.

It caught him on the side of the head and he sprawled across the ground, ears ringing shrilly…on the receiving end of a rifle to the forehead.

“Who the _hell_ are you?” said the hood.

“SCPD!” McKenna shouted. One of the hoods was groaning at her feet. “Drop your weapons — _now._ Fifteen squad cars are on their way here — do _not_ make the mistake of thinking you can get away from that.”

Tommy’s gaze swept rapidly across the floor. Roy had a rifle pointed at one of the hoods, but only one. Thea was caught, this time with a gun pressed securely to her neck. McKenna had temporarily incapacitated one of them, but he was already getting up.

“That’s still plenty of time to kill every single person inside this club,” he said, taunting her. “Starting with the Queen brat.”

“HEY!” Tommy shouted. “She’s not the one you want — it’s me.”

McKenna hissed in warning. “Tommy, stay out of this one.”

Tommy ignored her. “I’m Thomas Merlyn — I’m Malcolm Merlyn’s son. You want to kill someone for the Undertaking? Kill me. Just…leave Thea alone. She’s only a kid.”

“Tommy, _don’t_ ,” Thea whispered.

“It’s okay, kiddo.” Tommy smiled weakly. “I got this.”

They were clearly thinking, only just getting a good look at him under the uneven lighting. “Merlyn’s kid,” said one of them. “ _Shit_. What’re you doing in a dump like this?”

Tommy tried to appear nonchalant, not like he was about to pee himself. “Staying alive, I guess?”

That seemed to amuse them. His incredible talent.

“Not for long.” Thea hit the ground when the hood dropped her, and Tommy was hauled to his feet, a gun against his spine. “Tell Oliver Queen he’s safe for now. We’re gonna make this one last.”

Even to a sense of humor like Tommy’s, that sounded _bad_.

* * *

McKenna turned towards him as soon as he entered the club. “Oliver,” she said, pulling him in for a hug that barely registered. “I’m sorry — Tommy was with me, I should have —”

On another day, at another time, Oliver might have stopped to listen.

Not today.

“What happened?” he interrupted. “Did they hurt him?”

She shook her head. There was a bruise forming at the corner of her jaw, but she didn’t seem to notice. “They caught Thea first. They were after you — I don’t think they even knew Tommy was here, they just thought you owned the club and you’d be around. Tommy was in the office, but he — he got up and told them who he was. I should have taken them out when I had the chance, I’m sorry. I’m _sorry_.”

Oliver could hear the distress beneath the hard steel of the facts, McKenna’s M.O. — a wrestling match between protocol and emotion — and knew that he should have offered some kind of reassurance, and meant it, but —

They’d taken Tommy.

“It’s not your fault,” he said, failing to sound anything more than mechanic. “Where’s…where’s my sister?”

“They took her down to the station for protective custody, we’re about to — _Oliver_!”

The mixture of emotions on McKenna’s face would have been startling in their intensity, if every fiber of Oliver’s being wasn’t fixated on the thought of finding his best friend. “We’ll get him back,” she promised.

After a pause, Oliver nodded. “I know. I just have to check something downstairs.”

Behind McKenna, he saw Diggle and Felicity perk up, sensing what he was going to do.

“I hope Tommy knows how much you care about him,” he added, and turned away.

* * *

Under the guttering yellow light of a swinging bulb, Tommy wondered what Laurel would say to him.

Probably something along the lines of: _you idiot_.

“ _Wake up._ ”

Before Tommy could respond, a fist flew out of the darkness and crashed into his face, a bruising punch that made his head throb like it was about to explode. It rocked his whole body in the chair, but his wrists were zip-tied behind the back, and all he could do was try to push himself back upright.

Tommy spat blood onto the tarp-covered floor, but some of it — mostly saliva — dribbled down the front of his shirt. “Wasn’ asleep,” he said, a little muffled by the swelling inside his cheek.

One of them crouched in front of him, a grizzled face thrown into harsh relief by the hissing bulb. “Can’t hear you,” he said, tapping a scary-looking handgun on his kneecap. “You’ll want to speak up for the audience.”

Hood #2 was setting up the video camera for the live broadcast, set precisely below the altar of a church under renovation. They were somewhere in the Glades, but where — he didn’t know. Couldn’t say.

He didn’t doubt for a second that Felicity could do her hacky-goddess-magic on the feed as soon as it went up, digital mumbo jumbo and everything, but he sincerely doubted (and this was no offense to Oliver or Diggle, because they tried) that they’d make it before the Hoods turned him into mince meat, one hit at a time.

Because they weren’t messing around.

Not after what his dad had done to the Glades.

The pendulum swing of the light showed patches of his blood on the plastic, stained glass windows high up in the cloisters, saints weeping into their open hands, an angel with a sword of red fire pointed at his heart —

Another punch, this time to his stomach.

The breath went out of him in an explosion of air, and he slumped forward — as far as he could. Far enough. A hand wrenched his head back, throat exposed as if for a knife.

“We were gonna save you for last, you know,” said Hood #1. “Gonna track you down and everything, kick down the door on whatever rich brat safe room you’d holed up in. Figured you wouldn’t be smart enough to run. But then you went and saved us the trouble. Guess blue bloods really do stick together, huh?”

All Tommy had to do was _breathe_ to get a mixture of spit and blood on Hood _Numero_ _Uno_ ’s face. “She’s my sister,” he said. “ _Sorta_.”

He was doubled over again with a guy’s fist in his stomach. “Same age as Baker’s sister, and your dad dropped a _building_ on her. Save it for someone who gives a shit.”

Tommy knew they were beyond listening to him, and he knew that he was going to die. His eyes slid shut, gentle, easy…just like falling asleep.

“ _Hey_.”

His eyes flew open, startled, at a voice he never thought he’d hear again.

_It can’t be. You’re — you’re —_

“Just where do you think you’re going?” Laurel asked.

Suddenly he was sixteen again, trying to climb out the library window to get to a party, screw the algebra test they all had in the morning, and she was laughing, climbing out onto the terrace after him, her smile bright in the dark...

Suddenly he was older — they both were — and she'd stirred in the middle of the night to find him trying to get his head through the arm hole of his shirt, because he'd been about to sneak off. It was the first time they'd done the _wrong/right_ thing, and he thought he'd be the gentleman and save her the _morning after_ part of self-hate, even though he wanted nothing more than to stay. Stupidest thing he'd ever almost done, and she'd disentangled him from the shirt, pulled him back into bed, her arms around him and her head underneath his chin with a sleepy, _don't worry, Merlyn — I'll buy you breakfast_.

Suddenly he was in front of the fire with her at Christmas, the both of them in stupid holiday sweaters and reading trashy magazines on opposite ends of the same couch, and he'd been about to sneak into the next room to get the present he'd hidden from her — inside a casserole dish she hadn't used since that last catastrophic (but hilarious) dinner party. Laughing behind a wrinkled cover page when he tickled her foot, getting buzzed off homemade eggnog until they both had blackmail pictures of the other with froth mustaches, falling asleep while snow drifted softly, silently, outside the window and he thought he'd never be happier...

But _here_ , _now_ , she was on her knees by his chair, tucking the loose brown curls behind her ears as she looked up into his face. All of a sudden, the harsh yellow light didn’t seem that harsh, not when it was on her — warm and liquid as sunlight. Tommy blinked hard, expecting to wake up, for her to disappear, but there she was. Her mouth was wide with a gentle smile, her hands soothingly cool on his throbbing skin.

“Laurel, I’m sorry,” Tommy choked. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save you — I couldn’t —”

“Hey — hey.” She was holding him, bending close like she was about to whisper a secret. “It wasn’t your fault. I made a choice. I didn’t want to stay out of a fight, and you didn’t either — that’s one of the things I loved most about you. You never stopped, you never gave up. You didn’t give up on Oliver for those five years, and you never gave up on me, even when you thought you didn’t have a chance.”

“First time for everything,” he whispered, the side of his swelling cheek resting against her smooth one, their noses just touching, heads leaning on each other. Familiar. So easy. “It hurts. No one’s going to see me as more than a mass murderer's kid, and I'm tired of fighting. I just want to be with you — I want it all to stop.”

“I know,” she whispered back. “I know. But you know why it can’t, right? You know there’s still something to fight for. Oliver needs you.”

That wasn't true. Oliver was strong, so much stronger than Tommy ever would be. He could survive anything, even...this. Tommy felt like a child, but he said it anyway. “ _Why?_ ” he asked, so tired. Just — so — tired.

Laurel’s lips found his, and he breathed her in, desperate, hungry — for the softness of her skin and the steely reserves of the strength in her bones, the warm open hands that felt like they could carry the world…but they’d just settled for him. With closed eyes, wanting the moment…the dream…to last forever.

Their faces were barely apart, her slender fingertips curled against his cheeks. “Because you’re going to help him save the city,” she said, and smiled. “That’s what sets you apart from Malcolm. Because deep down, you know Starling’s worth saving. Just like I did.”

“To…honor you,” Tommy said. “To honor Laurel Lance.”

Another kiss, sweeter, sadder. “Forever and always.”

“I love you,” he whispered, desperate for her to hear — even if it wasn’t real. “I love you so goddamn much.”

Laurel — or some ghost of her — stayed just long enough to whisper it back, and Tommy returned into consciousness. He was slumped forward, his head facing the ground.

It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, but he forced himself to sit up — to face his attackers again. To face his demons.

“It…doesn’t have…to be like this,” he said, breathing hard from the strain. “My dad was wrong…he had the wrong idea. Restarting the Glades was wrong. But he was right…about the Glades — the city — being broken.”

He’d said the exact wrong thing. “What did you say?” A gun muzzle dug into the underside of his jaw. “ _Say that again!_ ”

“Listen to me,” Tommy pleaded. “There were people who went along with him because they thought the Glades couldn’t be saved. But there were people who stayed behind to fight because they didn’t believe that — they never believed that.”

He felt tears sting his eyes, hot on his skin, thickness at the back of his throat. “My mom’s name was Rebecca — she had a clinic in the Glades, and some thug shot her in the chest and left her bleeding out on the pavement. Nobody called the police, and they let her die. My — my girlfriend’s name was Laurel, Dinah Laurel Lance, and she stayed behind at CNRI even though the city was falling to pieces around her. She — she got a piece of steel through her chest when it came down. I couldn’t save her, so I know. I _know_ the Glades is broken, and what my dad did only made it worse. But I don’t believe that it’s beyond saving, and if you do this — if you kill every single person you blame for the Undertaking — you’re no better than he was. You’re being driven by revenge, and that’s the kind of poison that’s choking this city. We need to move forward — to fight the people hurting the city, not each other — to save it.”

Tommy looked each one of them in the eye. “Don’t be like my father. I sure as hell don’t want to be — and that’s why I’m not giving up,” he said. “What are you gonna do?”

“Nice spin, pretty boy.” A gun clicked — for real — and Tommy stared right down the barrel of what was about to kill him. “But this world runs on an eye for an eye.”

“ _Think again_.”

An arrow sparked off the gunmetal, both of them flying into the dark. All five heads shot towards the voice, high up in the cloisters. A dark green hood, the glint of an arrow, and the trademark growl. All enough to send fear into the nearest thug’s heart — but not Tommy’s.

Because the sight of Oliver Queen wearing the green hood — a hood he said he’d never wear again — meant only one thing.

He’d found that other way.

Oliver dropped his bow, and Tommy swore he could see his best friend’s smile, bright as one of his arrows in the dark, as though he’d heard every single word Tommy said to the Hoods.

“Sorry I’m late,” he said.

Tommy grinned back, as far as he could manage, because _forgiven_ — holy shit, was his best friend forgiven. “Always have to make an entrance, don’t you?”

_Because you’re going to help him save the city_ , Laurel said.

Damn right. And this was only the beginning.

“Give ‘em hell,” Tommy said — and Oliver did.

* * *

“Oliver, I’m not sure this is a good idea,” Felicity said, her voice tight with worry. “Tommy’s in the hospital — he could be up any minute, shouldn’t you —”

“Is he alone?” Oliver answered, his hands tight around his bow.

A pause as she checked. “No, facial recognition caught detective Hall in the emergency room an hour ago. She’s with him now. Two people can wait for a friend to wake up, Oliver. You don’t have to do this.”

“Yes,” he said. “I do.”

“But —”

“Felicity,” Diggle said, calmly. “Let him.”

Neither of them would argue with Diggle’s stoic sense of reason, and Felicity exhaled — but that was the extent of her continued resistance. “According to police records, det—sergeant Lance’s shift ended five minutes ago. He’ll have to be out soon.”

“Copy that.” Oliver checked briefly on his gift, a peace offering of sorts. They were still knocked out, tied together with steel wire and slumped against the back tire of Quentin’s car.

The Hoods, alive. Despite what they’d done to Tommy, and what they could have done.

Another way.

The light over the side entrance turned green, and the exit door swung open. “Have a good night, fellas,” Quentin called, and hurried down the wet steps, his collar turned up against the cold.

“I see him,” Oliver reported. “Whatever happens, let me handle it.”

“Are you _sure_?” Felicity asked, reluctantly, like even she knew it was an overused question.

“I can’t keep running.” For himself to hear, as much as his friends. “I have to face this.”

“Then we’ll be here,” Diggle promised. “Whatever happens.”

Oliver braced himself, and jumped. He landed in the alley just as Quentin was moving closer to inspect the package he’d been left. “What in the name of hell —” he began.

“Hello, sergeant Lance,” Oliver said, his voice disguised.

Quentin’s gun was out in an instant, pointed directly at his face. “I thought you’d be smart enough to stay the hell away from the precinct, let alone me,” he snarled. “What, you thought it’d be funny to leave a bundle of corpses strapped to my car? Is that your idea of a joke?”

In the pause before Oliver answered, one of the Hoods stirred feebly, his head knocking against the car boot.

“They’re the men who’ve been terrorizing the city,” he said, “and they’re alive.”

Quentin’s eyes — already narrowed with suspicion — narrowed further still. “ _Why?_ ” he demanded. “Because they took a leaf out of your book and decided dropping bodies while dressed in hoods was the way to go?”

Oliver inclined his head, because he deserved that. The Hood spawned copycats — it was something he needed to acknowledge. “No,” he said. “Because I’m trying to do things differently this time.”

“Really?” Dripping with sarcasm. “Drop the hood, and turn off that voice thing. Let me see your real face.”

“We worked together once,” Oliver reminded him. “You helped me.”

“ _No_ ,” Quentin snapped. “No. I was desperate, and the city was dying —”

“—it still is.”

“—and I made the mistake of helping a psychopath who thinks he’s above the law,” he said viciously. “I won’t make that mistake again. Any justice will come from within the law, not from masks, not from liars, and not from _criminals_.”

“Because of Laurel,” Oliver said, before he could stop himself.

A bullet roared past his ear, but Oliver never flinched, even if he could hear his friends’ warnings on the other end of the comms. The shot sparked off the side of the fire escape and raised a puff of dust when it hit the bricks.

Quentin’s hands were shaking for real, trembling with tethered rage.

“Don’t you _dare_ ,” he said, “say that name in front of me. I helped you take down that earthquake machine, I _told_ you my daughter was at CNRI — I begged you to save her — but by the time her boyfriend and I managed to claw our way in there, she was gone. You were too busy with Malcolm Merlyn to bother saving the people you promised you’d protect. And my daughter — my Laurel looked _up_ to you. She loved the law, but she went around it because she thought you were some kind of _hero_.”

Quentin spat at Oliver’s feet, and this time he _did_ flinch. “You’re a murderer, no matter what kind of lives you spare from now on. Blood doesn’t wash out, and my daughter’s blood is on _your_ hands. So save yourself some time and get the hell out of my sight — before I decide to put a bullet between your eyes.”

“Sergeant Lance —”

“Get the _hell_ out of my sight!” he bellowed, and the words bounced off the confines of the narrow alley. “This is your last warning. I’m in charge of the anti-vigilante task force, and the only reason I’m letting you go right now is because I don’t trust myself not to kill you before I put you in cuffs. So get the hell away from me, and don’t you _ever_ use Laurel’s name again. The next time I see you will be without the hood, and you’ll be going to prison for what you’ve done.”

“ _Oliver_ ,” Felicity whispered. “Go. Please.”

The invisible force that immobilized Oliver seemed to dissipate at Felicity’s voice, and he took a step back. Quentin had already turned away, a hand reaching for the radio at the back of his belt.

Oliver fired a grappling arrow towards the fire escape, swinging up to the metal beam. And another. And another.

Until he emerged onto the rooftop and inhaled lungfuls of the cold night air, all the smoke and grime of a city, like he’d been drowning on the ground. “I’m sorry,” he repeated, but Quentin didn’t hear. “I’m so sorry.”

* * *

“So that’s…three bruised ribs, a sprained shoulder, and a Picasso around my stomach,” Tommy recounted, strapped up tight in a sling with his one and only unswollen eye fixed on the late-night news. “But at least I didn’t throw up on you, right?”

The ice pack was doing wonders for his black eye, and in a considerably better mood, Tommy turned expectantly to hear the rest of the story. His memory of the events after Oliver went all bow-and-arrowy on the Hoods was fuzzy at best, dominated mostly by flashes and bangs and twinges of pain. All he knew for sure was that Oliver hadn't killed those guys, and despite his mixed feelings on the bastards in question, Tommy couldn't have been happier.

But apparently he'd missed something. Reclined in the scratchy armchair by the hospital bed, Oliver made a non-committal noise, and Tommy groaned at the look on his face. “ _No_ ,” he said. “Tell me I didn’t puke on the green guy.”

“I threw up when Yao Fei shot me in the shoulder,” Oliver said, like it was the most normal thing in the world. He winced in the middle of shifting his weight, not-so-subtly brushing it off as an itch in his side. “It happens.”

“ _Embarrassing_ is what it is,” Tommy grumbled, tossing Oliver the ice pack for his (secret) bruises. It was hard to do with a one-armed sling. “Can’t believe I threw up on Robin Hood.”

Oliver caught the ice pack without looking and shook his head. “Veto," he said, holding it to the side of his shirt. "We’re not calling me that.”

“Yeah, didn’t think you’d go for it.”

They watched the news in silence, like an old couple at the end of a very long day. There was something bugging Oliver, a metaphorical mood-ogre crouching on his tense shoulders, but Tommy knew better than to ask straight up. Better to go at it with a joke. “We should get married,” he said, as Bethany Snow led the eleven o'clock roundup of the day’s headlines, featuring a certain ex-billionaire rescued from a kidnapping (yay). “You’d take care of me. All big and strong.”

Oliver stirred at the suggestion, his head propped tiredly on his fist. “You’re not my type,” he mumbled.

It hurt to laugh, but Tommy did anyway, and Oliver eventually joined in, the two of them wheezing from the absurd reality of the situation. A year ago, Tommy wouldn't have been in the hospital — well, maybe he would have, his punchable face and all — but Oliver wouldn't have been the one who'd beat up the guys that did it, much less single-handedly _save_ his sorry ass while wearing green leather and some greasepaint.

"Sorry I don't have a leather fetish," Tommy said. " _If_ that's your type, I mean."

That got him a brief sidelong glance, before Oliver glued his eyes back to the screen, his face kept deliberately blank. " _No-pe_."

"What?" Tommy squirmed, arranging his expression into one of supreme casualness, and also _haha I know who Oliver has a crush on_. "Why can't we discuss your type? It's basically anyone with two X-chromosomes. Unless _that's_ changed now."

"Still not discussing it," he said, barely moving his lips.

"I mean...this type of yours, she wouldn't happen to be...smart? Or witty, technologically savvy, maybe a little _too_ free with the old clapper — but in a funny way — or loyal, or...or _tiny_ , I mean, ridiculously tiny, right? Because _that_ would mean you have a thing for F—"

Oliver stretched out one muscled arm to point a finger in his face. "I won't beat up an injured man, but don't push your luck."

Tommy snapped his fingers. "Oh, and _blonde_ , I forgot blonde."

"She dy— never mind," Oliver said, and pressed his lips together again. "And you're wrong. I don't."

"Hey, say that enough and maybe _that_ could be your new rule," Tommy answered, pushing his pointing finger away. With love.

Oliver looked like he was considering stapling his own mouth to stop himself from smiling. But he did. It was a triumphant moment, and Tommy stretched back on the lumpy hospital pillow with a huff, because _wow_. "Who'd've thought, huh?"

"I heard what you said to the Hoods," Oliver said, probably to change the subject as much as it was a relevant topic of discussion. "Did you mean it?"

Someone who wasn’t Tommy, and didn’t know Oliver as well as he did would have asked which part, in his epically long speech. But Tommy knew what he meant. “Yeah. Every word.”

Oliver shifted, both in posture and in focus. The mattress sank a little when he put his hands on the edge, leaning forward to get his attention. "Tommy, saving the city has a cost," he said. "You were barely involved in this...crusade to begin with, and look where it got you. In a hospital bed. Laurel started looking up to the Hood, and when the city came down, she refused to leave."

"That was her choice."

"But there was a _cost_ ," Oliver said. "There's something dangerous about believing in the Hood. Sergeant Lance knows that, and he's not wrong. I've had training. I know what it takes to stay alive. But the people influenced by the Hood, they forget that it took me five years to learn, in the _worst_ environment in the world, and I'm still learning."

"So I'm five years behind," Tommy said dismissively. "I'll catch up."

"No," Oliver shook his head. "No. Tommy, I don't want you to. The basement isn't off-limits, but you're not going out in the field. I can't lose my best friend."

"What makes you so damn sure that you will?"

" _Because_ — nothing good ever happened in those five years, and the second it did, something worse came crashing in to balance the scales. I'll risk my life because that's what it takes, but not yours. So don't ask me to. _Please_."

They looked at each other, and Tommy honestly wondered who was worse off — the guy hooked up to tubes in a hospital bed, or the guy sitting beside him with the _worst_ case of dying-itis he'd ever seen. "Okay," he said, not quite meaning it, but trying hard to. "I won't stick my neck out."

The tension in Oliver's shoulders released, if only by a micro-measure. "Okay," he echoed.

Tommy waited until the intensity-levels shrank back to the median again before he piped up. "So I guess it's a good thing you're not the Hood anymore, right?" he said. "Any idea what you want to be called? How 'bout _Panda Man_? Switch out the green greasepaint for black."

Oliver's specially allotted Thinking Corner was interrupted by the door flying open with a bang, and an airborne ice pack hit Tommy in the throat. "Tommy!" Thea said, while Oliver apologized for the smooth coverup throw by scratching the back of his head, almost as if nothing was the matter.

"Hey, k— _YOW_ ," Tommy yelped, when Thea took it upon herself to give him a hug. "Ribs. _Ribs_."

Roy sidestepped into the room after Thea, exchanging taciturn dude-nods with Oliver and wearing an expression that actually bordered on _contrite_. Not really, but contrite-adjacent.

"What were you thinking?" she demanded.

" _Me?_ " Tommy said indignantly, still thinking about his aching ribs. "Was I supposed to let them take my best friend's baby sister? C'mon. No contest."

Thea's waterproof mascara was _really_ holding up. Forty bucks _really_ well spent (he'd asked). "Why does every guy in my life have a death wish?" she asked, and Oliver hastily gave up his seat by the bed so that Tommy could breathe without wincing.

"Speak for yourself," Roy said suddenly. "I'm done with that."

Cue three sets of skeptical looks in his direction, but Roy was looking right at Tommy with the baby-blues. "What you did tonight...for Thea, for everyone at the club, that was really brave. Stupid, but really brave. Thanks for throwing yourself under the bus."

In the middle of settling Tommy's amazing migratory ice pack, Thea looked just as surprised about the lack of sarcasm as he was. It may have been the extraordinarily low levels of morphine in his system (some drug supply issue with the hospital network), but there was a chance he and Roy’s relationship status had gone from _unresponsive_ to _mutual respect_.

Hopefully.

"You too," Tommy answered. "Tackling a guy with an assault rifle? That's some karma-boosting crap right there."

He stuck out his one unstrapped arm, fist attached, and left it hovering. Roy stared at it for a second, before he brought his hand up and bumped knuckles with Tommy.

" _Snap_ , I think we just became friends," Tommy said gleefully.

"Nobody says _snap_ anymore," Thea corrected.

"It's coming back," Oliver said, a hand on his sister's shoulder.

"So what was he like?" Roy asked, his expression intent. "The Hood?"

"I...can't remember," Tommy said, carefully not looking at Oliver. "It was dark, there was yelling, they'd beaten me up...I just know he left those guys alive."

"That's new," Thea remarked. "I thought he usually poked them full of arrows."

Oliver's face twitched, just a little.

”I think he's doing things differently," Tommy said. "Pretty sure he's not calling himself _The Hood_ anymore."

"So he's...Green Hood Man?" Thea said. "Doesn't have the same ring to it."

"I don't know," Tommy answered, taking his cue from Oliver's small smile, albeit at a _much_ higher wattage. "But if he's back in town, I guess we'll find out soon enough."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- That certain point was the Laurel/Tommy bit. Wrote it while listening to the song on loop. Gahhhhhhhhh the feels. My Merlance feels. Kill me now.  
> \- Oh, and if it isn't already clear, the terrible flashbacks in 4x19 never happened for me. As far as I'm concerned, Tommy and Laurel were _it_ for each other. I will fight anyone on this.  
>  \- Hopefully that closed the loop in the “no killing rule” for Oliver. Tommy’s not dead, but he doesn’t have to be for Oliver to honor him.  
> \- And hey, maybe Tommy’s on his way to being a superhero too :)  
> \- General consensus (at least what I'm getting) is that people are up for the 2x07 Vertigo episode getting included in some way. I've certainly gotten some fantastic suggestions via PMs (thank youuu) so I'll do my best!  
>  **Next Week:** Oliver's eventful life as the new CEO of Queen Consolidated, and introducing the DOLLMAKER. Plus some other stuff too. I have a really fun chapter lined up :D  
> 


	4. Girl Wednesday (The Dollmaker, Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heeeeeey. I know I said each chapter would be one episode but holy shit did I find out that's not feasible. Questionable plot choices aside, so much respect for the writers, cramming a bunch of plotlines into 40 minutes. Anyway, the Dollmaker stuff is in parts because I had to make some questionable plot choices of my own (don't hate me :D).

“You’ve reached Oliver Queen, please leave a message.”

_Voicemail._

“Hey jackass, if I’m at your voicemail, it means I _haven’t reached you_ , period,” Tommy said, trying to smoosh the elevator button with his elbow.

Harder than it looked. There was a grease-stained bag from Big Belly in his right hand, which was pretty much the furthest it went, functionality-wise. The rest of his arm was still securely strapped up in a sling — and would be for the next couple of days, per the doctor’s orders. As far as souvenirs went, a pulled muscle with an unpronounceable name in his shoulder wasn't the worst thing the Hoods could have left him. Although, he could have gotten some badass body ink that said _I survived a kidnapping and all I got was this crappy tattoo_ , but clearly the universe had other ideas for his otherwise badassery.

Namely trying to hail a freaking steel box while his best friend gave him the telecommunications version of _talk to the hand_.

Suffice it to say that Tommy was a little more irate than his usual sunshine-y self, but in his defence, one-armed bartending was an interesting concept only in theory, which meant that he had a few days to lounge around in the basement while everyone else did their crime-fighting schtick. How every single one of them could stay until the truly terrible hours of the morning, shower, change, and pick themselves up to get to work — he didn’t know.

Just that it couldn’t be human, and it deserved an unhealthy amount of crispy bacon and hamburger meat, slapped between two cornbread muffins of pure goodness.

 _A-ha_. Success.

“Where are you?” he asked, as the doors finally rolled open. “And please say your office, because I have breakfast muffins and I will _stuff_ my face with all of them if you’re not there to stop me. Okay, you’re clearly taking a dump — in which case, thank you for not answering your phone— or you’re off with some _gorgeous_ Jewish blonde whose name rhymes with _er-licity_ — ha, only half-kidding with that one, and —”

 _Beeeeeeeep_.

“If you’d like to re-record your message, please press zero.”

Tommy hung up. “Rude.”

The top floor of QC was always busy, harried-looking employees running back and forth between offices with long lists of things to do, whether it was under Moira Queen’s management or (in a turn of events that truly epitomized _This Can't End Well_ ) Oliver and Isabel Rochev as joint CEOs.

But as soon as Tommy stepped outside, he knew something was off.

There was a clump of people in the executive conference room adjoining the CEO’s office, and they scattered as soon as Tommy glanced their way, clearly doing something they weren’t meant to be. More people in the hallway who _were_ meant to be there, all shooting nervous glances towards the same place.

The first person he spotted near the elevators was Diggle, tall and imposing as ever, even if his firearm was concealed somewhere underneath the crisp black suit. He was standing — almost coincidentally, to those who didn't know better — beside Felicity, herself busy with something that looked pretty rapid-fire on her tablet Death Machine.

"Mr Merlyn," Diggle said, with a brief nod.

It took Tommy a second to remember that the detached politeness was a cover. Namely: _oh crap, he's a bodyguard_. "Morning, Digg," he said casually. "Oliver in?"

"He's preoccupied," Diggle said, in supremely helpful detail.

Which left Felicity to fill in the blanks, but doom-and-gloom ambience aside, even Tommy's Neanderthal brain had to notice that she'd come dressed for the office, in a seriously — awful pun alert — _Smoaking_ way.

He'd probably been spending too much time with Thea, but he knew that the tight gray dress and neon color-blocking ( _no words_ to describe how he felt about knowing that phrase) around the waist area would have gotten some heavy thumb action (that sounded wrong) from the fashion snob herself. For any fellow cavemen wondering, Felicity Smoak did indeed have one hell of an ass, and she was doing the world a favor by not hiding it in a hideous librarian skirt. Two thumbs, T.D.Q. brand-approved.

No wonder the employees hanging around Felicity were mostly dudes (savages), albeit kept at a discreet distance by Diggle's presence. Tommy made a shoo-ing motion at a gaggle of them, trying his best ogre-face to scare them off. Best friend duty, no questions asked.

"Hey, is someone trying to set off the Smoak Alarm around here?" he said. "What's with the hot dress?"

"I promise I'll blush and fist-bump you for that one later, but we have a problem," she said.

"Which kind?" he asked, because that was an actual _thing_ now, at least for him.

She pointed, and he followed the direction of her finger. " _Oh_ ," he breathed. "That's no good."

* * *

A thick file slammed into Oliver’s desk. “Your signature’s not on the budget report from last night’s board meeting — do you have _any_ idea why that is?”

Oliver reached out to steady his desk lamp, rattling noisily from the impact of Isabel’s throwing strength. “Probably because I wasn’t _at_ last night’s board meeting, but —”

“ _Where were you?_ ” she snapped.

The whip cracked over Oliver's head, but he didn't flinch, despite the fact that Isabel’s nostrils were flaring with what could only be described as thinly-suppressed fury, and from the way her hands curled and uncurled at her sides, he made an informed guess that she was imagining them fixed around his throat in strangulation.

“There were pressing matters outside of Queen Consolidated,” he said, very calmly, in spite of her flashing eyes. “I dealt with them — end of story.”

“ _No_ , not _end of story_. Or do I need to remind you that you majored in dropping out of college? It’s your first week as CEO — of a company that _just_ pulled itself out of a hole — not unlike the one your family’s earthquake machine put in the middle of the Glades. Frankly, I don’t care _who_ Moira Queen’s ex-husband is, because even the CFO of Starling National Bank can’t stop me from rallying the company directors to vote one grossly incompetent CEO off the board!”

The last part was very much a yell. Oliver got to his feet, ready to placate her. “ _Isabel_ , investor interest in the company has never been higher. We’re strong on the numbers, and revenue is —”

Isabel cut him off with a raised index finger. “I take my job _very_ seriously, Oliver. I also know what companies tell the public when they’re in trouble, and Queen Consolidated is _not_ out of the red just yet. I need a partner who will take the work we do seriously, not a trust fund playboy who’s more interested in running a seedy nightclub than managing a legitimate business. So tell me — before I stop asking politely — _are you going to take this seriously?_ ”

“Sorry to interrupt — Mr Queen?”

The both of them turned towards the door. Oliver had been aware of an audience, as most showdowns in offices went, but he hadn’t thought anyone would be brave enough to actually stick their head above the trench.

He should have known better.

“I don’t mean to interrupt… _whatever_ that was, but Oli—Mr Queen was actually with me during the board meeting,” Felicity said. “We were at Mercury Labs. They’re a big client, and I thought it was a good time to talk about extending their cybersecurity contract with QC, and their CEO wanted him there.”

Isabel’s response was to arch one thin eyebrow, clearly unimpressed. Despite their innocuously unrelated workplace covers and the fact that Oliver Queen wasn't meant to be concerned about an IT girl, his more protective instincts were telling him to make an excuse for Felicity to back out, before Isabel gouged out an eye.

But Felicity's attention was fixed on Isabel. Undaunted by the obvious scrutiny, the only sign of nervousness — to him, at least — was the way she drummed her fingers on the back of her red tablet.

The confidence didn't go unnoticed, and when Isabel gave her an ostentatious head to toe appraisal — all in icy silence — Oliver found himself doing the same. His first week as CEO of his family's company had been something of a hectic blur, which was probably why he was taken aback at what he saw.

Or — more accurately — what he _hadn't_ seen.

Felicity had always struck him as someone who took a perfunctory interest in her looks, opting for simplicity and comfort over anything else. Hair tied back and out of the way, simple shirts and sweaters, flat shoes — that was the IT girl he'd found sitting in her cubicle, chewing a red pen. That was the shy girl he'd asked for help, and never looked back since.

But today, she was...different.

Despite lacking the personal experience, Oliver knew a dress wasn't necessarily the most comfortable wardrobe choice, much less one that was — for lack of a better word — _snug_ , all over. She was even wearing heels, which put her eye to eye with the company's more fearsome CEO, and she was actually maintaining eye contact, something that actively surprised him.

Everything about her exuded confidence, in stark contrast to the shy IT girl who'd gone about her tasks, quiet and unassuming. Oliver wondered how much of it was because of the temporary promotion to a leadership position, another part of him wondered why he cared, and another part wondered how long he could stare at her waist before someone shouted at him.

“You’re telling me…that the famously reclusive head of Mercury Labs wanted to meet Oliver Queen," Isabel said, enunciating each word with deathly precision.

Felicity had a knack of softening uncomfortable exchanges with superiors by talking to them as if she was confiding a big secret. “I know — I was a little surprised too, but Dr McGee wanted a photo op. I’m not in them, I mean — have you seen these legs?” she said, gesturing self-consciously at herself below the knee. “ _Way_ better behind a computer.”

As a matter of fact, Oliver _had_ noticed her knees, and the rest of her legs, but he wasn’t about to admit it.

“Mercury Labs,” Isabel said curtly. “They extended?”

Felicity nodded. “Another five years, and IT couldn’t have managed it without Mr Queen.”

Isabel looked like she was doing some very rapid thinking, searching for ways to outmaneuver Felicity’s lie. From the sour expression on her face, he could tell she was out of options. “I’d like to see those pictures myself,” she said, managing to make politeness sound like a slap to the face. “This is your lucky day, Oliver.”

She brushed past Felicity on her way out, but paused deliberately after she'd pushed the door wide. “Don’t miss the meeting this afternoon,” she said, throwing the words over her shoulder, while simultaneously broadcasting them for everyone else to hear. “The board needs to make some personnel changes, and I think we’ve inconvenienced Miss Smoak for _far_ too long. Don’t you?”

Then she was gone, clearing a path through the enraptured audience without so much as a flick of her finger. Felicity gingerly shut the door behind her. “Well, seems like I’ll be getting a new supervisor pretty soon. Just do me a solid and make sure he — or she — isn't a complete moron.”

Oliver shot her his most dubious look. “She wants to see pictures of my meeting with Dr McGee.”

“Photoshop,” she said dismissively. “They’re in her email already. Why do you think I took so long to get in here?”

 _Tap-tap_.

Tommy was on the other side of the door now, Big Belly bag in hand.

"Mr Queen," Diggle said, for the benefit of the outside audience. "You have a visitor. Should I let him in?"

Felicity was covering the bottom half of her face with the tablet, evidently trying to hold back her amusement, and Oliver nodded. "Why not? Frisk him, though."

"Oh, _come on_ ," Tommy said.

Laughing now, Felicity sidestepped to let them in, and Tommy nudged her on his way past. “Morning, sunshine,” he said, holding open the bag for her. “I got them to mark the _kosher_ one.”

Her face lit up. “Oo. _Saint_.”

"Thanks, man," Diggle said, claiming his share.

“Don’t think I forgot about you, gorgeous,” Tommy added, upending the bag onto Oliver’s desk — files, keyboard and all. “Put some hair on your chest.”

Given the fact that he’d been awake before sunrise, Oliver decided he wasn’t in a nitpicking mood, and reached for one of the greasy wrappers. “Am I running a breakfast buffet out of my office?” he deadpanned.

Draped across a leather armchair, Tommy raised one finger on his immobilized arm, because he was in the process of taking a gigantic bite. Which meant that Oliver was treated to a front row seat of his best friend chewing, and after twenty-over years, it was one thing that had escaped evolution scot-free.

A gigantic swallow. “From what I overheard, you might want to keep those options open, buddy. That woman seems like a human version of a migraine. Or — a kick to the nuts.”

“ _Nuts_ ,” Felicity coughed, and pretended to be reaching for the water. “Anybody want a drink?”

Oliver wasn’t fighting them on the personality point. “I need Isabel to like me. Or — at least be amenable to overlooking my absences at board meetings,” he corrected, seeing the looks they all shot him. “Missing company events because of my...evening plans aren’t helping.”

“As long as you don’t get desperate enough to bust out the old _hail Mary_ ,” Tommy said, and Felicity cocked her head in response, curious. “ _Sex_ — his one move is sex.”

"White boys," Diggle muttered, not quite under his breath.

“I’m considering it,” Oliver said, and he wasn’t entirely sure if he was kidding.

Felicity had chosen an unfortunate moment for a drink of water, and proceeded to splutter into her glass. Diggle had to pat her on the back a few times before she recovered. “Went down — wrong way," she rasped, her cheeks flaming. "Should we open a window?”

"You're not serious," Diggle said incredulously.

It was a sentiment apparently echoed by Tommy as well. Sitting upright in alarm, he looked at Oliver like he'd just admitted a desire to feed his hand to a meat grinder. “You _do_ remember that a common side-effect of sleeping with you is acute loathing, right?” he pointed out. “I mean, I _could_ go into all the one night stands, and the explosive property damage, but we’re all eating.”

Oliver was starting to wish he’d set down ground rules for how much Tommy was allowed to disclose in front of his friends. Since Diggle was broadcasting disapproval, Oliver glanced at Felicity for some reason — probably because he thought she'd back him up on the point of missing meetings — but she flicked her eyes away the second they made contact, like she'd been watching him the whole time and didn't want him to notice.

Strange.

“I’m running out of options when it comes to Isabel," he reasoned, still a little confused at her reaction. "She’s not kidding about getting me fired.”

"And your bright idea is to _sleep with her_?" Tommy repeated. " _Why?_ "

Felicity cleared her throat and balled up the rest of her uneaten breakfast. “Well, she’s about to fire me as interim IT supervisor, so I’ll let you know what that’s like — the firing, _not_ the sleeping with,” she said, already on her feet like she couldn’t wait to get out.

"I'll see you downstairs," Diggle said, getting up as well. "Need to make sure I'm familiar with my hospital routes for when all this goes down in flames."

Once again, it did _not_ escape Oliver how nobody seemed to disagree.

"C'mon, stay," Tommy said. "I won't talk about Oliver's ass — promise."

“I have a meeting in five," Felicity said. "Who knew cybersecurity was going to be such a _hit_ with companies paranoid about their patents getting stolen for earthquake machines?”

Resigned, Tommy extended his fist for her to bump. "If it's not you, we need to have a serious discussion about the way you tell stories.”

Tommy teasing her seemed to have restored the smile to her face, and she practically glowed. “ _I did_ ,” she whispered, and winked at Oliver over Tommy's shoulder.

"Stay out of trouble, boys," Diggle said, and they left together.

Oliver smiled in spite of himself, watching her stride towards the elevators, computer in hand. He'd never noticed how long her hair was, now that she wore it loose and straight. Or that there was a small mole at the back of her right arm. Or that she could be surprisingly graceful in high heels.

“God give me the strength not to slap a bitch,” Tommy said, shaking his head.

That threw him. “Felicity?" Oliver said. "I thought you liked her.”

“You’re the bitch in this scenario.”

“Oh.” Oliver shifted a spare breakfast muffin aside to get at the personnel paperwork, relatively unbothered at the affectionate verbal abuse. “Could you get Felicity on the phone?”

“Did both your hands just fall off?” Tommy answered. “Do it yourself, you lazy _goy_. You just saw her anyway — what happened in the last twenty seconds that demands an update?”

“Since when do you know Yiddish?”

“Felicity’s teaching me. She knows all the swear words. Anyway — what’s going on?”

“I forgot to tell Felicity while she was up here. I’m promoting her to be my EA.” Oliver was about to take another bite of his burger when Tommy’s empty wrapper went flying towards his head.

Which he ducked — easily, and proceeded to straighten up again, nonplussed. “What?”

“Your _secretary_? That’s what you got from the great Rochev bailout? That she’d make a good _secretary_?”

Oliver didn't see why his best friend was so worked up about it. “She’s good at deflecting Isabel, and I need a plausible explanation that doesn’t involve the CEO of Queen Consolidated traveling down eighteen floors every time her and I need to discuss how we spend our nights.”

Tommy’s eyebrows shot up at his unusually careless choice of words. “You mean you’re —”

“— _not_ like that.”

“Oh,” he said. “Then _veto_. _All_ the vetoes. Listen to me, if you tell Felicity that you’re promoting her to be your glorified secretary, I don’t care how shiny the computer at her desk is, she’s going to quit on the spot — if not kick you somewhere very painful, quit,  _then_ storm off.”

The vivid description was clearly meant to change his mind, but Oliver had seen scarier — well, maybe comparable — things than Felicity being angry with him. “It’s the only explanation that makes sense. She'll understand that. As my EA, she’ll have access to Diggle, and she’ll know my schedule well enough to…make adjustments for other things.”

“You mean your nighttime hobby,” Tommy said. “I get that, and correct me if I’m wrong, but your job as CEO of Queen Consolidated is to exploit cutting edge resources. Felicity just saved your ass from being fired by the human migraine, _and_ sealed a big contract while you were off scaring drug dealers straight. She's an asset to the company — exploit her. _Not_ in that way — but if the wind’s blowing in that direction, I mean —”

“—get to the point, Tommy.”

“—don’t make her fetch you coffee and printouts. That’s all I’m saying. She’s the best person to have at your right hand when the going gets tough, and just _look_ at the human migraine you have as a co-CEO. You’re gonna want to shore up support. Get Felicity on the front-line with you. There has to be something that gives her a reason to work on the top floor.”

 _That_...gave Oliver an idea. The most obvious answer, and it had been staring him in the face the whole time. The only problem was — and this was going against his current resolution as errant CEO — Isabel wasn’t going to like it, at all.

* * *

Felicity was having a busy morning. Between last-minute interventions against _CEO-on-CEO_ homicide on the top floor and new reports of fresh hells in the cybersecurity sphere, she barely had time to contemplate a cup of lukewarm instant coffee, much less worry about the citywide crime scanners running full-time in the Verdant basement.

That being said, she vastly preferred the IT department to the frosty conference room upstairs. Screens wall to wall, whirring server terminals blinking at reassuringly regular intervals, geeks and geeky t-shirts all around, not to mention the fact that they were _all_ outnumbered by CPUs. Heaven. Complete sanctuary — compared to the cutthroat politics of the boardroom and the feeling of perpetual inadequacy at the meeting table, like she was a kid (and she _really_ was in comparison) trying her luck against grownups who'd gone to business school and wore their many qualifications like knuckle dusters.

Felicity didn't have a taste for it. The sooner the new IT supervisor got there, the better. Oliver was always better at the smiling-but-not-meaning-it, and if she was being honest, she liked him intruding on her little office in the corner of the IT floor. She liked the fact that he came all the way to ask for her help, official hierarchy aside. She liked how small her office felt when he was in there, because he _wasn't_ supposed to fit in there, but he'd come anyway, just for her. A closed door and only the two of them, her working at the computer with him looking over her shoulder, instead of glass walls and prying eyes eighteen floors upstairs.

Everyone wanted a piece of the CEO, but Felicity only wanted Oliver.

 _Frack_. She didn't mean that. Not like that. Not like —

_Was she blushing?_

"Uh, Felicity, we might have a problem." Brie Larvan swung around in her chair, black-rimmed glasses flashing in the dim light. Fellow soldier in the computer science trenches and frequent coffee buddy, they'd both started at the same time and because of a more-than-passing resemblance (and _not_ a complete and utter lack of incentive to recall employee names), Kenneth the IT supervisor had taken to nicknaming them _Blonde One_ and _Two_ , respectively.

Classy guy, that Kenneth.

Felicity snapped back to attention. "Sector twelve has a sub-par access node in the fourth quadrant," she said, pointing at a screen. "Get a Kerberos patch in there while we're fixing it — if anything gets by, I need to know."

"Got it," said Brie, typing at high speed. "Any word on who's taking over IT?"

Felicity shrugged, surreptitiously checking the crime alerts on her phone. Missing person — twenty-five-year-old male, found dead in suspicious circumstances. Posed, asphyxiation, potential similarities with existing police records. Kinky. Sounded like something right up the Arrow's back alley.

_No, not like that._

"Felicity?"

"No idea," she said, palming her phone again. "But they can't be worse than Kenneth."

"You could keep the job," Brie suggested.

Felicity laughed first, because the thought of her being on the board of directors for real (i.e. not by city-skipping default) was a hilariously absurd idea. "I'm twenty-four," she said. "We're practically the same age."

"Mr Queen likes you," she insisted. "He was in IT all the time last year."

"Because his _mom_ ran the company," Felicity answered. "I fixed his laptop as a favor. To technology. No hard drive should have to die by coffee."

"How many repair sessions does _one_ coffee-d up laptop need?" Sometimes she wished Brie wasn't so smart.

"He breaks a lot of things. Rich people. They have their...toys."

Brie didn't look convinced. At all. Felicity shooed her affectionately, and was just about to steal her coffee when the door (ah, merciful doors that weren't glass) pushed open.

"Felicity, do you have a minute?"

No joke, the whole IT department froze. Because Oliver Queen, CEO (and very non-geekily attractive man) was standing in the doorway.

Cross her heart, Felicity was usually immune to it, but her recent mental detour made her cheeks go red and her throat clench up with something like _oh god he didn't hear me think, right?_ Someone (probably Brie) gave Felicity a not-quite-gentle push, and she stumbled forward.

"S-sure."

* * *

Felicity's face was pink. Oliver had to keep his hand clenched in a fist, and eventually in his pocket, just to stop himself from reaching up to check if she had a fever. He was bad enough at public speaking as it was, much less delivering (what he hoped) was good news.

They were both standing in the corridor outside the IT offices, allowed some measure of privacy by the closed doors and lack of windows. She'd listened to him explain the reasons behind his decision with such uncharacteristic quietness (her only movement to occasionally chafe her arms from the air conditioning chill) that Oliver seriously wondered if she was sick.

"So," he said. "It's official. I'm making you CTO at the board meeting this afternoon."

Silence. Felicity blinked — once, twice — eyelashes brushing her cheeks. "You know that CTO doesn't mean _Check This Out_ , right?"

Oliver's brows contracted. "That doesn't even make sense in context."

"I know, but the alternative is you meaning Chief Technology Officer, which is you making _me_ Chief Technology Officer, which is a _lot_ of responsibility and — _oh-my-god_ you’re serious," she breathed, like it was a death sentence. Then her hands started flying. "Oliver, I can’t —”

He'd anticipated _that_ , and skillfully avoided the trajectory of her fidgeting hands. "Hear me out. We all need secret identities, and if I'm going to be CEO of Queen Consolidated —"

"— I don't think you should count your chickens just yet, Isabel _really_ has those castrating shears at the ready —"

"— then I can't keep coming down to IT every time you and I need to discuss how we spend our nights."

Felicity winced, and nudged her shoe firmly against the closed door, as though making extra sure they weren't being overheard. ”Oliver, I realize the irony of me saying this, but that was a _terrible_ choice of words," she said. "One, the last thing I need is people thinking I'm sleeping with the CEO, no offence to you, I'm sure you're very nice and lots of people around here _want_ to sleep with you, but I — never mind. And two, I could just bring up systems reports to your office. I did that all the time with Walter and Moira."

"Only once a week," he said, smoothly dismissing the option. "That's not enough."

Felicity was actually blushing now. "Again, you do _hear_ the things you're saying, right?”

"The CTO reports directly to me, which means that you'll be in my office every day. That's the perfect cover."

"I _can't_ ," she repeated.

"Why not?" he asked, surprised at her obstinance — though not really. He just thought she'd be happier at being promoted to a position that reflected her capabilities, not acting like he’d asked her to expose her neck to the butcher’s knife. Or Isabel's idea of smalltalk, whichever was worse.

Felicity crossed her arms in front of her, and he knew from experience that she made herself small whenever she felt it. Which wasn't what he'd wanted. At all.

"Because...I haven't earned it. That's _wrong_ , Oliver. The CTO heads up R&D and IT strategies — which is every geek’s dream job, trust me, I know — but you’re only giving it to me because you need an IT girl in your ear — okay, now _I'm_ doing it too." She palmed her forehead in frustration, breathing out slow and loud. "I appreciate the offer, I really do, but I have to say no."

Oliver realized he'd been taking the blunt approach, and took a mental step back to recalibrate. "Look, the only department that hasn’t been under a red line is IT," he said, a little slower, calmer. "Your supervisor left a while back, and the board decided not to appoint a new one until the company stabilized. No one ever never expects positive performance during an interim — they expect a downturn. The best case scenario was staying at zero. But since you became interim supervisor, IT's been outperforming the departments in revenue."

"Sure, but those are residual deals —"

"That they didn't have to extend with Queen Consolidated, but they did. You pushed for a reformed ICT strategy in tackling digital threats, and the results speak for themselves. I could get the board to back you as a serious candidate."

"But Isabel _has_ her own candidates," Felicity argued. "I'm sure she does. _Plural_. She hates me, Oliver. And what happened to your charm-the-boss strategy? I don't want to get promoted if it means you'll have to…to…drop your pants and think of England!"

If that was a reference, it went _completely_ over Oliver's head. "What?"

" _No_ ," she translated. "I'm staying down here."

Fortunately, Oliver could be stubborn too. "Queen Consolidated needs a direction. The earthquake machine hurt our image in R&D, and we need to rebrand. Cybersecurities and firewall strategies is the logical step. The revenue stream from ICT contracts _shows_ that companies everywhere are taking a hard look at their systems. We need to exploit that, and someone with a Masters in Cybersecurity and Computer Science from MIT should be leading the push."

Felicity — for once — seemed at a loss for words. "That...wasn't in the reports I gave you. I never put that in there."

"I _am_ occasionally capable of making an intelligent deduction," Oliver said, teasing her now. "Took my lead from someone a little smarter than I am.”

Intentional humor wasn't Oliver's strong suit, so he was always surprised when someone chose to play along. Even better if that someone was Felicity, who _lit up_ at the chance to good-naturedly tease.

They'd gotten steadily closer throughout the conversation, in spite of raised voices, because arguing with each other had the strange effect of drawing them closer together, rather than repel them apart. Even in heels, Felicity still had to look up at Oliver, and him down at her, but leaning against the wall with his hands in his pockets was so inexplicably comfortable — the last thing he wanted to do was leave.

Felicity seemed to be having a similar thought (he hoped, anyway) and tapped the heel of her shoe against the floor, holding back a smile in a way that made Oliver's heart race a little, for all the possibilities it promised.

“Who’s that?" she said. "Sounds like he — or she — can’t be _real_.”

Oliver smiled. “She’s a real girl Wednesday.”

Felicity crinkled her nose, because he'd flubbed something. “It’s… _Friday_. You need a girl Friday.”

Not that it mattered. What did — was whether Felicity would back him up, and trust that he'd back her too.

“Exactly," he said smoothly. "So is that a yes?”

Felicity bit her lip, still looking hesitant. Oliver understood that, he really did, but he also knew that he didn't have a bottom line when it came to convincing her that the job was a good idea. "I'll get you a coffeemaker," he said. "Top of the line. Just for your office."

She laughed, clapping a hand to her mouth like it was something to be embarrassed about, even though it was a sound that made his heart skip a beat, and not in an unpleasant way. "Just so we're clear, I'm _only_  doing this for the coffeemaker. Contractually. Don't _bait-and-switch_  me on this one, Queen."

It was Oliver's turn to laugh, rocking back a little on his heels. "Wouldn't dream of it...Miss Smoak," he said. "So what's your answer?"

Felicity sucked in her breath, and Oliver was inexplicably proud of himself for not looking down to check if her dress really _was_ that tight. He was even prouder at her answer, because it was past, _past_ time someone as smart as Felicity joined him up on the top floor.

“Yes.”

“Great," Oliver said, and pushed off the wall to go. "Board meeting’s this afternoon. See you then.”

Oliver knew it wasn't the first time Felicity had watched him walk away, but it felt like a reversal of sorts, given how much he'd been watching her lately. He smiled, because life at Queen Consolidated was about to get _much_ more pleasant.

* * *

The basement door slammed behind them, and Felicity groped for the railing in the dark, her phone doubling as a flashlight in the other hand, Oliver at her back.

"The report's all over the news — guy found dead in the Blackwater Industrial Complex," she said. "It looks like a cut-and-dried murder but there's a lot of police chatter focused on the scene. I'm thinking it's something big, but I'd have to start listening in on encrypted frequencies to make s—"

"So do you ever take a moment to celebrate?" Oliver inquired. "You just became Chief Technology Officer of a Fortune 500 company, and your first thought is a murder in the Glades."

"Don't forget proud owner of a brand new coffeemaker, and you're one to talk," Felicity answered, looking briefly over her shoulder as she walked. "Besides, I'm not celebrating the fact that someone now _officially_ wants to kill me."

In case there was any doubt on the subject, the would-be murderer went by the name of Isabel Rochev, CEO, and the look she'd given Felicity in the split second before stiffly congratulating her on the promotion was a picture worth a thousand words.

Or _daggers_.

Isabel seemed like the dagger type.

"I think you have to make a signed declaration for something like that to be official," Oliver remarked, as though Isabel's death-promising hatred was nothing new.

She rolled her eyes at his flippancy. "Oh, so it's _unofficial_ then, lucky me that the cutthroat CEO has a fear of notarized paperwork when it comes to her murders."

"Hey," Oliver said, and something in his voice made her pause mid-step. "You deserve the job. There's no one else I'd rather have on the board with me."

Felicity felt inexplicably shy. "Good thing I held off on sleeping with you, huh?" she joked. "At least now I know why I got promoted."

Oliver looked surprised. "Felicity, I —"

The lights came on with a _slam_ , and Felicity almost missed the last step with the heel of her shoe, necessitating Oliver grabbing her full-force by the arm and the two of them standing frozen in the sudden glare — until they heard the _pop_ of a champagne cork.

"There she is!" Tommy said, holding out an overflowing bottle of champagne. "Youngest non-boring board member under thirty. Knock 'em dead, Smoak."

Diggle came forward with the glasses, shaking his head at Tommy's exuberance. “I tried telling him that Oliver keeps a throwing knife up his sleeve for _surprises_ , but he insisted.”

“I never say no to champagne," Felicity said, though her heart was still palpitating at a mildly alarming rate. "But wow — overreaction much? All I did was put myself on an Ice Queen's hit-list."

"Nah, she'll get over it," Tommy said, grinning from ear to ear. "Besides, it's about time you got some sun. That IT office really has an unhealthy number of windows — which is to say they _don't_. 'Bout time you got a tan."

Felicity laughed, and Tommy jostled her affectionately, sending her bumping shoulder to shoulder with Oliver, himself a little pink in the face. “Cheers, I guess?” she said, tipping her glass towards his. “Don’t worry, we all have embarrassing family members.”

“He’s adopted,” Oliver muttered, but tapped the side of his glass to hers anyway. “Cheers.”

Diggle came over to give Felicity a rough bearhug. “So Oliver's CEO, you're a board member, and my cover story's still _black driver_ ," he said, the two of them still side to side. "How does that work?”

Felicity, snugly under Diggle’s massive bearhug-y arm, turned to Oliver with raised eyebrows. “I think I hear promotion bells ringing,” she nudged. “You never know when a certain somebody is gonna try to —”

She drew a line across her throat, in clear reference to a certain homicide risk.

"If Isabel ever _does_ decide to attack one of us, at least you'll have an ironclad reason for shooting her," Oliver answered.

“I think the use of the word _if_ ’s a little strong, buddy,” Tommy said, joining the circle. “But you have fast reflexes.”

“ _Thanks_.”

Tommy cleared his throat, glass in hand. “A toast. To secret identities. Mine may still be the idiotic best friend —”

“—but you do it so _well_ ,” Felicity laughed.

He shushed her. “But at least no one has to get anyone else coffee.”

Felicity wasn’t the only one weirded out by the bizarre toast (then again she’d seen worse), but Oliver shot Tommy a sharp look, in the vein of _not cool, you (insert profanity here)_.

“So, the murder,” she said. “Any thoughts?”

“Police scanners have been going crazy for the last few hours,” Diggle said. “From what I can tell, it looks like there’s a history with this one. Something about an old case — but they only used a designated code.”

Felicity was more than happy to duck out of the spotlight and get back to the serious business of cleaning up the streets. She left her champagne on the desk and rolled back into her work chair, flexing her fingers with gusto. “Good thing someone has a habit of hacking into police files,” she said. “What’s the case number?”

“It was…2008/52.”

“You guys don’t really hog the limelight a lot, do you?” Tommy said, but he’d already pulled up a chair to sit beside her. “So who’s the new crazy?”

“Barton Mathis,” Felicity read. “Prolific serial killer, six victims in the Starling City area, the police think more elsewhere. Ramped up to one victim every three days. He only killed women — that's new — and he's still serving a life sentence in Iron Heights, but something about the new murder victim rang alarm bells. Even if the victim has —  _had?_  — man parts. Cue copycat rumors — shocker. Anyway, his case was closed six years ago, by —”

She fell silent at the name.

“Detective Quentin Lance,” Oliver said, and she could tell he was thinking, over some plan she’d _probably_ disagree with. “Maybe he can tell us.”

“Buddy, you said you’d give him time,” Tommy said. “I don’t think he’s ready yet.”

Oliver reached for his bow. “We don’t _have_ time. Felicity — talk me in.”

* * *

Oliver landed in a crouch on the ledge of the rooftop. He listened, not moving a muscle, waiting to get a read of his surroundings. The precinct was quiet — it usually was these days. Everybody was stretched thin in the aftermath of the Undertaking, every available police officer scrambling to cover more ground with fewer resources, stop the same crimes — if not worse — when the gritty inhabitants of the worst areas in town rejected them like a bad organ transplant.

It was times like these that Oliver wondered how much good he’d really done, as the Hood.

But there was a strong argument to be made that he was about to find out.

“Felicity, I’m in position,” he said.

“I know I’m the new guy here,” Tommy said, “but I still think this is one of your worst ideas. And I was around for spring break, ’06.”

“What happened in ’06?” Felicity asked, perpetually interested by his past exploits.

And Tommy was ever happy to volunteer the information. “An upside down keg and a trampoline.”

“Classy,” Diggle commented. "All right, everything looks quiet from the vantage point. I have eyes on the bait."

" _Thanks_ ," Tommy said sarcastically. "By the way, does this mean you've reconsidered the ban on me sticking my neck out?"

" _No_ ," Oliver answered. "You're going to go in, plant the bug, and get out."

Felicity snorted. "He's being unusually withholding," she said. “Diggle’s too conspicuous, Oliver’s hooded up, and someone needs to activate the bug remotely. You’re pretty much the only person who won’t look suspicious around the precinct.”

"I don't think the obstruction of justice protocol has a _Hottie_ exception, Felicity."

"Some people like the adrenaline rush."

She didn't sound fazed in the least, and Oliver allowed himself a brief smile at her boldness.

“Unfortunately, I don’t think your lady friend’s scheduled for a shift tonight, so you’ll just have to flex those flirty-flirt muscles on someone else. Desk sergeant Matthews has two monitors. Left is records, right is precinct surveillance," she continued. "You want to put the bug on the right — it’ll kill the panic button built into Det-Sergeant Lance’s desk. Hope you're not rusty, because he’s a hottie. Matthews — not Lance, I mean.”

There was a pause. ”So...I'm being pimped out.”

"Basically," Diggle answered.

Oliver cleared his throat. “Can we move this along? This serial killer isn’t going to turn himself in.”

“No need to get testy. Just stating the obvious.” Felicity’s typing was a familiar sound, and Oliver silently berated himself for being sharper than the situation warranted.

A drop of rain landed on the back of his hand, another hissing upon contact with the bright floodlights surrounding the Police Department insignia.

"All right." Tommy sounded nervous. "Going in. Anything else I should know?”

“You’re too pretty for prison,” Felicity said, and laughed at his dead silent response. “I’m kidding — you’ll do great. Just…try not to screw up.”

* * *

It was an eternity before anyone spoke again.

"Done," Felicity said. "The bug's online."

“Copy that.” Oliver drove an arrow into the concrete and twisted the cable around his fist, preparing to jump.

“Oliver,” she said quietly. “Remember, it’s not your fault.”

* * *

The open window at Oliver’s back was like a breath of warm steam to a frigid room. Sergeant Lance’s office was bigger than he’d expected, but darker somehow, and untidy, like a house overgrown with weeds because the owner couldn’t bring himself to care.

Raindrops streaked silently down the glass skylight in the middle of the room, their shadows tracing rivers down the desk and carpet. The only source of light came from the yellow office lamp on the desk where Quentin sat, surrounded by files.

Oliver listened for the telltale scratch of a pen, but there was only silence.

A clink of a glass, the liquid sound of something being poured. A dry cough and an unintelligible murmur, as if Quentin was steeling himself to do something.

Even from the corner, Oliver could smell the bourbon, and his heart sank.

_Not again._

Without quite meaning to, he rose from the crouch and his shadow stretched across the floor in Quentin’s line of sight.

The reaction was delayed, whether from disbelief or intoxication, Oliver couldn’t say for sure. But when it happened, it was like someone had shocked him with a live wire. He shot upright — too fast, too carelessly — and staggered, just managing to grab onto the edge of his desk for support. “Laurel?” he slurred. “Laurel, is that you?”

In his surprise, Oliver hurriedly scanned the room for signs that Quentin had seen something he’d missed.

Of course not.

Quentin was drunk, and devastated, and Oliver would have given anything to be able to give Laurel’s father good news. “No, sergeant,” he said.

The effect this time was instantaneous. “You bastard — how — I told you to stay away from me!” Quentin was fumbling on the underside of his desk, looking for the panic button the team had already taken out. “If this is some kind of sick joke to you, you can go to hell —”

“I’m not here to cause trouble,” he answered, staying at a safe distance while Quentin continued to fumble clumsily for help. “But I’m very sorry about what happened to your daughter.”

That started him laughing, breathless, wheezing laughs saturated with the scent of booze. Quentin continued to laugh, wiping his running nose, teetering back on his heels so precariously that it looked like he was about to fall…

Oliver hadn’t been around to see Quentin’s descent into alcoholism, or its effect on Laurel and his family, but he was witnessing its relapse. It was deeply unpleasant to watch, on every level, and he had to stop himself from rushing to help.

The guilt would give him away.

“ _You’re_ sorry,” Quentin repeated. “Okay. The man who killed my daughter’s… _sorry_. Well, I guess that’s all okay then. What do you need this time, huh? Is it a tsunami machine? A heat blaster? What can I do to help the city’s very own Robin Hood, huh?”

He gave another shout of derisive laughter, and Oliver’s hand clenched into a fist.

“ _Sorry_ doesn’t bring back my baby girl!” he shouted. “ _Sorry_ doesn’t explain what you were doing still fighting that black archer when the whole goddamn city was coming down. You — you _abandoned_ her in the Glades, and she — she —”

Quentin spluttered into silence, and made a drunken swipe for the glass like he couldn’t bring himself to finish. Oliver gritted his teeth as he watched — a man he considered part of his family — pour bourbon down his throat like it was water.

He was killing himself over Laurel’s death, slowly, but surely. Whatever Tommy and his ex-wife Dinah were trying to do for him, Quentin had loved his daughters more than anything in the world, and despite his best efforts to keep them safe, he’d managed to outlive them both.

“I didn’t kill your daughter, sergeant Lance,” he said softly. “But I feel responsible for what happened. I made her believe that the city could be saved with conviction, that it didn’t cost something more than bravery. I’m sorry for that. I know how it feels — I lost a friend that day too.”

“No.” Quentin shook his head, dogged, determined. “You don’t get to tell me that. You _don’t_ get to tell me that losing my daughter is something anyone else understands. She was my _baby girl_. She was — she was so much like me — it was like losing a part of myself — she was…”

He staggered again, this time because he’d used one hand to wipe the tears running down his cheeks. “What do you want from me?” he whispered, and it was a sound that revealed just how far he’d broken.

Laurel would have pushed forward. The final goal, helping people. That was what mattered. Whatever the personal cost.

“The Dollmaker,” Oliver said. “He’s out on the streets again, and I want to bring him in.”

“How — how did you know that?” Quentin asked. “You’re not supposed to know that. Nobody is — the force — Iron Heights — we kept it quiet. You weren’t supposed to know.”

“I didn’t,” he answered. “I had a suspicion, and you’ve just confirmed it. You were the detective on Barton Mathis’s case. Why is he choosing different victims this time, and what do I need to know to catch him?”

Silence.

Oliver decided to press. “I can bring him in, detective. You know I can. He’s killing innocent people.”

“So I’d be helping you find a friend, huh?” Quentin retorted. “Innocent people — you both know what that’s like.”

This was a mistake. Even at the best of times, Quentin’s drinking had veered towards excessive. Unhappy and intoxicated made him vicious, and he was lashing out like a wounded animal.

“You’re drunk,” Oliver said gently. “We don’t have to talk right now.”

It was the exact wrong thing to say. Quentin’s clenched fist slammed into the desk, and he pulled his gun from its holster, still shaking.

“ _Quentin_ ,” Oliver said, his hands raised because he didn’t want to hurt him. “Don’t do this.”

“You disabled the panic button, didn’t you?” he guessed, surprisingly lucid. “Smart move, but it still doesn’t change the fact that walking into a police sergeant’s office was the stupidest thing you could have done tonight.”

Alcoholics were good at covering their tracks, evading attention when it came to their substance abuse. Someone who’d fallen off the wagon as many times as Quentin knew how to maintain appearances of normal functioning, even while intoxicated. Oliver shouldn’t have underestimated that, but he still didn’t raise his bow.

“I’d be gone before you could call for backup.”

“Yeah?” Quentin took something else from the back of his belt, a tiny black signal emitter that was blinking red. “Response team — _now_.”

* * *

Tommy was in a _bit_ of an awkward situation.

On the bright side, Oliver was lurking somewhere in the building undetected.

On the not-so-bright-side, the part where Felicity checked the rota and found that McKenna Hall was unequivocally _not_ on duty at the precinct? Ha — _wrong_. How did he know?

Because she’d run straight into him (and vice versa), on her way out of a briefing, and said — of all things — _hi_.

God, he was so, incredibly going to prison.

“What are you doing here?” she asked again, in response to his non-response.

It took _everything_ he had not to let his eyes drift towards (a very amused) officer Matthews’ computer, where one fantasticallywell-placed piece of technology (hold the applause, please) was currently hitting snooze on every wired alarm in the sergeant’s office.

No pressure.

McKenna’s face — unlike the usual _I kinda want to kill you Merlyn_ expression — was still pleasantly curious, like she was actually… _glad_ to see him.

Of _course_ , his brain would decide to go and screw it up.

“Is that a gun in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?” he said, and immediately regretted the reflex. “Sorry — I’m on some funky pain meds — please don’t shoot.”

On the contrary, McKenna looked reassured by the terrible joke. “Oh,” she said, eyeing his sling. “How’s your arm? Do you want to sit down?”

Somehow, Tommy was being steered in the direction of her desk. Exercising a surprising lack of brusqueness, she sat him down in the chair meant for processing perps and slipped into her own (terrible color, saggy). “Sorry, I know it’s a mess,” she said, even though her desk was just about the neatest one in the tri-state area (unless label makers were standard issue for cops). “I’ve been so swamped — I got called in for a double because we’re so short staffed, and the chief just slapped us with another media gag order because of the…”

She seemed to think she’d reached the end of her sentence, and started poking through her crowded in-tray.

That piqued Tommy’s interest — while also reminding him why he was there — and he balanced the bag of bagels (distraction food for suspicious police officers) on the rail meant for handcuffs, leaning forward to hear her better, over the background chatter.

“ _Because of the…_ ” he prompted. “Serial killer?”

McKenna narrowed her eyes at the bag of bagels, like they had individually learned to curse audibly and in German. “Did you not hear me about the media gag?” she asked, looking up.

“Good thing I’m not media then.” Tommy flashed her his best pearly-white grin, relaxing into it. “Pretend I’m your conscience and tell me _all about it_.”

McKenna beckoned him closer with one finger, and he ducked his head obediently to listen. “You know I could shoot you right now — in front of a whole room of cops — and they’d still believe me when I said I had a good reason,” she whispered.

Tommy snorted rudely, all pretense at being cucumber-cool out the window. “Get in line, sister.”

Apparently satisfied that she’d delivered her boilerplate death threat, McKenna smiled back. “How’s the arm?” she asked. “Still sore?”

Tommy almost shrugged until he realized he couldn’t. “Nah, the doctor said it wasn’t serious. No tears in the — uh — _muscle_ _thingies_.”

“ _Joint ligaments_ ,” McKenna corrected, smiling. “That’s good. That’s really good. Hey, if you need a physiotherapist, I have — _so_ many names. After I got shot, I went through a bunch of them in Coast City until I found one I liked.”

Tommy already felt a stab of pity for the poor unsuspecting doctors, thinking they were getting a painkiller-ed patient who’d loll along like a sheep. “God, you’re OCD even when it’s about physical therapy,” he said. “You think they’d give me a discount if I badmouthed their most annoying patient?”

McKenna shook her head, tight-lipped smile almost — _almost_ — cracking wide open. “You’re funny, Merlyn. But you know there’s nothing wrong with asking for help, right?”

Tommy blinked, not quite getting the meaning. “Was I supposed to?”

“They told me you waived the security detail,” she said. “After the Hoods, do you think that’s a smart thing to do?”

“As much as I like the idea of a hot police officer sleeping in the next room —”

“—they wouldn’t _actually_ be in the house, that would kind of defeat the purpose —”

“—and I _know_ you’re dying to find out where I live —”

“—you’re living with Oliver and Thea at the mansion —”

“You just said the SCPD’s shorthanded,” Tommy finished. “Two officers could go a long way in the Glades, instead of protecting some pasty rich kid in the suburbs. I’ll be fine. Promise.”

McKenna only looked at him, totally unassured by his gesture. “Tommy. I’m serious. I know living with your best friend sounds like summer camp, but Oliver can barely throw a punch. What happens if someone else comes looking for Malcolm Merlyn’s only son?”

“Then…I guess the Arrow’s just gonna have to kick their asses again,” he said. “Worked with the Hoods.”

“I’m sure you want to think so,” McKenna answered. “But the Arrow’s not killing people anymore. I’m an officer of the law, and even I’m wondering if we were better off when the lowlifes were afraid of getting an arrow through the chest. He’s been back for two weeks and we’re not seeing a drop in numbers, especially now —”

She cut herself off again, and Tommy perked up. “Let me guess,” he said. “A serial killer.”

McKenna’s gaze flickered towards the staircase — the same one that led to Quentin’s office on the upper floor. The gesture was unsettling, but Tommy couldn’t quite think why. “Depends on who you ask,” she said, her tone giving him the impression that she was treading very carefully. “Tommy, I promise I’m not chasing you away, but I think you should g—”

She never finished her sentence, because at that very moment, two things happened.

The first was Felicity’s voice — taut with nerves — on the comms again. Tommy jumped, his hand almost flying to his ear because he'd completely forgotten about the earpiece. “Something’s wrong,” she said. “ _Oliver_ —”

Before Tommy could hear the rest, the second thing happened, and it was louder, not to mention a lot — a _lot_ — worse.

An alarm.

“That’s not possible,” he muttered, twisting around to make sure. _How?_

McKenna reached for her gun, along with every officer on the ground floor…and that was when Tommy realized she wasn’t startled at all. None of them were.

“Tommy, you have to go now,” she ordered, and started to get up.

Before he could stop himself, his arm lashed out and caught her by the wrist — not gently, either — as though he could stop her from running upstairs too. It was a purely instinctive reaction, one so fiercely protective that even Tommy was taken aback. A part of his brain was yelling at him to let her go, to play his response off as some kind of mistake... _anything_ that wouldn't make it abundantly clear that he was protecting someone. 

They stared at each other — whether it was in shock, confusion, or something else, Tommy wasn’t sure.

But _something_ happened, and McKenna’s eyes widened, just a little, at whatever she saw. Whatever she knew.

Like how the last time she'd seen him react this way, there'd been a Queen in danger.

Too late to take it back now.

 _Oliver — get out of there_ , Tommy thought desperately. _Now_.

* * *

The door exploded off its hinges and Oliver notched an arrow to fire, but there were too many of them. At least half a dozen SWAT officers, and they filed in to surround the room, blocking off all exits.

Half a dozen laser sights focused in on Oliver’s chest.

Trapped.

“I knew you’d have a problem listening to a warning. Congratulations, you’ve just ended your life as a free man,” Quentin said. “Cuff him.”

“Oliver, hold on,” Felicity ordered. “Digg’s going to get you out of th—”

She never got to the end of her sentence, because the skylight exploded without warning, and a figure dropped from the ceiling to land on the ground beside him.

It was a woman. Silvery blonde hair fell past her cheeks and forehead, concealing a face already half-hidden by a black mask. She was wearing black leather — toughened like armor — and small, deceptively so, but the graceful landing told him that she’d had training.

Enough of it to be dangerous.

All this, he absorbed within the first few seconds of encountering her. The only question remaining was…friend or foe?

“Who the hell are you?” Quentin asked.

Her arm moved in answer, and Oliver braced himself before he even knew what was coming.

Something flared blue-white in the palm of her raised hand, and a deafening shriek blasted forward like a shockwave. The sound seemed to strain and grow with each second, like a furious winged creature beating against the solid confines of the walls. It brought everyone to their knees with a unanimous — and instinctive — groan, and every glass surface in the room turned into a mass of spidering cracks, then a pelting cascade of fragments that spilled across the carpet and into the open street.

Rain poured in from the broken windows with the sound of thunder, and in the chaos, Oliver felt a hand on his arm. The masked woman turned to him, and there was a single second of confusion — because he realized that she was _helping_ him.

Quentin struggled off the ground. “Open fire!” he roared.

That snapped him clear, and Oliver raced towards the open window with the stranger at his side. Without a moment’s hesitation, they threw themselves clear of the building.

They landed on a lower roof of another wing, gunfire pelting at their heels, and Oliver sprinted across the wet concrete, chasing the masked woman into the cover of a back alley. Meeting Quentin and Laurel in secret meant that  _he_ knew the architecture of the precinct building and the DA's office like the back of his hand, but he wasn't expecting the stranger to dodge around the corners and blind spots even faster than he could.

She'd done this before.

Both of them were breathing hard from the escape, and police sirens grew steadily closer as they moved further into the shadows. She was light on her feet, almost silent, striding ahead without a backward glance. The rain was coming down fast now, a grayish fog that only served to make her difficult to read, harder to catch — more like a ghost than ever. “Who are you?” he asked. “Why did you help me?”

She stopped in her tracks, her head slightly turned as though she wanted to answer.

Then the white-gold curls flashed as she sprang towards the fire escape, swinging up into the rafters and vanishing into a fine mist of rain.

Gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of things:  
> 1) So Felicity isn't Oliver's secretary (sorry, executive assistant) in this rewrite. *Ducks projectiles* I love the humor of the storyline in the show (coffeemakerrrr), and there are some pretty amazing fics written about Felicity as Oliver's EA anyway (shhhh Pidanka I'm still reading His Girl Wednesday). This one's just a little bit different.  
> Reasoning:  
> Obligatory legal disclaimer: I am NOT an expert in company law or anything like that, but Chief Technology Officer is an executive position that would put Felicity on the board (or at least a higher level of executive management) alongside Oliver, who probably needs her help anyway. She'd be managing the research/intellectual property side of QC like patents for new inventions, and directing cybersecurity services (I refuse to believe that IT just did tech support for the whole company). It's not making her Vice President or anything (*cough* Ray Palmer), but it's certainly something within her capabilities, from my POV at least. Plus it's still completely possible that Isabel would think Felicity and Oliver are hooking up behind her back, so...Russia episode's still a go :DDDD  
> In my defence, I asked around and it's never really been mentioned what kind of company Queen Consolidated really is. Besides a science-y company. Plus this is fanfic, so ARTISTIC LIBERTY FTW.  
> 2) This is such a weird problem to have, but when Tommy’s in the picture to pull Oliver’s head out his ass, Olicity actually might end up getting together sooner than I expected. What should I do? Postpone? Sound off.  
> 3) If any of you have watched Ally McBeal, you know they used the Wicked Witch of the West’s theme for Lucy Liu’s character when she stomps through the office. That’s what I have in my head when Isabel clears a path through the crowd :D  
> 4) Oh, and don't read too much into Brie Larvan being around. I was just looking for a small character that I didn't have to make up by myself. Plus the bee puns in that last episode was a special kind of NOPE. I'd rather all the genius ladies just be friends.  
> 5) @dirtieedee, I put the Smoak Alarm line in there! Wasn't exactly what we discussed, but eh, felt right.
> 
> **Next Week: Continuation of the Dollmaker arc.**


	5. Playing God (The Dollmaker, Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Sorry for the late update, I've been at summer school and the workload piled on. (Northwestern is amazing!! Deep dish pizza is fantastic!! I got free frozen custard at Navy Pier!!!!!) Aherm. It's a long chapter this time, so hopefully that kind of makes up for the delay :)

Not for the first time in his relatively short life, Oliver was in an alley.

More accurately, he was crouched on a fire escape in half-shadow, itself painted an indeterminable color, coats of paint as chipped and in need of repair as the building at his back. If he closed his eyes, he could picture the small corner of the Glades beyond the narrow vertical window at the alley mouth — the electric hum of neon signs for pawnshops and seedy strip clubs, the belligerent drawl of the occasional drunk stumbling out of a crowded bar, small scuffles breaking out in the main street…

It was like nothing had changed, and maybe nothing had, not really. The Glades had suffered a savage wound in the form of an earthquake, and it might have been given a haphazard suturing to close the skin, but the damage went deeper, and whatever it looked like on the surface — the city was still bleeding.

“The mayor was supposed to close these places down,” he said, to no one in particular.

Diggle’s inhalation was sharp and sudden, like he’d been lost in thought too. “In his defence, maybe it would have made it on the agenda at some point — the Hoods just got to him first,” he answered. “Leave the politics to Sebastian Blood, Oliver. We have a serial killer to catch.”

Oliver grunted. “That’s what I thought. So why did you send me here, Felicity?”

“James Wolfe,” she said, so smoothly that he knew she was reading off something she’d hacked. “Chief Warden at Iron Heights Prison — squeaky clean record, which usually means that it isn’t. He was promoted from deputy because his supervisor quit, right after the quake happened in the Glades. Now tell me that isn’t suspicious.”

Oliver shifted slightly. “It might be,” he said. “What else?”

Instead of sounding irritated by his reservation, in his mind’s eye he saw Felicity crack her knuckles in preparation for her usual brand of magic, her smile a gleam of pure mischief. “Sometimes I wonder what it takes to impress you boys,” she said. “I’ll see one squeaky clean record and raise you one geologic projection of the Glades area. Merlyn’s earthquake machine was specifically placed to trigger active fault lines in the geological zone for maximum damage, and get this — one of them runs right through the east wing of Iron Heights Prison. Other places on the fault lines reported damage, but Iron Heights didn’t.”

“You know how that place is built, Felicity,” Diggle said reasonably. “It’s meant to be a fortress. If any building could withstand a quake, it’s Iron Heights.”

“That’s what they _want_ you to think, which is why I looked through their blueprints. The prison was built in the forties — that’s before seismic retrofitting, before advanced earthquake engineering. The structure shouldn’t have been able to withstand that kind of magnitude without at least some serious foundational damage, but the fact that they reported an _all clear_ doesn’t make any sense.”

Diggle exhaled, reaching the same conclusion Felicity had. “They don’t want people looking too closely.”

“Bingo. A massive quake hits Iron Heights and suddenly a known serial killer’s on the loose again?” she said. “Can’t be a coincidence.”

“Okay, I’ll bite,” Oliver conceded. “Where’s Wolfe?”

“Thought you’d never ask. Getting to Mr Wolfe in Iron Heights would be suicidal — not to mention impossible to squeeze into your weekly visits to your mother — which is why we’re lucky that James has a bit of a gambling problem…and you’re one drop away from his favorite underground casino.”

Oliver looked down immediately, just like she knew he would.

“Let’s see…he went in two hours ago, but _super_ lucky for us, he’s just getting an urgent text about a breakout at Iron Heights, and should come running _ri-ght_ out. Funny how these things work, isn’t it?”

Felicity was definitely smiling now, and he was helpless to do anything except humor her. She could make the contrived sound whimsically simple, like fate was something she could take into her own hands and change with a few keystrokes, adversity be damned.

It was a powerful feeling to have.

“I think that’s your cue, Oliver,” Diggle said, sounding just as amused.

“Hilarious,” he said. “I assume you’ll give me a count.”

“My pleasure,” Felicity answered, as the door just ten feet beneath him started to open. “Three — two —”

 _One_.

Oliver shot an arrow into the ground near the mouth of the alleyway; it sparked off the concrete and buried itself in the wall beside the man’s head. Wolfe’s wordless yell of fright echoed against the narrow walls, and he whipped around, eyes frantically searching the dark for signs of movement.

“What — who — _gargh!_ ”

The next arrow looped a wire neatly around his ankles and lashed tight, wrenching him into the air, upside down and thrashing like a fish.

Oliver emerged from the shadows.

“James Wolfe,” he snarled. “You have failed this city.”

* * *

Good thing Felicity’s new office was soundproof.

“I don’t know anything — please! I swear!”

If Felicity wasn’t so used to the crisp _snap_ of arrows being fired (and in her place of work, it was an occupational hazard), she would have jumped. But she didn’t, and leaned forward to try and calibrate the voice-based polygraph test, the same one Diggle was looking at in the Foundry. “Well, he wasn’t lying about his shoes,” she said. “But to be fair, the questions are about to get a little harder.”

Almost on cue, another arrow went flying, and she heard a high-pitched yelp of fear. “The Dollmaker — he’s been killing people in the Glades and leaving the bodies for the police to find. Where is he?” Oliver growled.

“It’s a copycat! All over the news — it’s someone pretending — Mathis’ still serving a life sente—”

“ _Lie_ ,” Felicity and Diggle said at the same time.

A thud, and another cry. “Don’t make me ask again. Where — is — he?”

Not many human beings with a functioning amygdala and sense of self-preservation could withstand Arrow in his hooded-up glory, much less when he was in full intimidation mode — lethal arrows and _I could kill you_ snarl inclusive. If Felicity was a betting person — and she sort of was — she’d put five bucks on a pee stain somewhere on Wolfe’s pants.

But saying that out loud would have ruined the moment, just a _teensy_ bit.

“He got out! He got out, okay? The quake — the quake collapsed part of the east wall and the debris crashed through the cellblock. Our security systems failed because of the power outages and we lost twenty inmates, but my supervisor got muscled by the mayor into keeping things quiet. He was up for another term, and having a prison break along with the undertaking was just bad press for everyone!”

“Except the men and women Mathis choked the life out of, you son of a bitch,” Diggle said mutinously. “There’s a pressure point behind the leg, I say we give it a poke to remind him to tell the truth.”

“He’s not lying,” Felicity added, though she didn’t entirely disagree with Diggle and the temporary break in level-headedness. “The twenty inmates were all high-risk or worse. So Iron Heights really did cover a mass breakout, and Mathis is the one dropping bodies in the Glades.”

There was a wet squelch, and Wolfe practically screeched. “What else?” Oliver roared.

“T-that’s all I know — I swear!”

Felicity shot upright. “What did you do?” she demanded.

“Reminded him that he has a shoulder,” he answered shortly. “Singular, if he doesn’t tell me what I need to know about Mathis. What — else?”

“Mathis wanted to make dolls…h-he called it preserving beauty. The guy’s all about balance a-and order, perfecting the imperfections — playing _god_. He’s a complete psycho — he killed another inmate in prison for touching one of his drawings, choked him with his own bedsheets.”

“So what?”

“The detective! T-the guy who put him away — _argh_ — I can’t remember his name, but Mathis was always talking about him in prison, he — he said he’d make the bastard pay for spoiling his projects —” The confession tapered off into another yell of pain.

“ _Who?_ ”

 _“Lance!_ ” he shouted, like it was a hail Mary. “It’s Quentin Lance! That’s who Mathis wants. _Please_ — please don’t kill m—”

There was an unmistakable _sock_ of someone throwing a punch, and Wolfe went unceremoniously silent. “He’s out,” Oliver confirmed, already moving onto the next order of business. “Now we know it’s Mathis, we can run down his connections — anyone he may have contacted after getting out of Iron Heights, any place he’d use as a hideout to plan his kills. He may be choosing different victims this time, but the ultimate goal hasn’t changed — it’s still about playing god.”

“That’s all well and good, but god isn’t known for playing well with others,” Diggle pointed out. “It’ll make him harder to catch.”

Neither of them seemed to be taking issue with the same point as Felicity did. “Um, the warden just said Mathis wants a rematch with sergeant Lance,” she said, ignoring the phone buzzing on her desk (mostly because the only two people who _actually_ called because of emergencies were accounted for). “Shouldn’t we do something about that?”

“Lance is as safe as he can be if he stays in the precinct,” Oliver answered. “I’ve learned my lesson about approaching the sergeant as an unwelcome visitor. The fastest way to do this is to put the Dollmaker away before he ramps up to getting revenge. Safehouses, old haunts, allies. I need names — now. You heard Wolfe, Mathis doesn’t divert from order. If he’s killing, he’s doing it on a schedule.”

“But —”

“I think you’re both right,” Diggle interrupted, before Felicity could finish her protest. “But Tommy just called, and we can deal with hunting down Mathis after your party.”

Felicity wasn’t sure about anyone else, but she’d made the mental jump straight to _birthday_ and was now wondering if she knew anyone who still did streamers and balloons.

“What party?” Oliver said, sounding just as blank as she did.

In lieu of an answer, Diggle connected the comms to Tommy’s incoming call.

“Where — are — you?” he said, muffled like he was speaking through his teeth. “Shark Lady’s circling, and I don’t want to know what happens when she realizes the idiot best friend makes good chum.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Your house, _dipstick_ ,” Tommy said furiously. “I’m wearing black tie instead of sweatpants because you decided to volunteer the mansion as a party venue, remember?”

Felicity’s stomach did a twenty-story plunge and she made a dive for her calendar. “Frack,” she breathed. “The investor party. We were supposed to be there —”

“—thirty minutes ago, yeah,” Tommy finished. “You need an assistant, and Oliver needs a good excuse.”

“I don’t have a dress, I totally forgot —”

“—it’s fine, I’ve got everything covered. Just _get_ here. Cannot stress this enough — I’m too pretty to be shark chow. Okay? Okay.”

* * *

Not for the first time in his extensive career as Oliver’s best friend, Tommy was having thoughts of murder.

In his defence, killing Isabel in his imagination felt like trying to shish-kabob Godzilla with a toothpick, so it was just more satisfying to imagine himself strangling Oliver in the warm safety of the kitchen, stuffing his face with stolen appetizers while the catering crew bustled in and out of the swing doors.

Laurel — in legal terms — might have called it _transferred malice_.

“Not that I’m complaining about being in the presence of free booze,” Thea said, garment bag swishing as she dangled it from her wrist, “but asking me to put in an emergency order for a dress and that _I-wanna-kill-Ollie_ look on your face really puts a Little Sis duty on me to ask questions. Is the dress for him? Because he’s _really_ gonna stretch it out around the chest area.”

Tommy immediately reached up to feel his face. “Ask me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies,” he mumbled, around his hand. “Did you actually get it?”

Thea fluttered her eyelashes. “Perks of being a frequent customer. It was a toss-up between the Calvin Klein or the Zac Posen, but I’ve always wanted to see if my brother could pull off a sweetheart neckline.”

“ _Lifesaver_ ,” Tommy said, exchanging the bag for a kiss to her forehead. He’d already stashed Oliver’s tux in a choice changing room spot, locked and loaded for a maneuver that would possibly land him a first-class ticket to hell.

He laid the bag carefully on a chair behind the kitchen counter, out of the way of the catering staff. “You may reward yourself with free food and absolutely no booze. Seriously, I talked to all the bartenders and they _will_ card you, baby Queen. _Or_ — Rosalie Cullen from Forks, Washington. Really? You chose _Twilight_ for your fake ID?”

Thea smacked him squarely on the breastbone. “It was a phase, and I reserve the right not to be judged for it.”

“Too late,” Roy interjected. As always, he had a box of liquor under his arm, and had come in from the back door. “Where do you want the champagne, boss?”

“Uh, by the bar’s fine. And not that I’m _not_ glad to see you,” Tommy said, eloquently and in a double negative, “but I didn’t invite hothead over here.”

In response, Thea slung an arm around Roy’s shoulder, resting the side of her head against his like they were about to take a cute selfie (he had her Snapchat, so there were a _lot_ of those). “We’re kind of a package deal. It’s this thing I’m trying where I psychologically condition the family into thinking Roy’s part of any and all social gatherings.”

“Plus I do all the heavy lifting, and I never leave leftovers,” Roy added. “Parents love me.”

Tommy tried very hard not to picture himself showing up on his dad’s doorstep, arm in arm with Roy and cheesy, mushy grins on their faces. Suffice it to say there were a _lot_ of things he was trying not to imagine in that scenario. “Cool it, sparky — you automatically win if one of the parents you’re meeting is in Iron Heights prison.”

“Don’t be jealous, I know it took a while for Moira to soften up to you,” he answered. “People just can’t say no to this face.”

Tommy faked gagging on a satay stick, which wasn’t hard, since Thea was feeding Roy shrimp cocktail in front of him.

That being said, ever since the thing with the Hoods, Roy had been noticeably…less Roy-like to Tommy. Not in the sarcastic sense, because Roy Harper would be overflowing with snark until the day the pearly gates (or the trapdoor to that smoky other place) opened up to take him.

But he was nice. Snarky the way Felicity was snarky, two friends messing around. Roy’s soft spot was incredibly obviously Thea Dearden Queen, and Tommy had proven that his talk about being like a big brother wasn’t just talk by giving himself up to the Hoods instead of her.

Yet another silver lining to being kidnapped and almost murdered.

Tommy saw a flash of red through the doors and ducked. “Oh hell.”

A little too late, and Isabel Rochev strode through the doors with a literal bang, smoke practically hissing from the top of her head. Her gaze slid past Thea and Roy without registering, probably because she’d sighted the prime target for her warpath.

Why, oh why had he been blessed with such good looks?

“Where is he?” she demanded.

Thea raised her eyebrows at the total and complete lack of a greeting, while Roy — still chewing — cracked his knuckles ever so quietly, as though it was a reflex to someone he wanted to punch.

Tommy surreptitiously turned his phone facedown — though not before checking for text alerts — and tried his best polite smile. “Since you asked me fifteen minutes ago?” he said. “He’s on the way. And very sorry. And did I mention on the way?”

“That was when he was only half an hour late. As of just now, it’s forty-five, and I’m getting _dangerously_ close to losing my patience.”

Personally, he thought the use of _close_ was being a little free with the old semantics, but knew better than to point it out.

“Oliver will be here,” he promised. “He just had something urgent come up. Couldn’t be avoided.”

Isabel smiled, showing her teeth, but not in the nice way. More like the big bad wolf, minus the meat breath. “Mr Merlyn, I’m well aware of your track record in covering for Mr Queen and his…activities. It hasn’t escaped my notice that I’m not only missing my fellow CEO, but my Chief Technology Officer as well.”

There was a pause as the implication — deliberately made — sank in. “Uh,” Tommy said. “No.”

Out the corner of his eye, he saw Roy make a face, in the vein of _what even was that response_?

Lame. That was what it was. But it was the first thing that came to mind. Just — _no_. Oliver wouldn’t, not the involved-with-Felicity part (because god only knew Tommy had been trying to steer him that way), but the fact that he would cheapen her promotion — deserved, by the way — because of their relationship, which was still firmly cemented in the _platonic_ neighborhood.

Add reason #120 to dislike Isabel. Making other people small was her hobby, and crushing them beneath her Manolos was just for kicks.

“Really?” she said, with little to no inflection that suggested it was anything more than a rhetorical question. “Because the two of them seem to be conveniently absent from the same party, and neither of them have been answering my calls. Put that together with Miss Smoak’s sudden promotion from being an IT girl, and his playboy best friend laying on the excuses…it seems to me like Oliver’s slipped back into some old habits.”

“Isabel —”

“Miss Rochev will be fine, Mr Merlyn,” she corrected. “I’d prefer not to be on first name terms with the son of a mass murderer.”

_Ouch._

“I’m sorry, Miss Rochev,” Thea said, with an unnervingly bright smile on her face. Collateral damage from the _mass murderer_ dig, which seemed to have been directed at her too. “But could we try to keep things professional here? At least until Queen Consolidated isn’t the name on the business cards.”

Isabel smiled her _big bad wolf_ smile at Oliver’s sister. “Of course,” she said, ostentatiously leaving out an apology. Her icy gaze flicked back to Tommy, who nearly winced. “Say what you will about my management strategy, but at least I have the decency not to put forward a candidate who slept her way to the top.”

“Not all of us have to,” he said sharply, realizing at the very same time that it was probably a bad thing to say out loud.

Isabel’s lip curled again, but she seemed to decide decapitating him wasn’t nearly worth the trouble, and turned smartly on her heel to go. “I’ll expect you to let me know when Oliver and Felicity _bring_ themselves to show up.”

Then she was gone, stilettos clacking sharply on the floorboards, probably the least wanted guest in the mansion’s history. And that was saying something, because the Queens threw a _lot_ of parties.

Roy whistled. “Nice one,” he said, and held out his fist.

Tommy bumped it half-heartedly, while Thea leaned on his back, elbows on his shoulders. “Mom’s right. I do _not_ like that woman,” she said, and cocked her head. “And I just _can’t_ imagine why.”

Tommy reached up to rub his eyes, exhausted already. “Yeah, she’s a real charmer.”

“Is…Ollie sleeping with her?” Thea asked, pulling at the top of his ear like it was an answer buzzer.

“Who? Maleficent?” Tommy made a _yuck_ face. “No. Ew. Not unless he wants brain freeze. What would that even — you know what? I’m not going there.”

Thea rolled her eyes. “Not her. Felicity. I didn’t go to business school, but I don’t think CEOs usually get dresses for people who work for them, do they?”

“Trust me,” Tommy said darkly, already thinking about where he was going to hang up the two garment bags. “He wishes.”

* * *

They were so, very much screwed.

Felicity dropped her phone onto a shelf like it was a hot brick. Her memory of events was a little foggy (thanks to Tommy and his stupidly good taste in red wine), but she was pretty sure she’d thought setting the Wicked Witch of the West’s theme song as Isabel’s designated ringtone was a stroke of comedy genius.

Now? Sober? Not so much.

“ _Gah_ , she’s calling me,” she said, trying to get the shoe off her foot without toppling over. “God, we’re so late.”

Oliver was evidently in agreement there. Blanking on the party during Isabel’s decade-long stretch of foul mood was bad enough, but the cherry on top of the whole messy sundae was the fact that the only person left covering for them was Tommy Merlyn, and his idea of a convenient, out-of-the-way changing space was a disused closet adjacent to the mudroom in the Queen mansion.

The _mudroom_ , for Chrissakes, what even _was_ that?

The closet was a narrow wooden rectangle in the recesses of the wall, barely big enough for two Olivers to fit into, not to mention full of elbow-banging hazards thanks to rows of unhelpfully empty shelves and a line of hooks for hanging raincoats. Or whatever people put in mudrooms (mud would have been too obvious, surely).

Felicity was reminded of how unavoidably close Oliver was when he reached around her to switch out the identical garment bags hanging on the wall hooks. “Yours,” he said, oblivious that his beard was ticking her ear — and not unpleasantly, either. “Did you choose the dress?”

Oliver Queen was exhibiting an interest in fashion. It had to be the end of the world.

“Uh, no. Why? Is it bad?” she said nervously, eyes darting between him and the (hidden) dress.

Cue a non-committal noise, and Oliver turned back to hang up his tux. “It’s green,” he said helpfully. “I’ve never seen you in green.”

Felicity felt herself stall mid-movement, because he’d since stripped down to a white t-shirt, and surprise, surprise — it was a look that could only be described in a string of vivid expletives. Calvin Klein and wet t-shirts could go screw themselves, because Oliver…

…was being perved on. By Felicity. Who was going to stop, right now.

 _Good girl_. There was a glass of red wine and cocktail shrimp waiting at the end of the tunnel, if she didn’t jump his bones before the fact.

But she still stared long enough to see him grasp the collar of his t-shirt — about to pull it off — and she whipped back around, eyes squeezed shut, heart pounding in her throat.

“Speaking of seeing — and not seeing — modesty rules still stand, right?” she said, keeping her tone light and breezy. “No one turns around, and we pretend this never happened.”

“What?” Oliver started to turn, but Felicity reflexively crossed her arms over her chest with a high-pitched yelp of indignation that stopped him short — even though she was still fully clothed, and had zero idea she was even capable of making that noise.

“Sorry — sorry,” he said hastily, facing the other way. “There were modesty rules?”

Clearly he was thinking of all the times he’d changed in the Foundry — self-consciousness being a foreign concept to vigilantes and their perfect abdominals.

To hide the fact that _she_ was thinking about his shirtless upper body, Felicity busied herself with swapping her earrings. “Well, obviously not for you,” she answered primly. “ _You_ could live shirtless, no questions asked. Modesty rules were invented by people who look like me — y’know, people who _would_ get asked questions. Anyway — I have a tattoo on my lower back that can and _will_ scar you for life, so no peeking.”

“You have a tattoo —?”

It was a complete lie, but Felicity unzipped the garment bag with a savage — and illustrative — yank. “Unless you want to end up like Oedipus, stay curious.”

There was a pause as Oliver attempted to puzzle out who, or what, an Oedipus was. “I skipped English in college, but I’m guessing that has something to do with my eyes.”

Felicity grinned. “You’re learning.”

Even with her back turned, she could tell he was rolling his eyes. But she had bigger problems to worry about. Tommy Merlyn had chosen a dress for her, and given his track record in the realm of dating bimbos, she gingerly peeked through the folds to check on his idea of _black tie_.

Her first thought was a sigh of relief, and her second was… _wow_.

The skirt slithered out of the bag in a waterfall of silk and pooled at her feet, softer than butter and liquid-cool to the touch. It was as green as a summer in the park, a bed of grass under the sun, the kind of style and color— just _dress_ , in general — that Felicity would never have chosen for herself. It was a movie moment kind of dress, the kind that went with stairs and bright lights and watching eyes, and she couldn’t help but think it was a compliment that he’d picked it out for her, for the first party attended as a CTO.

_Here’s hoping it fits._

* * *

Oliver was starting to think that Tommy’s sense of humor had played a bigger part in the current situation than he’d previously thought. Maybe it was the fact that Felicity kept finding miscellaneous parts of his tuxedo lurking in her garment bag, or the fact that Oliver kept having to twist into increasingly awkward positions in order to avoid brushing up against her while he changed — but something was clearly happening here.

His best friend was a complete ass.

It helped somewhat that they were still arguing about unfinished Foundry business while they changed. “We need to keep an eye on sergeant Lance,” Felicity said, and tossed him a bow tie that had ended up with her dress. “If Mathis is out for blood, he deserves to know.”

“I don’t agree,” Oliver answered, mid-hunt for one of his missing suspenders. “Lance can take care of himself — it’s the people Mathis is killing in the meantime that need to be protected. The fastest way to do it is to shut him down.”

“ _In the meantime_ ,” she stressed. “And for the record, you wouldn’t be this calm if it was Laurel that Mathis was out to get. I know he shot at you, but —”

Though justified, the remark rubbed Oliver the wrong way. He prided himself on being logical, not to mention analytical to a fault, but the events of the previous week had shown the exact opposite. He’d always had a problem with maintaining objectivity when it came to the Lance family, and bailing him out of trouble had come down to a stranger in a black mask.

Which stung.

“If Laurel was still around to be a target, I wouldn’t have had to string up James Wolfe in the first place,” he retorted sharply. “You’ve seen what Lance does when the Arrow’s around. He won’t help me with information on the Dollmaker, and the trap he set at the precinct means he’s a hindrance.”

“I think you’re forgetting — ” Felicity’s voice sounded like it was coming from through her shirt, and Oliver, for the most ill-advised flash of a moment, was tempted to turn around and help her with it.

No, _no_. Bad idea.

“—that psychos have a bad habit of kidnapping people they have a bone to pick with,” she finished. “If you shadow Lance long enough, and Mathis might do the _hunting-down_ part of the job for you.”

It was a surprisingly comical situation, because only they could start and continue a heated disagreement while changing frantically inside a closet, irretrievably late for a workplace function that formed part of their cover identities. Oliver resolutely kept his back turned while he put his arms through the sleeves of his shirt, trying not to think about how she was probably missing hers.

“I can’t take that risk with innocent people. We need to run leads — figure out how Mathis chooses his victims. That way we’ll know who’s at risk, and stop him before he takes someone else.”

“No one said we were going to stop working the case,” she muttered. “Just…priorities. Speaking of, your secret admirer in the black leather — any chance she’d be open to helping you again?”

“No,” he said immediately. “I don’t want her help. The city can’t get overrun with vigilantes — especially not vigilantes using weapons like her sonic device. She’s dangerous, and finding her only means telling her to stand down.”

Felicity gave a sarcastic _tcha_. “So is it a man thing?” she asked. “The part where you refuse to share your toys — sorry, city. Because it sounds like you’re making a snap judgment on someone who saved your life.”

Oliver had an indignant answer at the ready, but something glanced off his shoulder and slid to the ground. He turned to look without really thinking, and instantly wished he hadn’t.

It was a bra — simple, black — thrown carelessly out of the way while she was changing, and he didn’t trust himself to make a sound that wasn’t completely inarticulate. He didn’t need to know what Felicity was or was not wearing under her dress — out of sight, out of mind.

“Goddammit, Tommy,” he growled.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Priorities. He was the CEO, and his main concern was to get dressed for the party, a task that did _not_ encompass being painfully aware of every small noise coming from behind him.

He wasn’t supposed to hear the zipper on her skirt and the shrug of fabric as she pulled it off, or the silky sound of her hair being pulled loose from its ponytail, whispering around her shoulders as she moved.

She bumped against him — or maybe it was the other way round — and they both murmured apologies at the same time.

The mood had changed. Felicity was either too busy changing to talk, or — like him — couldn’t think of anything to say, but now that no one was speaking, it seemed to have gotten excruciatingly obvious that neither of them were particularly dressed, that a careless shift could mean a brush of skin on skin, or that they hadn’t quite been…like _this_ before. Ever.

Oliver’s breathing was unbearably loud to his own ears as he fastened his shirt studs, pushing them through the openings with fingers that were only slightly shaking.

He’d just gotten the suspenders up onto his shoulders when Felicity cleared her throat. “Um,” she said. “Could you — uh — help me? I can’t reach the zipper.”

Oliver tried not to swallow too loudly, and made a noise that might have passed for _yes_. Very carefully, he turned around to face her back, moving one step at a time. He’d kept his eyes fixed on a point above her head, but he had to drop them now — which he did — as gingerly as if it was something he was trying hard not to break.

The first thing that struck him was the green. Her dress was the same color as the jungle in Lian Yu — on the days when the sun streamed through the clouds and filtered through the leaves — the days he’d felt close to home, like he was standing in the garden back in Starling. It was narrowed at the waist, falling in graceful folds past her hips to sweep the floor, and laid open to the base of her back, waiting to be closed.

It would have been so easy to act on, this…impulse. This unbelievably vivid curiosity. Oliver wasn’t a stranger to the human anatomy — there were pressure points and nerve centers, there was need and there was relief. There was no reason to be fascinated with something as commonplace as a back, yet he was.

An intricate network of muscles and bone, delicate shadows and surprisingly subtle detail that shifted with each breath. There was a scattering of freckles on her skin, so light that he’d never have noticed, without getting as close as he did now. He could see himself trailing a curled knuckle from the base of her spine to the nape of her neck, following the furrows in the middle of her back, brushing her hair away to plant a kiss on her shoulder. He’d done it before, though inebriated and with entirely different people, but he had.

There was no reason — but _all_ the reasons — why he wasn’t doing it now.

It wasn’t the right time.

He wasn’t sure.

And she didn’t — not for him. Why would she?

So he zipped up the dress, just as she’d asked. “Done,” he said softly.

“Thanks.” Felicity blew out her breath and turned around, arms out by her sides. “How do I look? Be brutal.”

 _Beautiful_ , but Oliver couldn’t say that.

In the thick of it all, he’d forgotten — a relatively common occurrence these days — that it was her first company function, coming hot on the heels of her unexpected promotion. Numbers and reports she could take in her stride, even showing _him_ what to do in the process. But with the social side of running a company, Oliver had the edge in experience.

Which was what he’d had in mind when he promoted her — a partnership, strengths and weaknesses, in the day, and at night.

“I honestly can’t think of an answer to that question that won’t land me in hot water with Human Resources,” he said.

It worked, and Felicity laughed — but she clapped both hands in front of her mouth to muffle the sound, bearing in mind where they were.

They grinned at each other, their disagreements forgotten in the spirit of being co-conspirators.

“I _think_ that ship may have sailed,” she teased, and reached around him for the bow tie he’d left lying on a shelf. “Human Resources probably doesn’t know I’m in your basement every night. And not in a creepy, Dollmaker kind of way.”

“What HR doesn’t know won’t hurt them,” he said, watching what she was doing with a small measure of surprise. “You’re good at this.”

“I used to follow my mom to work at the Grand,” she said. “Dress code for waiters and bartenders was black tie, and I got bored with homework — _fast_.”

Oliver couldn’t quite suppress a grin at that one, at the thought of a tiny Felicity jabbering away with questions of her own until the adults caved into the demands of her irrepressible curiosity. “You never cease to surprise, Miss Smoak.”

“I believe that’s why you promoted me, Mr Queen,” she answered, finishing his bow tie with a flourish. “Handsome as ever — just don’t tell HR I said that, because I’ll deny it if you do.”

Oliver took her word for it, and shrugged into his tuxedo jacket. “Not a soul,” he promised.

Felicity gave the sleeves a tug to settle the shoulders, brushing them off for him with pride. “Now, I believe we have a party to get to.”

Oliver agreed, and carefully eased the door open. Music and laughter filtered in from the drawing room and foyer, something that felt inexplicably to him like an invasion of a quiet moment.

“Felicity?” he said.

She was peeking through the narrow crack between the door and frame. “Mm?”

“There was no tattoo,” he said in her ear, without quite knowing why.

Though he did, deep down, somewhere. In his own, unbearably stilted way, it was to tell her that he’d noticed. That he _always_ noticed, when it came to her.

Felicity turned her head slightly, and their faces were very close together — just for a second — under the same dim light. But she smiled back. “Our little secret,” she whispered.

* * *

“Hey! Don’t you look handsome,” Tommy said, signaling to a champagne-carrying waiter. “Where’s F—”

Oliver, who had been stalking towards him with extreme purpose, clamped his hand around Tommy’s elbow in a tight (and _ouchie_ ) pincer hold, steering them both towards the garden doors. “I’m going to kill you.”

“Ow, ow, _ow_ ,” Tommy protested, trying to wriggle out of the pinch. “What gives?”

“Very funny, Tommy,” he said, in super-specific detail. “The only unoccupied room in the whole house was a _closet_?”

At that, Tommy had to laugh (or cackle), despite Oliver’s clear willingness to shoot the messenger, because it wasn’t every day that the Starling City vigilante let himself get tricked into a closet-change scenario with his bona fide object of (not-quite-hidden) affection. “Hey, I said you could trust me,” he said, snagging them a glass of champagne each. “ _Not_ that it was a good idea.”

Oliver narrowed his eyes. “I know twelve different ways to remove your —”

“What are we removing?” Felicity asked, having caught up with Oliver’s semi-homicidal march.

Tommy immediately shifted gears and offered her the champagne meant for Oliver, leaving him empty-handed. “My jaw from the floor,” he said. “You clean up nice, Smoak. I believe _dynamite_ ’s the word.”

She looked surprised at the compliment, which told Tommy that his dinkus of a best friend had forgotten his manners. _Or_ — and this was a personal favorite — Oliver been too busy imagining what the dress would look like on his floor. But somehow Tommy doubted it, given the fact that they collectively looked like a five-star hotel room on check-in day. Utterly uneventful.

“Oh. Thanks,” she said, one-handedly smoothing down the skirt. “ _Although_ , not sure how I feel about fighting off pure evil in this. I’m more of a kicker — well, flailing counts as kicking. I think. Unless we’re talking about professional sport classifications, in which case —”

“— we should probably go,” Oliver said hastily, glancing around as though he’d scented the Unnamed Evilness herself. “The investors should meet Queen Consolidated’s capable new CTO.”

“Who’s _that_?” Felicity asked, half-waving at Tommy while she let herself be steered away.

It didn’t escape his notice that the object doing said steering was Oliver’s hand, placed on her back in a very gentlemanly way.

_Dammit._

“Get in trouble, you two,” he called. “Don’t be responsible. Don’t make good choices!”

Oliver gave him the finger without looking around, and Tommy snickered.

This was going to be interesting.

* * *

As far as sour beginnings went, the investors’ party — for all its stuffy and booze-requiring implications — nevertheless turned out to be something as entertaining to watch as sports. Tommy’s glass remained unfilled while he stood at the bar, watching everything play out on the main floor.

Oliver was in a conversation with Sebastian Blood, Felicity at his side in a _perfect_ dress (thank you, Thea Queen), once again proving that she wasn’t meant for librarian clothes, and that green was most _definitely_ her color.

Less good was the way Isabel watched the two of them like a bad-tempered hawk (and that was saying something, given a hawk’s boilerplate expression was set to _scowl_ ), as though the sight of the power pairing was adversely affecting the taste of her champagne.

Note to self — Tommy needed to come up with a name for said power couple. Just in case.

Grinning to himself (while also wishing Diggle hadn’t opted out of the party), Tommy toasted himself and necked the drink.

Bad idea when there was a sparkling beverage involved.

“Hey,” someone said, just as Tommy was about to let loose a champagne-induced burp.

McKenna stood awkwardly in front of him. Not _awkward_ because she was awkward (he’d never met anyone more sure of herself in a good way, ever), but more self-conscious than usual because of the lack of a uniform.

A dress. A very nice one.

“You — uh — dress,” he blurted, and immediately tried to cover it up. “Did you buy stock in the company?”

“No, nothing like that,” she said. “People at city hall got the invites too, and the commissioner asked a few of us to represent the force at the party. I forgot how to lie about having plans.”

“Right,” he said, continuing the tradition of lameness (he had a record going). “I like the dress.”

It needed to be said that Tommy was usually better at not being a moron on purpose. He hadn’t seen McKenna since the encounter at the precinct, where he may or may not have outed himself by accident as knowing more than he let on, especially where random security alarms were concerned and vigilantes showing up at police stations.

A week on, and he still hadn’t figured out a cover story for her benefit, not having much access to people good at actual deceit.

Oliver’s ability to lie in front of people who’d known him since acne days (pure figure of speech since zit-repellent genes ran in the Queen family) was stilted at best, and Felicity’s was a kind of terrible that bordered on hilarious. Diggle’s response was to fold his arms and answer in monosyllables until the person left, but they’d practiced in front of the mirror and Tommy’s arms were just about as effective as chicken legs in the intimidation game.

So — in other words — _no_.

Which left him with the old chestnut from his glory days as a chronic bed hopper — avoiding the girl until hell or high water, whichever came first to kill them all.

Well, not _quite,_ since he hadn’t even gotten a chance to enjoy the fun parts this time. Just thinking about it made his back itch, like there was a red target for McKenna’s police-issue taser, reserved strictly for psychotic cokeheads and perverts.

_Shudder._

McKenna seemed to think it was better to pretend the dress compliment hadn’t happened, and she leaned her arms on the bar instead, like they were just two friends who’d met at the same bar.

Hopefully the _friends_ part was still current.

“So,” she said.

Tommy signaled to the bartender for some drinks. Stat. “So.”

“You’ve been avoiding me.”

Tommy silently pleaded the Fifth Amendment. “I thought you’d be busy — _busier_.”

“Because there’s a serial killer on the loose, and a vigilante broke into the sergeant’s office,” she guessed.

“Wasn’t it two?” Tommy said innocently. “Vigilantes, I mean. Not serial killers.”

McKenna accepted the glass of scotch with thanks and toyed with the rim. “I choose my words very carefully, Merlyn. Vigilante implies that I should be hunting him down in my capacity as a detective. I believe one of them — the one who broke the glass — is someone to be careful about. But not your friend the Arrow.”

“He’s not —”

“Tommy,” she said, simply, but firmly. “Please don’t lie to me.”

He looked down at his drink. “Don’t I go to prison if I tell the truth?”

“Not because of me,” she said.

Tommy’s eyebrows lifted. “But you’re so…straight. Laced. That’s what I meant, not —”

“God, I forgot how much you talk when you’re nervous.”

He gulped from his scotch, throat burning. “Sorry.”

“I’m not stupid, Tommy. I know you. You’re the last person who’d forget what the Arrow’s capable of. Laurel was the only person the vigilante ever went to for help, besides her dad. You know he’s dangerous, and you know that Quentin blames him for what happened. So why don’t you?”

“Because I know who killed her, and he’s dead,” Tommy answered.

“And now you’re helping the Arrow.”

“That’s not a question.”

McKenna appraised him. “I don’t think the Arrow’s the bad guy, not in Starling anyway, and I’m guessing there’s a reason why he decided to show up at Quentin’s office.”

Tommy didn’t say anything, but she did.

“There’s a case he wanted help with, something the sergeant knows best,” she continued, like she was only thinking out loud. “But it has to be big enough to take the risk of getting caught. The Dollmaker, right? The Arrow still hasn’t put him away.”

Not for the first time, Tommy was having trouble with his words. “Why are you telling me this?”

McKenna exhaled, like she’d made a choice that was _do or die_. “It’s my way of asking…how can I help?”

* * *

“According to the case file, when the Dollmaker was active, he killed every three days, which — unfortunately — gives us only one to catch him,” Felicity said, her glasses pushed up into her hair from tiredness. “Even Buffalo Bill took his time.”

Tommy winced. “Sorry,” he said, like it was his fault. “Delivery came late.”

“We wouldn’t have the case file if you hadn’t talked to McKenna,” Oliver said. “Felicity, what do we have?”

The billion-dollar question. One that still remained frustratingly unanswered, despite hours of peering at the scanned photos of the murdered women, their eyes open and vacant and staring under the stark light. And that wasn’t even mentioning the Gothic doll dress-up after the fact.

“Lots of haystack, still no needle. As if Barbies weren’t creepy enough — he’s adding Ken dolls to the list,” she muttered.

“Wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened after prison,” Diggle remarked, flipping through the dense file. “It says here that Lance was stumped when it came to how the Dollmaker chose his victims. But Wolfe thinks he’s out to play God. Maybe it’s based off some kind of common imperfection, and he’s trying to fix it — favor to humanity, and all that.”

Oliver shook his head in disagreement. “Men like him don’t go after flaws. They want perfect results, so they start with something as close to it as they can get.”

Felicity started typing. “Workplaces…teacher, real estate agent, lawyer…there’s no commonalities there. Education, background, race — nada.”

“What about the dudes?” Tommy asked. “Killing guys is out of character — what did they have that the women had too?”

“The first guy headlined at the local theater, the other guy worked sales at a high-end department store. No similarities in their file — except that the Dollmaker decided he liked them.”

“Did they ever cross paths? One of them worked in a store. They might have met at some point. What was he selling?”

“ _Mermaiden._ High-end skin cream,” Felicity read. “Crushed mother of pearl, and— _aha_ — consistent with something found on one of the female victims. I’d still have to check for consistencies in the other cases, but this could be our lead.”

“Comb through the evidence files,” Oliver agreed. “I think we have a way to intercept Mathis before he chooses his next victim.”

“Wait —” Felicity caught him by the arm. “What about Lance?”

“What _about_ him?” Oliver’s face was blank. “He doesn’t need to get involved. Warn McKenna to watch the stores. He’s on a schedule.”

Tommy nodded. “And you’re off to…?”

“A chat with Mathis’s lawyer. Call McKenna — now.”

A door slammed, and Diggle patted Tommy sympathetically on the shoulder. “He does that sometimes.”

Tommy scoffed. “Bark orders like he needs German subtitles? Excuse me while I get on _that_ one. Hold up — I’m buzzing.”

He pulled out his phone, and Felicity saw his jaw clench, like it wasn’t good news.

“Hey,” he said, not quite meeting their eyes. “I’m on the way.”

* * *

The bar doors opened to a cloud of stale cigarette smoke and spilled booze. Music spilled from the blinking jukebox in the corner, and micro-climate was humid and sticky inside the Chinatown staple, like a lukewarm beer left out for too long. Thursday night meant empty tables and only the most staunch loyalists in attendance, including but not limited to the object of his late-night visit. The light was so red and dim that it made Tommy’s eyes hurt, but he still waved to the bartender, who pointed him to the other end of the chipped red bar, no explanations required.

“Cut him off before I called,” he said, and dropped a set of car keys into Tommy’s palm. “Lucky you.”

“Lucky _him_ ,” Tommy corrected. “Thanks, Mike. I’ll take it from here.”

He didn’t forget to slip the guy a twenty — a more solid _thank you_ for keeping an eye on one of the more troublesome Lances — and went up to a half-snoozing Quentin, slumped on his arms with one eye on the flickering TV.

“Hey buddy,” he said, patting him on the back like he was dealing with a child. “How about we get you home, huh?”

A hand flapped in his direction. _Go away_.

Unfortunately, he had the experience _not_ to take no for an answer. “C’mon,” he said, and hoisted Quentin off the barstool, wishing he’d body-swapped with someone bigger — like Diggle.

But nope. It was the wobbly stagger down to the car, parked in a neighborhood of questionable safety, while weighted down by a fully-grown adult who was too inebriated to use his legs.

The moderate level of upper body strength meant that he basically manhandled Quentin into the backseat, though karma paid him back for it when Tommy cracked the back of his head against the car roof, hard enough to see stars.

He cursed, a long and furious string of expletives, rubbing the bump at the back of his head.

The wind was picking up, tearing through dried leaves and street litter with a vengeance. The air tasted of rusted pennies, the ferric tang of an impending storm. Time to hurry home.

A slammed door in the distance set off a chorus of barking dogs and Tommy whipped around, his heart thumping against his ribs. Steam hissed from grates embedded in the street, swirling around buzzing neon signs in ghostly breaths of murky color.

Slowly, as though waiting for something to go wrong, Tommy scanned the alleyways and street corners, holding himself very still. The edges of the car keys dug into his hands as his grip tightened. Spider-shivers crawled along his skin, and he couldn’t explain them, not at all.

Except that it was the feeling of being watched.

“Hello?”

No answer.

Tommy shook his head and hurried around to the driver’s seat. “Idiot,” he said to himself, as the wheels screeched across the concrete, because he _was_ rattled. “ _Idiot_.”

* * *

“I didn’t need you,” Quentin mumbled, his nose in a mug of fresh coffee. Pink-faced from the booze — and possibly having to be carried all the way up from the car — he was in a worse mood than usual, which was saying something.

“You and I have very different definitions of what constitutes needing someone,” Tommy said, banging the coffee filter on the side of the trashcan to dislodge the old grounds its owner had forgotten to empty. “Feel like eating? I’ve been practicing my poached eggs.”

A muffled gagging sound. “I’d rather not see it in reverse, so no thanks.”

Since the divorce, Quentin had moved out of the family house and into a smaller two-bedroom in a decent area of town. He’d never been much of a stickler for neatness to begin with, which made the backslide into _not-caring_ all the more obvious as Tommy inspected the corners of the small apartment. Though he was relieved to see only one stack of dirty dishes in the sink, and unexpired milk in the fridge. So that left about ninety-two percent of the cleaning for him to do.

The kitchen had a little window opened to the living room, which made doing the dishes while he kept one eye on Quentin an easy thing to juggle.

“So,” Tommy said, over the hot water rinse.

The TV was already on with the volume turned to low, and Quentin reached under the coffee table for a stack of thick case files, spreading them out in front of him, their spines creased and pliant like it was a well-established routine.

“ _Don’t_ ,” he interrupted. “All week, people have been treating me like I’m sick. There was an incident at the precinct, I’m not made of glass, so don’t ask me if I’m okay. Okay?”

“Sure,” Tommy said. “So are you okay?”

Quentin gave him a look in the vein of _don’t make me shoot you, kid_. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t look fine. You look tired.”

In his considerably learned opinion, _tired_ was a polite euphemism to describe what was going on. Quentin’s eyes were bloodshot, the skin on his face perpetually a shade between purple and red, and he’d missed a speck of shaving cream just under his ear. Tommy knew he had spare clothes lying around the precinct for when the sweats kicked in, but he’d picked up the task of watching over Quentin from Laurel’s years of experience, and her dad wasn’t fooling anybody.

Too bad the Lance family motto was _Stubborn as Mules_. The carrot and stick couldn’t and wouldn’t work because they’d burn the stick and beat him over the head with the giant mutated carrot.

“I’ll sleep all I want when I get the job done. And for the record, this —” he waved his hand around at the files, as though they were surrounded by the mess at the precinct, instead of his barely-lit apartment “— _this_ is why you don’t let one guy run around the city dressed like Robin Hood for a year. More freaks in costumes show up and start a club. The vigilante brought a friend — had some kind of weird sonic thingy that shattered all the glass. But I've got him on the run. The Hood —"

"— _Arrow_ ," Tommy corrected, more out of reflex than anything else.

Quentin stared.

"Uh, that's just what I've heard.” Tommy scratched a nonexistent itch behind his ear, and reached for a towel to dry the soapy water sliding down his forearms. “He’s calling himself the Arrow now."

"Hood, vigilante, _Arrow_ , doesn't matter," he said dismissively. "He's going to prison for sure this time."

“I thought the SCPD’s job was to go after bad guys.”

Quentin turned to face him. “It is,” he said. “But I thought you’d be the last person I’d have to try and explain that to.”

The edge in his voice was impossible to miss. “The Hood didn’t kill Laurel, Quentin,” Tommy reminded him, very quietly. “We both know that.”

“He left her to die in that building.”

“The guy uses a bow and arrow, Quentin,” he said. “How was he supposed to stop a falling building?

It wasn’t quite pleading, but almost, because at this point, he wasn’t sure what the anger was doing other than pushing Laurel’s father into a deeper spiral made up of alcohol abuse and unresolved grief.

“I don’t know!” Quentin barked, his face scarlet.

All the sound seemed to shrink into a quiet — at the same time _loud_ — ringing in Tommy’s ears. He stood rooted to the spot, his heart thudding painfully in some leftover kid reflex from being shouted at by a parent — or someone as good as one.

Quentin glowered fiercely, as though daring him to disagree again. “I don’t know,” he repeated. “But he should have tried.”

Tommy knew the same argument, because he’d been over it, the same circular tracks, over and over again, trying to reason his way into trusting Oliver — trying to remind himself that finding someone to blame was easier than accepting the reality of the situation, that sometimes, there just... _wasn't_. No rhyme, no reason. Bad things just happened.

But he knew from experience that _bad luck_ was the worst thing to say to the bereaved, and any conclusion — any closure — was something that Quentin needed to reach on his own. As much as Tommy cared about him, he couldn't take that away.

So he said: “You’re breaking her heart.”

“Yeah?” Quentin’s eyes were flint. “Because last I checked, a six-foot piece of steel took care of that, and the only man I blame is the Arrow. Thanks for the concern, kiddo, but I know how to deal with this. Let me do my job, and you stick to yours.”

“My job,” Tommy said, not so quietly anymore. He turned the water off with a slam of the faucet — hard enough to rattle the counter — and strode back into the living room, around the mess of old newspapers and takeout boxes and untouched _dust_ …lying there like evidence of a life gone to hell.

Because Quentin was _letting_ it.

“As far as I know, my _job_ is running Verdant. Not taking care of you. But I can’t stand letting you kill yourself because you can’t face the facts — Laurel is gone, and you can’t blame the Arrow for it.”

The first photo on top of the pile? The old sketch of the Hood.

With a serial killer on the loose — he was still trying to hunt down someone who wasn’t even an enemy.

On one of the few occasions in his life, Tommy’s temper flared.

He slammed the file shut. “Stop it,” he said. “Stop it right now. There’s a serial killer running around the Glades again — a man you put away six years ago.”

“How did you —?”

“It’s all over the news. Everyone’s afraid — and it’s not because of a vigilante. You need to get your head out of your ass, and start helping for real.” Tommy bent and searching under the heaps of files for the one he was looking for.

_There._

Photos of the murder victims spilled across the table, before and afters, living juxtaposed against the dead, smiling young men and women in graduation caps and green parks, and staring, dead dolls.

“Any one of these girls could have been Sara, or Laurel,” he said, enunciating each word with care. “Don’t tell me you’ve lost sight of what’s important.”

“Stopping Mathis won’t bring their daughters back,” Quentin retorted, too quickly.

“Neither will blaming the Arrow,” Tommy reminded him. “If anyone knows how to catch him, it’s you.”

Quentin rocked back and forth, his hands clenched into one tight ball in front of his mouth. He wasn’t looking at Tommy, but at the pictures lying on the table. Old ghosts.

His phone was buzzing again — someone calling, probably Oliver. Tommy exhaled, long and slow. “The Arrow’s trying to do things differently this time,” he said, almost gently. “Maybe you should too.”

Unfortunately, there was work to do. Tommy turned, one hand reaching for the door, the other for his phone. “Yeah,” he said, letting himself out into the hallway. “I’m on the w—”

There was a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye, a dark shape blooming from the shadow between door and elevator. The needle sank into his skin before Tommy could yell, and he hit the ground, as heavy and jointless as a doll. The front door — not quite closed — swung wide, and he watched someone step over him, into the apartment.

“Hello detective,” said Barton Mathis. “Long time no see.”

* * *

There was something acrid in the air, something waxy, burning…

Tommy started awake from a drug-induced haze, and was immediately greeted with the rattle of a metal frame, to which he was securely fastened — upright, Hannibal Lecter transport-style — using a series of strategic zip ties around wrist and ankle. Even his throat.

“Not — again,” he grunted, and started to struggle.

Not that it helped much, except make the sharp plastic dig even more into his skin. He said a bad word, blinking hard to adjust under the harsh spotlight. It was like someone had decided to put him on display, and it took him another second (dammit, drugs) to remember why that was instinctively terrifying.

Two-zero, Tommy Merlyn kidnapped again.

“ _Tommy_ ,” Quentin hissed. “Are you okay?”

Past the light, similarly in a position of restraint, was Quentin Lance. He’d been handcuffed to a cluster of rusted pipes, and the purplish swelling on the side of his head was a pretty good explanation as to how the Dollmaker had wrangled them into… _wherever_ this was.

“Yeah…yeah — fine.” Tommy’s voice sounded slow and drugged, like he was speaking at fifteen bpm instead of fifty. “Where…where are we?”

“Why, you’re in my workshop,” said a voice, before Quentin could attempt an answer. “Sorry about the wallpaper — I haven’t had much time to decorate. I’ve left all my best pieces scattered around town.”

“Mathis, he’s just a kid,” Quentin rumbled. “Leave him out of this, now. It’s me you’re angry with, not anyone else.”

The emotion in his voice went unnoticed. Mathis was leaning on a heavy long bench, stirring something white and milky inside a glass beaker. Beside him, surrounded by test tubes and handyman tools, was a small black pot, tall and lidded like it was meant for cooking lobsters.

Somehow Tommy had a feeling that the end result wasn’t going to be served up with some drawn butter and a shiny silver fork.

“Oh _hell no_ ,” he said, and heaved at his restraints. “I refuse — to be — one of your — Chucky dolls.”

“Such an indelicate way to put it,” said Mathis, sounding vaguely disappointed. “I’m doing you a favor, you know. The Ancient Egyptians viewed preservation as a gift — a blessing to be carried into the next life.”

“Yeah? They also worshiped dung beetles and made scrambled eggs out of dead people’s brains. I want out of this narrative — _now_.”

Mathis only smiled. “I’m afraid that’s not quite up to you, young man.”

A cloud of steam billowed from the pot when Mathis lifted the lid and emptied the stirred beaker into his Master Stew of Pure Evil. It hissed and spat, and prompted both Quentin and Tommy to struggle harder, but of course the serial killer didn’t see, not while he was digging through his box of horrors.

“Mathis!” Quentin shouted. “Leave him alone!”

Tommy didn’t realize why Quentin was yelling until a length of rubber tubing snaked over the side of Mathis’ arm, and he remembered — like a freight train hitting home — how all the victims had died.

Suffocated with boiling plastic.

“I’m not sure if you’ve heard,” Mathis said, his tone almost pleasant, “but I like to start my process when the subject is still alive. No sense in wasting life while we wait. First I heat the polymer — my special recipe — to the _precise_ temperature of blood, then I pour it down the esophagus while it hardens. Most people try to struggle — it’s human reflex to fight oxygen deprivation — but I’ve made some adjustments to the formula. It works faster, dries quicker, and you’ll barely feel a thing. But you’ll see for yourself, won’t you? Well —” The mask went over Tommy’s face, the elastic snapping around his ears “—the detective will, anyway.”

“You son of a bitch!” Quentin roared, half-sprawled across the floor in his attempt to get free. “He’s got nothing to do with this, you sick, twisted —”

“He has _everything_ to do with it!” Mathis snapped back, his composure evaporating in a sudden blaze of fury. “I was going to leave you alone. Your daughters were your life and worth — your purpose in this goddamn twisted world — and when you lost them both I was happy to take the high road, let you bleed out with that shredded, pathetic little excuse for a soul you had left. Nothing left to hurt, no eyes left for me to take. But then…” He tapped his fingers against the canister while he poured the steaming plastic straight from the pot. “You went and found yourself a son.”

Tommy made a noise of surprise — most of it muffled by the plastic between his teeth. _A son?_ _Him?_

“I’m sorry, okay? Is that what you want to hear?” Quentin was shaking, whether with anger or genuine fear, Tommy couldn’t quite tell. “I’m sorry for what I did to you. There? Are you happy?”

Mathis exhaled, like he regretted the unfortunate slip in his composure. “Sorry, detective — but the answer’s still no. I’m afraid this young man doesn’t get to walk out of this room alive. I intend to stomp out what little soul you have left, and leave you writhing in the dark like you left me.”

“Tommy, I’m so sorry,” Quentin whispered. “I should’ve listened.”

Tommy shook his head. _Not your fault_.

Mathis waited, the poison ready to pour. “Any last words?” he asked.

 _Go to hell_ , Tommy said, as best as he could.

He tapped his ear in a mocking gesture. “Sorry, didn’t quite catch that.”

Something whistled through the air and sliced straight through the glass, spilling the polymer all over the wet concrete.

Oliver landed on the table in full Arrow gear. “He said _go to hell_. Barton Mathis — you have failed this city.”

* * *

Oliver was late. But he intended to make up for it in full.

Mathis took off as soon as he drew the next arrow, vanishing into the shadows with a flash of silver hair like the rat he was.

Tommy took an explosive breath of air as soon as Oliver sliced the mask off, toppling the whole stand with a crash. “Another dramatic entrance,” he panted.

Quentin was on the ground watching the whole thing unfold, as silent as a stone. Oliver turned, a flechette in hand, and broke the lock on the handcuffs with a slam. The steel cuffs clattered to the ground, and with the sergeant freed, they stared at each other, a moment of pure uncertainty.

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Quentin’s face. “Go,” he said finally. “You’re doing things a new way? Prove it. Go — _go!_ ”

Oliver nodded, and took off without a second glance.

The chemical plant was abandoned and showed all signs of it, cracks in the floors hissing dust at a careless step, chains clanking loose from unsecured parts, left to rot and fester from disuse. He caught a pale flicker ahead — silver to the point of whiteness like Mathis’ hair — and forged ahead, his bow drawn and ready to fire.

“Mathis — it’s over,” he warned. “Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be.”

“You…didn’t…come alone,” was the returning hiss.

Oliver entered the small courtyard, lit only by a narrow shaft of moonlight, and realized he’d sighted the wrong mark.

Silver curls stirred in the invisible breeze, ghostly in the low light. Mathis was on his knees, rasping, his eyes bloodshot from the pressure of the metal staff sinking into his Adam’s apple. “He didn’t have to,” said the woman in black, her voice harsh with blistering hate. “Scum like him don’t deserve prison — it’s a castle to them, and their twisted dreams.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Oliver said, slightly lowering his bow. “And you’ll never find out if you let him go without making him face justice.”

Her eyes seemed to narrow behind the black mask. “This _is_ justice,” she said.

Oliver began to shout a warning, but the muscles in her arms tensed — and she wrenched them sharply to the side, Bo staff and all.

The snap of a neck was a terrible sound.

Mathis landed on his back, eyes as vacant as the dolls he’d made of innocent people, his glasses cracked and broken from the fall.

Oliver stared at the Dollmaker’s body, feeling more hollow than ever. All this…doing things the right way, not killing…

Just for another corpse. Another killer escaped.

“We’re more alike than you think,” she said, backing into the shadows. “More than you’ll ever know.”

“Why?"

But she’d already gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I've Frankenstein-ed aspects of 2x03 and 2x04, hopefully that wasn't too painful for anyone. I haven't decided what the next update is going to be yet, but I'm thinking Russia. Suggestions are very welcome :)


	6. Boilerplate Rescue Mission (Moscow, Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I know, I know, I'm heinously behind on the schedule, but eh. Life. Way. TV is amazing these days. Anyway, here's the first part of the Moscow adventure, enjoy!!!!  
> Helpful summary: everyone thinks Oliver is sleeping with Felicity.

Oliver shifted in his seat, trying to hide how restless he was. Ever since his narrow escape from the full force of the SCPD (one time of many), sitting in the visitation room of Iron Heights prison felt like an unnecessarily cheeky move.

His phone vibrated for what felt like the twentieth time that hour, but instead of answering, Oliver reached over and turned the ringer off. Isabel was free to stomp around QC as much as she wanted, but there was no room for her to intrude here.

“Trouble at the office?” Moira inquired, flipping through the company reports he’d brought her.

Oliver shook his head. “Not important enough for me to miss this.”

A smile warmed her face. “You’ve already made me a proud mother, Oliver. There’s no need to spare my feelings. You’re CEO now — you can’t very well be seen dashing off to visit your mother in prison when there’s a company matter at stake.” She sighed. “Though I’m afraid you might have to. Twelve strangers in a jury box aren’t exactly the kind of odds I’m comfortable with.”

“Mom —” Oliver reached across the table to take her hand, an instinctive response to the thinly veiled admission of the defeat. It was rougher than he remembered, the veins and marks on her skin showing more prominently than they’d used to — whether from age or stress, he wasn’t sure. The prison hadn’t let her keep her rings, and he could see the faint lines where the wedding band and engagement ring used to sit, a part of his mother’s glittering armor, the power and influence she used to keep around her like a protective aura.

Without them, his mother was more vulnerable than he’d ever seen her, and he still didn’t know what to do.

Seeing him lost for speech, Moira squeezed his hand. “You’ve always been such a sweet boy,” she said gratefully. “Whatever happens, _that_ is what I will remember.”

Oliver managed a small smile. “You make it sound like I’m twelve.”

Moira gestured at the open files in front of her. “I feel like you just brought home your report card for me to sign,” she said teasingly. “But I’ll admit to being surprised at the lack of failing grades. I shouldn’t have worried about you — clearly I should have had the company declared bankrupt a year ago, if that was what it took for you to show your business acumen.”

“I had help,” he said, and they both knew who he meant.

Moira looked down at her neatly folded hands. “How is he?” she asked, her voice controlled to the last decibel.

“Walter sends his regards. He’d visit, but…Starling National keeps him busy.”

They both knew it was a lie meant to spare hurt feelings, that Walter didn’t visit because of the untruths responsible for destroying a marriage, and his mother’s smile grew a little muted. Only for a second. She was a Dearden, born and raised, and they — not unlike the Queens — were too experienced in the little nicks and scrapes of the world to let themselves be fazed by them. So she accepted the greeting with a gracious tilt of her head. “Likewise. I’m glad Walter still thinks of you as family — I should hate to think my mistakes deprived you of a father figure.”

There was a strong argument to be made that Oliver’s mistakes had cost him another one of those. Quentin Lance had always been gruff before the Queen’s Gambit went down, but kind, in his own way.

Those days were long gone now.

“Anyway.” Moira cupped Oliver’s face briefly in her graceful hands, warm with affection. “We’ll say no more about it.”

They paused long enough to share a smile, and she went back to poring over the reports while Oliver watched, memorizing every small micro-expression, every tic, as though it was something at risk of being lost.

Moira frowned at something in the update reports. “What’s this? You’ve made some personnel appointments.” She looked up, eyebrows raised. “Who, may I ask, is Felicity Smoak?”

Oliver actively resisted the urge to fidget, which was stupid of him, because it wasn’t like he was bringing Felicity over to meet his mother. It was an innocent question by someone who’d run the company and knew it inside out.

“I promoted her to Chief Technology Officer,” he said. “She took over IT during the buyout crisis, and she’s fully qualified to handle the responsibility now that things have settled down.”

“Yes, but twenty-four’s rather young to be in an executive management position, wouldn’t you say?” Moira’s tone of voice gave the impression that she was treading very carefully around a sensitive topic. “Perhaps it would have been wise to appoint someone with a little more experience.”

Oliver didn’t quite understand what the problem was. “I’ve worked with her personally,” he said, a little bemused. “She’s something else.”

Moira inhaled sharply, and shut the files with a crisp _snap_ of paper, her hands folded in front of her like she was expecting bad news — or delivering it.

“Yes, well, that’s what I’m afraid of. Oliver, forgive me for not mincing words, but a sexual harassment lawsuit at the executive level could be _disastrous_ for the company’s image, and its finances, not to mention a smoking gun Miss Rochev could use to terminate your role as CEO.”

There was a moment in which Oliver processed the _non sequitur_ , and the frown once he did. “Mother,” he said, with every ounce of dignity he could muster. “I am _not_ sleeping with my CTO.”

Moira only widened her eyes a little, as though she was daring him to attempt another lie. “Are you _absolutely_ sure?”

“Whether I’m sleeping with someone on the board?” Oliver said, as sarcastic as she was dubious. “Yes.”

“Then why did you promote her out of nowhere? As unpleasant as it is to discuss, that’s all anyone is going to think when a young — and I’m assuming, _attractive_ — woman gets elevated from an obscure position at the back of the company to being at the forefront of its leadership. People are going to gossip, Oliver, and given your past exploits, I think it might be wise for you to reconsider —”

“I am _not_ firing Felicity,” he answered, more sharply than he’d meant to. But he had no intention of backing down. “That’s out of the question. She’s important to Queen Consolidated.”

“I’ve heard that line from your father,” she said, just as bluntly. “Usually it was for his newest mistress, though he almost always limited himself to making them his personal secretary. He was very discreet, that way.”

The last part was colored by sarcasm, the leftover resentment from an unresolved conflict that was between Robert and Moira. Not him.

Most certainly not Felicity.

“I’m not dad,” Oliver said, before realizing that the only example he had to support his answer was strictly non-disclosable to his mother. She could never know what Robert’s last words were to him, or that he’d spent the last year hunting down the people on his father’s list — trying to fix his mistakes.

 _Tried_.

Moira chafed his forearm gently. “I’m sorry to say that you are,” she said. “You are _more_ alike him than you know, Oliver, which is why I want you to be careful. For my sake. Robert — your father — sometimes…sometimes he’d let himself get too attached.”

There was something in Moira’s voice that warned of things going unsaid, but before Oliver could press the subject, his mother folded her hands back in front of her, all focus directed on the company files he’d brought.

“Now,” she said, her tone proclaiming it a closed discussion, “what have you done with IT?”

* * *

"How do you make non-alcoholic whisky sound appealing?" Tommy asked, trying to figure out how to text Quentin a recipe for booze-free drinks (fourteen days sober now) that _wouldn't_ get him the digital version of being flipped the bird.

"Terrible?" Diggle volunteered, and Tommy — in his infinite discretion as supreme manager of Merlyn affairs — decided to leave it for later, reaching for a beer instead.

_Ow._

“Something just clicked,” he said, wiggling his upper body in an attempt to suss out the unknown joint responsible for the unsettling noise. “Is it normal that I don’t know what clicked?”

Diggle squinted at him over a bottle of ice cold beer, clearly unbothered by the workout. “If training with me scared you that much, I’d hate to see what sparring with Oliver would do to you.”

He had a point. A basic self defense session downstairs had ended with a few bruises and a belated realization that police-style boxing with Laurel hadn’t exactly prepared him for the underbelly of Starling City.

Especially an underbelly that had an inexplicable interest in kidnapping a certain mouthy (albeit extremely attractive) bartender.

Hence it was a relief to troop upstairs to Verdant — pre-business hours — and dip into the house stash, ice and booze inclusive.

“Oh, shut up,” he said. “Besides, you saw his reaction. You’d think getting kidnapped twice would be a red flag that I need some serious karate moves, but _no-o_. It’s like I asked him to chew off his wrist and make meatloaf with it, or something.”

“Well, that’s turned me off meatloaf _forever_ ,” Diggle said matter-of-factly. “Look, Tommy, Oliver’s just trying to protect you. That’s the only way he knows how. Felicity’s been with us for a year now and he’s never trained her himself. It’s easier on his conscience to take a step back when it comes to the people he cares about.”

Tommy uncapped his beer against the bar top and flipped a towel over his shoulder. “You don’t agree?”

Diggle gave him a look. “I’m not good with denial. The people in my life aren’t going to be the safest ones in the world, and if they’re happy to learn — I don’t see why not.”

That struck Tommy as slightly inaccurate. “Pretty sure your girlfriend could have taught _you_ a thing or two. Wasn’t she a spy or something?”

“Mm — that’s Lyla.” He nodded around a swig of beer. “Never said my life wasn’t complicated.”

“What’s complicated? Meet girl, like girl, girl like you back — _boom_.” Tommy shrugged. “What’s so hard about that?”

Diggle snorted. “We are _not_ discussing my love life without shining a light on yours too. What about the detective?”

“ _No-oo_ ,” Tommy said, ducking beneath the bar to rummage for the good stuff. “I’m not drunk enough for this conversation.”

“Chicken.”

Tommy clapped a hand to his heart. “You wound me. Also — takes one to know one.”

Diggle chuckled. “For the record, Lyla’s the one playing defence. She hasn’t said a word to me since she found out that I was still looking for Deadshot.”

“Using her super-secret spy network,” he guessed.

A tip of the beer bottle signaled _yes_. “I deserve that. After what he did to my brother, I’ve always had a problem seeing clearly when it comes to that bastard. Carly, Lyla, they both know it. Most of the time it made us fight, and when it didn’t — that’s because things were already over.”

Tommy winced. “You know, most people stick with having the crazy ex-girlfriend lurking in the background… _not_ a trained sniper with an eye problem.”

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned since last year, it’s that you can’t choose _complicated_ ,” Diggle said, and they tapped their drinks in a (slightly off-balance) toast. “ _Complicated_ chooses you.”

* * *

Another working day was in the process of winding down, and as it almost always did, it found Felicity working at her desk with a vengeance (and a pen in her mouth), trying to clear as much as she could before the start of her unofficial shift down in the Foundry.

She vaguely remembered it being easier, the business of finishing QC stuff before getting to the part of her day she loved the most. The work at present involved a lot more careful reading and conference calling, while drafting encrypted emails full of complex advice to twenty different big-business clients terrified of their cybersecurity.

Then again, she hadn’t exactly been in charge of (what felt like) a bajillion different departments and sub-divisions and _sub-_ sub-divisions, basically being responsible for _not_ blowing a metaphorical hole in a troubled company’s image with sub-par security, sending already jittery investors running straight for the hills.

Plus R&D, not to mention remembering everyone’s names when they showed up at her office to make their (many) reports.

Thinking about her old cubicle downstairs made Felicity a little wistful, and she fought stubborn little urge to step back into pre-promotion, pre-earthquake Felicity, the one with a drawer full of comfy sweater vests she wore unapologetically to work and unremarkable kitten heels, maybe the occasional panda flat.

Regression was _Oliver’s_ thing, not hers. Responsibility was good. Responsibility equaled her apartment and paying off her student loans.

Oh, and the coffeemaker.

It felt vaguely wrong, sneaking another look at the inanimate piece of machinery capable of churning out the _best_ espresso she’d ever had, apart from the corner café near her place. Said wonder was perched in a position of glory near the window, product of a legalese clause in her employment contract that specified the make and model of the coffee enthusiast’s equivalent of the _Barbie Dream House Deluxe_.

Except less pink, less plastic, and less child-friendly. She’d tacked it onto the contract after an afternoon of intensive ploughing through five-star reviews, and even then, just to see if Oliver would do it.

He absolutely had.

She didn’t know whether it was a compliment, or his way of avoiding a _CEO v (prospective) CTO_ haggle-session in front of the lawyers.

Probably the second one.

Her phone — turned facedown to avoid distractions — buzzed again. Another one from Tommy, something she knew in advance because of the personalized text alert set to a duck quacking. Given the fact that the last five messages had been about exotic holiday destinations for her and an unnamed, nonexistent boyfriend, Felicity had made the executive decision to ignore anything that wasn’t an active threat to city security.

Like a Tahitian seaside hut suspended on sticks, with endless fresh coconuts and white sand. Very nice, but she had negative time for a vacation.

_Quack-quack._

_Quack-quack._

_Quack—_

“ _God_ , Tommy,” she said, around the pen, “no — time — for —”

The glass door flew open, _hard_.

Felicity almost choked on the piece of stationery, but managed to catch it — fumbling — before it pinged off the table. “Where is he?” Isabel demanded, another one of many déjà vu moments in her colorful career at QC.

“He?” Felicity said, her eyes fixed on the tempered glass door, which was still wobbling in a _highly_ fascinating way from the amount of force used to shove it clear. For someone with chopsticks for arms, Isabel Rochev packed a surprising punch. “ _He_ who?”

Isabel’s nostrils flared a little at the question — not unlike a bull about to charge down a red-waving matador — which made Felicity glance quickly down at herself.

She’d chosen the wrong day to break out a new dress.

Frack.

“The absentee CEO of a troubled company,” Isabel answered, enunciating each syllable like it was an individual knife she was sharpening for the throw. “Or should I say the lazy idiot in the top floor office?”

A little harsh, but easily not the worst thing Isabel had said with regards to Oliver Queen — in, or out of earshot.

“I’m not his babysitter, Isabel,” Felicity said, like it was a pleasant conversation about the weather. “Knowing what Oliver does or where he goes isn’t really my job. Did you try his assistant?”

Isabel made a breathy _hah_ sound of exasperation. “Oh, you mean Todd? He swears Oliver was in his office after lunch, yet he somehow managed to disappear, without _anyone_ noticing. Which brings me down here, because I’ve learned that whenever he goes missing, he usually turns up with you.”

Felicity grinned, in spite of the silent rage-vibes from CEO Scarypants. “Like the Room of Requirement,” she volunteered. “In Hogw— never mind. Um, I don’t know where he is, but I’m sure there’s a _very_ good reason he’s not answering his phone.”

Isabel inhaled, deeply, and Felicity waited for her to storm out. But then she smiled, showing pearly white teeth and everything.

Instead having the reassuring effect it was probably meant to, the display unnerved Felicity to her core, because Isabel’s smile made her look like a circling shark. Not to mention her fists, which were clenched tightly at her sides, like a pleasant facial expression was actually costing her millions by the second.

“Felicity,” she said, in a very different voice. “I know I’ve been skeptical about your promotion from the start, but my first priority is — and has always been — Queen Consolidated. Unknown quantities are risky, and I thought it would be safer to have someone with more experience steering the company through a rough patch, especially in such an important department. Clearly, I was wrong.”

“Oh,” Felicity said, starting to wonder if she’d misjudged Isabel. “That’s okay — really. You weren’t the only one worried, I mean…I _get_ it. Queen Consolidated’s your baby. Not that I’m saying you look pregnant, or were pregnant, because _wow_ , that skirt is tight — anyway, it’s _fine_. No hard feelings.”

Isabel was still smiling, in spite of the unplanned verbal detour, and she stepped closer to Felicity’s desk. “Good,” she said. “Because I think you have a real future here, Felicity. It’s tough to make it as a woman in business, and as the only female members of the board, I think we should stick together, don’t you?”

“I — um — absolutely, I think that’s a great…” there was a flicker of movement in the background, and Felicity trailed off, trying to look past Isabel’s narrow frame, “…idea.”

“I’m glad to hear it. So,” Isabel said, suddenly businesslike again, “where is he?”

Felicity — half listening — responded by pointing the red pen at the elevators, because currently walking into view was the subject of the interrogation, accompanied (for some reason) by Tommy Merlyn.

Instead of looking chastised — or doing the smarter thing and backing away while mouthing _sorry_ — Oliver strode towards Felicity’s office with complete nonchalance.

Isabel sidestepped to let him through the door, her shark smile back to _deep freeze_. “Oh look, it’s the freeloader and the washed-up billionaire,” she said, and Tommy wagged his fingers in a (sarcastic) greeting. “What’s the emergency now? Did a nightclub in Soho start offering free tequila shots with every third lap dance?”

Oliver laughed shortly. “No, actually —”

 _“Where were you?_ ” she snapped, and any aspersions Felicity held regarding her sudden one-eighty into feminist solidarity evaporated.

Just kidding. They quadrupled.

“I installed a secret entrance,” Oliver answered, totally straight-faced.

Silence.

“That was a joke,” he clarified. “I’ve been busy.”

Felicity wasn’t the only one who winced at the prospect of an imminent neck-wringing. Tommy, in response to her _help me_ look (and the unfolding trainwreck), only shrugged, like _he’s hopeless_. He also kept gesturing _come here_ behind Isabel’s back like a dad trying to get his kid off the jungle gym.

She frowned and mouthed, _what?_

“Felicity,” Oliver said, leaning past Isabel. He’d used his _CEO Official Business_ voice, which was somewhere between _Arrow Growl_ and _My Friend Steve_. “Are you ready?”

“For…” she started to say, until Oliver widened his eyes slightly, a wordless caution to _play along_.

“Our — evening — plans,” he said, hinting. Heavily.

Isabel, who’d been watching the exchange with blatant skepticism, flicked a perfectly glossy curl out of her face and looked from Oliver to Felicity, as smug as someone who’d just had her suspicions confirmed.

_Damn. It._

Felicity stared back at Oliver, waiting — _hoping_ — he had something else up his sleeve that sounded even just slightly more appropriate. Not like she was about to walk out with the CEO for dinner and drinks. And some other stuff that _probably_ needed to be reported to HR.

Spoiler alert: he didn’t.

Felicity knew she was going to pay for it at some point, but clearly something had happened, important enough for the both of them to come running. Cue inner sigh. “I have to go,” she said, pushing back her chair. “I’m really sorry, Isabel. About…yeah. I’m so sorry.”

Isabel narrowed her eyes, smiling so tightly that her skin looked like it was about to snap. “Do you _ever_ go anywhere without men?” she asked, her sarcasm biting.

Felicity gave a nervous laugh. “Does the bathroom count?”

An even longer silence.

“I was kidding,” she said, and winced, hurriedly shutting down her computer. “Making it worse? Okay. I’m gonna…where’s my…”

Bag, _dignity_ , phone…dealer’s choice, really.

“Felicity, we need to go,” Oliver said, jerking his head towards the exit. “Ev—”

“Yes, Oliver. Your evening plans,” Isabel repeated, and twitched her fingers at the three of them, a clear dismissal. “I’m sure it’s more important than the work at Queen Consolidated.”

Felicity darted out of her office ( _hers_ , just BTW), practically jogging to keep up with Oliver and Tommy’s (much) longer legs. “Please tell me you have a plan to get better at excuses,” she hissed.

Oliver’s hand was on her back, and they all piled into the elevator, with Tommy hurriedly jamming on the _G_ button like there was a fire somewhere.

“No promises,” Oliver murmured, as the doors slid smoothly shut.

* * *

“Twelve million people in Moscow, and a hundred and forty-four _million_ in Russia,” Felicity said. “I know being Johnny Raincloud isn’t usually my job, but what if we never find Lyla? I mean, if anyone’s good at vanishing people, it’s the Russians.”

Tommy poked his head into the front of the car, where she was sitting in the passenger’s seat while Diggle drove them to the private tarmac. “Did you just quote that from memory?” he inquired.

She blinked, like knowing census data was on par with multiplication tables. “Yes. You don’t?”

“Population statistics aren’t exactly the kind of digits I know by heart, if you catch my drift,” Tommy said, and Oliver kicked him in the calf. “ _Ow_. It’s called manners, jackass.”

Felicity wrinkled her nose. “I have a feeling I don’t want to.”

“More importantly,” Oliver interrupted, a shade irritated, “we’ll find her, John.”

“You keep saying that,” Diggle answered, shooting him a look in the rearview mirror, “but so far you’ve been pretty vague on the specifics.”

Oliver’s response was to keep looking out the window, annoyingly enigmatic to the extreme. “I have a friend in Russia who specializes in this kind of thing.”

“Wouldn’t happen to be Anatoly Kn—how do you read that—Knyazev, would it?” Tommy asked, reading over Felicity’s shoulder. “Should I be jealous that you have friends who aren’t me?”

He narrowed his eyes. “How did y—?”

“ _A_ ,” she said, holding up one finger (not the rude one), “don’t use my computer terminal to send him an email, and B, don’t forget to log out of your account after you’ve sent said email.”

Oliver raised an eyebrow.

“What?” She shrugged. “I’m a naturally curious person. So who’s Knyazev?”

He turned away again, metaphorical shutters set to _closed_. “It’s complicated.”

“Like you and Sara.” Felicity picked at a nonexistent mark on her tablet, looking at her knees. “Are we ever going to get the full story?”

“You know me,” Oliver said, so toneless that he might as well have been serious. “I don’t share.”

“Applies to shirts, information, and pretty much everything else,” Tommy added, a (somewhat futile) attempt at lightening the mood.

Whatever Oliver’s reservations were about Tommy being in the field, he was pleased to see that it was pretty much an unspoken rule for him to go wherever the three of them went too.

Emotional guardian and wisecracker, reporting for duty.

The company’s private jet was waiting for them on the runway, gleaming chrome and white even under cloudy skies. Tommy tensed as the nostalgia hit him straight in the gut, because he remembered the summer vacations, the impromptu weekends when the Queens used to pick him up at his family home — echoing with emptiness and Malcolm’s unexplained absences — bringing him along for whatever getaway they’d planned for the children, like he was one of theirs.

He almost expected to see Robert waiting for them on the steps, sunglasses in his hand and a rag stained with motor grease hanging out of his back pocket, an absentminded habit Moira used to chide him for, setting a bad example in front of the children.

The car rolled to a stop near the jet, and Tommy gave himself a little shake. _Not the time_.

“I still think we should have changed the flight manifest,” Felicity said, clearly resurrecting an unfinished argument. “I could do it in two minutes.”

Oliver sighed. “Not necessary.”

Diggle had been less loquacious than usual, absorbed in a distracted silence because of Lyla, but even he snorted at the dismissal. “And the thought of Isabel Rochev on your trail doesn’t scare you?” he pointed out. That woman’s a bloodhound when it comes to trouble.”

“Really?” Tommy said, playing dumb. “Cuz she seemed like a _big_ old bowl of sunshine. Not at all like hell frozen over and served up with a side of E. coli.”

Oliver gave all three of them a severe look as he slid out of the back seat, bag in hand. “It’s the weekend. I’ll send her an email before we take off.”

They’d barely made it out of the car before the shriek of wheels echoed in the open lot, signaling a new arrival.

“Uh,” Tommy said, pointing. “Did we forget something?”

Diggle squinted into the distance, reading the license plate — which apparently, he recognized. “It’s a company car,” he said, and proceeded to tack on an extremely bad word.

A sentiment Tommy thought was slightly exaggerated (yet one he fully intended to learn), until the polished car door opened and Isabel Rochev unfolded her long limbs from the backseat, petite designer suitcase in hand.

Now it was _his_ turn to swear.

“And what do we have here?” she asked, her tone making it abundantly clear that it wasn’t a genuine question.

Tommy realized that all four of them — Oliver, Diggle, Felicity — were lined up in a neat, albeit unintentional row, perfect for a firing squad.

“Tahiti,” Felicity lied, which was a remarkable coincidence, given the number of tropical getaway destinations he’d sent her as a _hey, why not you and a certain someone?_ joke.

Suffice it to say the evil plan was working.

“Really,” Isabel said coolly. “Because the flight manifest says Moscow.”

Felicity made an involuntary sound that she hastily disguised as a cough. “Bad weather over the Baltics. We were going to stop over in Tahiti…to wait it out.”

The look on Isabel’s face made it pretty clear that she wasn’t buying the lie, but she turned away momentarily to sign something presented to her by the jet’s pilot, and they had a brief conversation — making sure the plane _was_ actually going to Moscow, probably.

Felicity seized the break in regularly scheduled programming and whacked Oliver on the arm. “I _told_ you we should have changed the manifest. Supreme Evil _always_ checks,” she whispered furiously.

“I _know_ ,” Oliver hissed back, though the sincerity was somewhat undercut by his eye-roll.

“Aw, aren’t you two the cutest? Bickering like a married couple,” Tommy said, which earned him a stiff glare from his best friend in the vein of _shut up_.

Everyone fell silent — like kids messing around at the back of the class — when Isabel's attention swung back to them again, her perfect choke-you-with-it hair ruffling perfectly in the light breeze. “Anyway, while I’m sure Tahiti’s very nice this time of year — thunderstorms aside — it sounds like my fellow CEO was about to take a vacation using the company jet, and before you ask what was my first clue — it was when you decided to bring along the freeloading idiot to a so-called meeting with the Moscow partners.”

 _Burn._ Tommy managed a tight smile at the merciless hit, glancing up from his shoes with a friendly wave. “Hi there. Bartender by day, philanthropist and emotional guardian by night. Or is that the other way round?”

Isabel’s eyes rolled so far back that they might have gotten a view of her brain. “I could either have the plane grounded using my authority as co-CEO, or I could turn this shambolic exercise into something productive. And since it’s the weekend, I thought our Moscow holdings could benefit from a surprise visit, wouldn’t you say, Felicity?”

It was almost funny how everyone’s heads swiveled around to stare, because Isabel Rochev was _voluntarily_ addressing Felicity with something other than overt hostility. Even Oliver, who could medal in _rolling with the punches,_ looked stunned.

“Who — me?” Felicity said, hugging the tablet to her chest like it was a shield. “What did I do?”

“The report you turned in last week. You’re predicting that Mr Dubrovnik might be scaling back his contracts with Queen Consolidated because of political concerns. I don’t see why we shouldn’t use this visit to try and convince him otherwise.”

“Of course,” Oliver said hastily, filling the weirded-out silence. “I’ll call Mr Dubrovnik myself —”

“Already taken care of,” Isabel interrupted, looking as pleased as he’d ever seen her. “He’s _eagerly_ expecting our visit. Now — shall we?”

She brushed past them and boarded the plane, swiftly vanishing from sight.

For the longest time, there was only the sound of the plane’s engine on idle. Which meant that Tommy felt contractually obligated to summarize what everyone had to be thinking.

“What in the name of hell?” he muttered. “Did you slip her something, Felicity?”

“Oh please, like she actually needs food or drink to survive,” she whispered, shielding her face with the computer like Isabel had bat ears. “She’s being nice. _Help me_.”

Diggle wasn’t laughing, his face tight with worry. “All jokes aside, Oliver — having her along makes things ten times harder for us, you know that right? I am _not_ letting her screw with my chances of getting Lyla home.”

“John,” Oliver said. “I’ll handle Isabel. We’re going to find Lyla — I promise.”

“Just as long as it doesn’t involve the old Hail Mary, right?” Tommy joked, slapping Oliver’s back.

The silence he got in response was _not_ encouraging in the least, and as Oliver mounted the steps and disappeared into the plane, Tommy took a moment to groan at the sky.

So much for a boilerplate rescue mission when he had an emotional idiot for a best friend.

 _Seatbelts, please._ Things were about to get interesting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I flipped some stuff around here, so Oliver's the one making terrible excuses to whisk Felicity out of the office (*wink*). I'm also going somewhere a teensy bit different with Isabel. She's still evil, but she's probably going about it a little differently.  
> Until the next update!


	7. Shenanigans (Moscow, Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So I've decided to split the update into two parts, because 10,000+ words for a single chapter freaks me out, but I didn't want to drag it out to a third week. Enjoy! (And try not to kill me please)

Oliver stared out the window, sightlessly observing the plane’s wings slice through the clouds. The sky was inky black and murky, though the inside of the plane had been set to dim lighting, allowing its passengers a few hours of sleep on the long flight to Moscow.

In theory, anyway.

“Not asleep?”

It was Felicity, who’d poked her head through the curtains separating the front of the plane from the back. Oliver hadn't heard her approach over the engine noise, but it didn’t mean he wasn’t glad to see her. As a partial by-product of his mother’s warning and his own common sense, he’d been consciously maintaining appearances under Isabel’s watchful eye, and that entailed putting a professionally acceptable amount of distance between himself and his CTO. It was a small price to pay for evading suspicion, especially since they’d have to play things very carefully in Moscow. Lyla’s safety was at stake, and the strength of Oliver’s unspoken obligation to Diggle. Given all they’d been through, it was only right that Oliver repaid the debt to one of his closest friends in the world.

But this — _now_ — was different. Nobody watching, not for the moment, anyway.

“You know I don’t sleep,” he said seriously.

Arms swinging, Felicity took up the opposite side of his small corner, her feet crossed at the ankle while she leaned her weight on the wall. Her face was bright with energy as she ducked slightly to see out the window, like a child on her first plane ride.

Oliver let himself watch her, because what did he have to lose? They were alone, and more importantly — she wouldn’t see.

“I could get _used_ to this,” Felicity said, giving the wall a loving caress. “Private jet beats economy class, right?”

Oliver smiled at her honesty. “Only sometimes.”

“Tommy snores, you know,” she reported, as though sensing the question he hadn’t asked — about why she wasn’t resting too. “I brought some flight socks with me, but I feel like it’s a little weird to stuff someone’s mouth while they’re asleep. _Not_ that I’ve had any experience there, I mean, that’d be pretty creepy. Not to mention illegal.” A pause. “I did it again, didn’t I?”

“Little bit,” he said. “But I don’t mind.”

It was Felicity’s turn to smile, shyly this time. She rolled her head against the wall and _hm_ -ed under her breath, like she’d had a thought. “In hindsight, maybe you should have called Sara. With Frostbite on our backs, she could have gone with Digg and Tommy to look for Lyla. Not to mention kick an _insane_ amount of ass.”

Oliver shook his head, because he’d already run down the possibility in his head. “Sara’s better off in Starling. Moscow’s too close to the League of Assassins — she wouldn’t have taken that risk, and I wouldn’t have wanted her to.”

“Ah.” Felicity bumped her hands together, her face serious. “Secret assassin club with the godawful cancellation policy, I forgot.”

It was meant as a joke, but Oliver’s face darkened at the mention of Sara — on the run from a league of killers.

“We watch each other’s backs,” he said bluntly. “I owe her that much.”

“Another story from the island,” she guessed. “Kinda hope it’s a happy one.”

He shook his head again. “Not a lot of those on Lian Yu. Though it wasn’t for lack of trying.”

The hint — unintentional as it was — still made her look up, attentive as ever. “You know you can tell us anything, right?” she said, in the face of his silence. “Once you’ve seen someone change out of leather pants, there’s not a whole lot that counts as _shocking_ anymore.”

“Felicity, I —” Oliver paused, giving himself a moment to gather his thoughts. “I want to. A part of me does. But a part of me also knows that right now — you look at me in a certain way, and I know it’s going to change…somehow. Somewhere. That part of me would like to keep that _somewhere_ as far away as possible. It’s the only reason I’m not telling you — or John — everything that happened on the island.”

“Doesn’t say a whole lot about us being your friends if you can’t take that risk,” she remarked, her tone guarded enough to tell him that she was hurt.

That he’d hurt her.

Oliver turned away, because he didn’t want to know how much. “Maybe,” he agreed. “But I’d rather be safe than sorry.”

* * *

Diggle sighed, his breath clouding in the cold. “Why do all our stories start in an alley?”

Though he’d arrived relatively late to the whole scene, Tommy had a feeling Diggle wasn’t exaggerating. Oliver, unfazed by the relative shambolic-ness of said alley, scanned the thickly graffitied brick walls and closed shutter doors for something he _probably_ wasn’t going to explain, even if he was the caring-sharing type.

 _Typical_.

Tommy turned his head sideways to try and make sense of a particularly thick slash of bright yellow paint. Having been at Verdant for a reasonable period (on both sides of the customer-provider spectrum), he’d seen his fair share of graffiti, from drunk dipsticks scrawling out phone numbers in Sharpie, to extremely graphic depictions of the two most satisfying words in the English language.

Hint: the phrase started with _F_ and ended with —

“—you sure you’ve got the right place, buddy?” he asked, over his shoulder.

Oliver gave an absentminded grunt. He had one gloved hand on a door that looked like it had seen better, probably less pee-stained days ( _shudder_ ), and knocked.

The noise rang like a gunshot, so much so that Diggle’s hand jumped to his holster and Tommy gave a full-body spasm.

“Easy,” Oliver said, in response to their apprehension. “I know these people.”

Diggle didn’t drop the gun. “No offense, man, but that’s exactly what I’m worried about.”

The look Oliver gave him in return was calm, collected to the extreme, and edged with a kind of authority that seemed…cold. Like when he’d first got back from the island. “You don’t want to meet them with a gun in your hand, trust me.”

The return of island Oliver didn’t seem to reassure Diggle in the least, but he let his coat fall to conceal the gun in his belt. “What did these people do to you?” he said quietly.

Oliver inclined his head, like it was a fair question. “They made me who I am,” he answered, as the shutters clattered away from the ground, revealing a downward staircase flanked by the singularly _hugest_ bouncers Tommy had ever seen.

“Uh,” he said, watching his best friend duck under the shutters.

Diggle — of a similar mind — jerked his head at Oliver’s back, apparently resigned to the lack of a satisfactory explanation. “C’mon,” he said to Tommy. “We have work to do.”

* * *

Tommy was still cross-eyed. The heavy industrial door at the bottom of the Murder Steps of Death had grated open to a solid mass of cigarette smoke, booze, and cheap perfume that socked him straight in the face and left him with the feeling of operating fifty thousand leagues beneath the sea.

In short — not his best.

“Serbian private security,” Diggle muttered, scanning the smoky room for the guards posted at three-feet intervals. “But trained in Turkey.”

It was a little excessive for a busy nightclub (dayclub, technically), even Tommy had to admit that. The bar had probably seen better days, all slick obsidian and backlit shelves, but there was a mass of scratches, cuts, and what looked suspiciously like _knife marks_ in the counter, all factors that made him want to fold his arms beneath his armpits and pretend like he was bigger than he looked. Although, judging by the women walking by with trays weighed down by booze — and the ones without them — he made an educated guess that there was a less polite term for the establishment, one that involved a _lot_ of singles (or the Russian currency equivalent) shoved into plastic G-strings.

Not for the first time that week, Tommy found himself wondering: _what the hell are we doing here?_

“You, my friend, have a death wish,” he said, barely audible over the thumping music.

Oliver — like Diggle — was searching the crowded bar, but for slightly different reasons, and with more focus. “How so?” he asked.

“Is this why you left Felicity to fend for herself with the She-Wolf? You know she was raised in Vegas, right? There’s probably not a whole lot that could surprise he—”

Tommy broke off to swat at the back of his jeans, as a pair of giggling ladies (polite euphemism, probably) sauntered past. “ _Excuse me_ — that’s my ass, lady. Do you have a father?”

Unfazed by his death-glare, the brunette only laughed, while redhead said something at him in Russian, and blew him a shiny lipgloss kiss.

“I think she likes you,” Diggle commented, ignoring the thugs that kept shooting him dirty looks, like his upper body muscles were a grave insult.

Tommy sniffily turned back to Oliver, who’d pressed his lips together, eyes fixed on the far wall like he was trying not to laugh. “I didn’t say anything,” he said, pre-empting Tommy’s _shut up_.

“Laugh all you want, but I have a theory why you left Felicity behind.” Tommy checked that the bar top behind him wasn’t dripping with anything and leaned back, completing the smugness tableau. “Besides your tendency to shoot yourself in the foot when it comes to wooing your lady love, I mean.”

Oliver gave a noncommittal grunt. “Really.”

“Really.” Tommy pointed at one of the waitresses, walking past with about ten different pairs of male eyes glued to her lower back (polite substitute for the part of her anatomy they were _really_ interested in). “You don’t want to risk going full caveman in front of her — which you most _definitely_ would have, if it was Felicity getting ogled. Right here. In this…strip-bar-nightclub. _Stripbarclub_. Stripper club. _Hello_ , epiphany.”

Eye-roll.

“It would have been suspicious if all four of us disappeared,” Oliver said, like he’d meant _case closed_. “That’s all.”

“Mm-hm.” Tommy let the words drag on purpose, his sole aim to make his best friend as uncomfortable as possible. “Ears burning yet?”

“Don’t make me feed you to the dancers.”

“So that’s a _yes_.”

* * *

Not for the first time in her relatively short life, Felicity wished for a way to sink straight through solid surfaces and disappear, even if it meant rolling straight into traffic in downtown Moscow.

Worth it, because she was sitting in a company car with Isabel Rochev.

Alone.

 _Dammit, Oliver_.

For some unknown (but probably sexist) reason, he’d decided that _Russian Mafia_ meant sending her straight to the hotel, without even the slightest prospect of a drink. Oh, and also leaving her with the she-demon. Who had been uncharacteristically decent to Felicity, which was probably the thing that scared her the most — besides the thought of those perfectly manicured fingernails clawing out her eyes.

Even after twelve or so hours on a jet, Isabel didn’t have a single hair out of place. She’d managed to change on the plane, into a winter ensemble that even the snobbiest Parisian would have worshipped her for.

Good god, she was terrifying.

“It’s not worth it, you know,” Isabel said suddenly, interrupting Felicity’s inner mantra of _stay invisible, stay invisible, stay invisible_.

“Hm?” she asked, momentarily assuming she’d meant the company car. “What isn’t?”

Isabel let her head tip back against the seat, giving Felicity a look that was surprisingly devoid of spite. “This thing that you’re doing.”

In actual fact, said _thing_ could have referred to any number of not-strictly-legal activities that Felicity was arms-deep in, nocturnal vigilantism and hacking federal systems — to name a few. But she put on her best poker face and shrugged. “I’m not doing anything.”

Isabel smiled slightly, like she was indulging Felicity’s cute little whim. “Did you know I was born in Russia?”

After the disastrous conversation with Oliver about truth-telling and friend-to-friend sharing, Felicity was pretty much set to assume that everyone was on defense-mode, when it came to informational bombshells, anyway. So to hear Isabel _confiding_ in her ( _Felicity,_ her) was something on par with north-south pole swaps, apocalyptic weather, and general WTF-happenings. If Felicity’s jaw hadn’t already been on the floor, it would have dropped again.

“Oh,” she said, stealthily pinching her thigh to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating the unprecedented share-fest. “I didn’t. Where in Russia?”

“Here,” Isabel answered, with another small smile. “I know all the streets, all the alleys…I remember where my grandmother used to buy potatoes, and I remember the hospital where she died. My parents were already dead, so when she went too — there was no one left for little Elizaveta Rochev. An American family adopted me, and brought me to the States, changed my name to Isabel so I’d sound less Russian. But it still took me _ages_ to get rid of the accent, and long story short — here I am.”

Felicity had been sitting in complete silence, absorbing the story clearly being related to her in confidence, and when Isabel stopped — having exhausted the words — she gave herself a shake and tried to find a diplomatic way to phrase what she genuinely wanted to know.

There really wasn’t.

“Why are you telling me this?” she asked.

Isabel didn’t seem taken aback by the question, and she considered the answer, tracing circles in the car window — a gesture so laid-back that even Felicity was having a hard time not letting her guard slip, if only just a little.

“Because…despite appearances, I know what it feels like to be on my own — abandoned — and I’m also pretty good at picking out people with similar life experiences. You’ve been abandoned before, I’m guessing more than once, and it still _kills_ you every time you let yourself get closer to someone, because you know they might leave, and you’ll survive it.” One graceful fingernail drew an invisible line across the glass. “But it’ll hurt so bad that you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

Felicity felt the words like a knife sliding over her skin, but it was going to take a whole lot more than an accurate guess to draw blood. “Is that what happened to you?”

Isabel chuckled. “That’s not how this works. I tell you something personal, and you return the favor.”

Felicity shook her head. “I…don’t know what you mean.”

“You do,” she said simply. “Take it from me, when everything’s said and done, all you’ll end up with is a lot of empty promises and a packed suitcase sitting in the corner of your apartment. He won’t drop everything for you. People like him _always_ end up with people who aren’t us. You’re a smart woman, Felicity. You got this far on your own. Don’t fall for empty words.”

There was nothing Felicity could say to that, and Isabel seemed content to let the silence stretch. Closing her eyes, she turned her face to the morning sun and sighed, like a cat reclining in a sunbeam, leaving Felicity to wonder if the advice still applied — when the _he_ in question hadn’t said anything at all.

* * *

“Should I be hurt that I’m only Knyazev’s third favorite American?” Tommy wondered out loud, tapping his room key against the marble counter.

“If it helps,” Diggle said drily, “I’m pretty sure you’d outrank me for favorite nine times out of ten in this country. _Racist_ isn’t exactly the worst thing you can call someone around here.”

“Aw, but I love you, buddy.”

After their conversation with Anatoly, Diggle was understandably impatient to get things rolling, which included finalizing the minutia of the plan to break Lyla out of _Koshmar_. “Is there a bell somewhere? She’s been gone for ten minutes.”

Oliver didn’t see the point in making everyone wait either, especially since his was the only room giving the reception staff an issue. “You guys head up first,” he said. “Felicity needs to know the plan — get her up to speed.”

Tommy snorted. “Nice try, but after you dumped her in a one-on-one with the She Beast, I think we’re gonna save that dubious honor for the happy husband.”

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said (a little _too_ innocently), swinging Diggle around by the arm and marching towards the ornate elevators. “See ya later, alligator.”

Oliver rolled his eyes and whatever Tommy managed to scheme, in the grand design of suspicious coincidences and over-enthusiastic hints to get _something_ to happen between himself and Felicity.

Unfortunately, if a tiny closet and a lack of clothes hadn’t done it — suffice it to say the likelihood of forward progress was set firmly in the negative.

“Here you are, Mr Queen, so sorry for the wait,” said the receptionist. “If you could sign here please, everything will be in order.”

Oliver picked up the fountain pen she’d offered him and scratched out his signature on the creamy paper. “Was there some trouble?” he asked in Russian. “I understand we had to add another room last minute for my colleague.”

The woman beamed at his use of her language. “Oh no, sir, nothing like that.” She smiled again, taking the form from him in exchange for his keycard. “There was some confusion on our end because your wife seems to have picked up both keys.”

“My _wife_?”

* * *

The elevator dinged when it passed each level, a brass arrow making a gradual progress across the semi-circle set above the doors.

“Did you actually do it?” Diggle asked, glancing briefly at his watch.

“Yup,” Tommy said, drawing out the word so it became two syllables. “I can do a mean Oliver Queen impression when it counts.”

Diggle snorted under his breath, but he looked as cheerful as Tommy had seen him since he’d found out about Lyla. “You’re lucky he’s serious about this _No Kill_ rule.”

“Felicity doesn’t have one,” Tommy pointed out, more to himself than anyone else in attendance. “ _That’s_ what worries me.”

“I’m sure there’s a nice circle in hell reserved for you,” Diggle said, as the elevator glided to a halt. “I’d say _you’ll live_ , but…”

“ _Hey._ ”

* * *

Oliver hadn’t thought about murder for what felt like a long time, but it was surprisingly satisfying to imagine himself strangling his best friend for pulling a stunt like this.

In other news: he deeply regretted not having asked what room Tommy had checked into, though he doubted the prick would answer the door, knowing what he did about Oliver’s tolerance for being tricked.

But his top priority — the less legally dubious one — was to make sure Isabel didn’t find out that he’d been put into the same hotel room as Felicity Smoak.

Oliver looked both ways down the corridor ( _damn you, Merlyn_ ) before he used his key on the door, and hurriedly pushed through in case anything else could go wrong.

Absurdly, the first thing that came to mind — a ridiculous impulse, really — was _hi honey, I’m home_.

“Hey.”

Oliver’s head shot up. Felicity was standing in front of the couch, her expression bordering on thunderous.

“Look,” he began, “it wasn’t me —”

“Really?” she said sarcastically, sidestepping to show him the thick duffel bag lying on the coffee table. “Because when a strange Russian man shows up at your door with a bag he practically _shoves_ onto you, I kind of assumed it was some arrow-related stuff you couldn’t get through customs. Not a whole fracking load of _crystal meth_.”

That made him pause. “Oh,” he said, as the dots lined up. Anatoly. Drugs. Decoy. “ _Oh._ ”

Felicity glowered at him. “Explain.” She slapped the end of the duffel bag with her palm. “ _Now_. Also — how’d you get a key for my room?”

Oliver tossed his bag onto an ottoman and exhaled, heavily. “ _Our_ room…apparently.”

She blinked. “Explain that sentence.”

Telling her about Tommy’s infallible plotting would have led to inevitable questions about his motivation, which would _then_ force Oliver to confront a topic of conversation he least wanted to discuss with Felicity, especially since she was at the center of the aforementioned subject.

“There was a mixup with the reservation when Isabel added her suite to the charge,” Oliver said. “They got the impression that you and I were married, so they put us in the same room. And apparently, it’s the only one available.”

Saying it out loud just made the whole thing sound worse, he realized that now. Though the last part was strictly the truth. Because he’d asked. More than once.

Felicity had gone bright pink, and she fidgeted on the spot, visibly discomfited. “But…where are you going to — um — bunk?”

Oliver jerked his head at the remaining closed door off the living room. “The front desk assured me it was a two-bedroom suite.”

 _That_ much _,_ Tommy hadn’t been able to change.

Felicity stalked over to the door he’d pointed at and flung it open, like it was to prove a point. “Oh,” she said, visibly deflating at the sight of the second room. “I thought it was the door to the next suite.”

For various non-disclosable reasons, he chose not to give her ostentatious disappointment too much thought.

“No, it isn’t.” Oliver reached for his bag again, frustrated with the timing, the situation — everything. “I don’t want to waste time when Lyla’s at stake, but if Isabel finds out —”

“— bad,” she summarized. “Really bad. But you can’t keep running between hotels if we’re supposed to be planning how to get Lyla home. We’re short on time as it is.”

“I know, but —” Oliver gestured at their surroundings. “We can’t stay in the same room.”

“Well, not _technically_.” Felicity rapped her knuckles on the doorframe of the second bedroom. “We don’t have time, and I mean…she’ll never notice if we keep things quiet. _Not_ that there’s anything to keep quiet, because nothing’s going on. Right?”

“Right,” Oliver said, carefully. “I don’t have a problem with…this.”

“Neither do I,” she answered, a little too quick.

They stared at each other from opposite ends of the same suite, and for a second, Oliver wondered silently if she was being as truthful as he was.

Which was to say: not at all.

_Goddammit, Tommy._

* * *

_Eleven, ten, nine…three_.

It was three in the morning in Starling City, and Tommy winced, having just counted (using finger math) what time it was back home.

Oh well — too late now.

He’d have been happy to get McKenna’s voicemail, which was why it surprised him when the call connected. “ _Hello?_ ” she said, in a sandpapery whisper. “Who’s this?”

For some reason, Tommy decided to cup his hand over the receiver. “I have your cat Whiskers,” he gargled, using his best kidnapper voice. “Eighty pounds of kibble by tomorrow, or he goes to the five-year-old down the street.”

A sigh, and something rustling as McKenna rolled over on her side, probably to check the clock on her nightstand. “Tommy,” she muttered. “Idiot. Do you know what time it is?”

“Uh…late?”

“ _Early_ ,” she corrected. More rustling, like she’d stretched in bed. “What’s up? Slow night at Verdant?”

Tommy twisted the plastic cord around his finger, yanking a little as he wondered if he was supposed to tell her.

_What the hell._

“Actually, I’m in Russia. Moscow.”

“What?” She was suddenly alert. “Why there, of all places?”

His eyes did a guilty shift sideways. “I have poor impulse control.”

“ _Tommy_.”

“Oliver had a business trip — he asked me to tag along. Help him pick out a car, you know, the usual.”

He could sense her skepticism. “Really?”

“No, he wants to buy the Bolshoi Ballet. C’mon, McKenna — give him some credit. It’s a real business trip.”

“This is the same Oliver who bought out a skating rink on Christmas Eve, just so he could impress a girl.”

“Well, let’s just say that if he _were_ trying to impress a girl — which you didn't hear from me, by the way — she’d be impressed if he took things seriously. Which includes meeting with ancient Russian investor dudes and…I don’t know…talking about Putin on a horse.”

“Must be quite a girl,” McKenna commented. “And you? I hope you’re not being led around by the nose, especially not by _some girl_.”

Tommy smiled, leaning the side of his head against the window. “She doesn’t have to.”

McKenna laughed. “You’re crazy, Merlyn.”

“Right — what are you wearing?”

“Don’t make me shoot you.”

“Hey, I like you too.”

* * *

Felicity didn’t know how the rich and powerful of the Russian underground operated, but she was relatively sure that the Savoy Hotel in Moscow hadn’t had this many illegal narcotics sitting on its Italian-style furniture since…well, _ever_.

Fifty percent of the team — with the exception of herself and Oliver — seemed to find the whole suite mixup _hilarious_ , making jokes about socks on doors and embarrassing sleeping habits (okay fine, just Tommy) when they showed up at the door for a planning session. Twenty or so minutes of catchup and intense brainstorming had ended with a firm resolution (on a three-star plan at best), and Oliver making a trip down to the bar with Tommy to quote- _check on things_ -unquote.

Which left Felicity and Diggle in the damned two-bedroom suite, her sitting on the carpet with the winter coat they were intent on bugging, and him with the indecently huge bag of drugs as a couch cushion.

“Why the long face, Felicity?” Diggle asked. “Oliver’s not _that_ bad at being a roommate, right?”

Felicity didn’t laugh at the good-natured teasing, and her hands — trying to wrestle a tracker pin through the coat’s thick wool lapel — fell still in her lap. “Do you really have to go?” she asked. “I mean — are we _sure_ that this is the best plan to get Lyla out? A bag full of drugs and a slippery guard?”

“Felicity, I don’t think there’s a _good_ plan to spring anyone from a gulag, working with the kind of time we have,” he said honestly. “But it’s not the first time we’ve done a lot more with a lot less — and you’re not usually the one with the frown. Something bothering you?”

“ _Nothing_.” Felicity stabbed the pin into the coat with renewed vigor, pretending that it wasn’t an amalgam of Isabel and Oliver’s faces she was seeing. “I just…want you to come back, that’s all. I’m worried. I’m allowed to be worried. Everyone here doesn’t do enough worrying.”

“Okay.” Diggle sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees like he was settling in for a _Talk_. “So what happened?”

Felicity looked up, and just as quickly reconsidered. “Nothing,” she said, shaking her head. “It’s stupid. I shouldn’t even be listening, anyway. It’s like listening to _Gollum_ when he says he has an idea.”

“Ah.” Diggle nodded like she’d confirmed a suspicion, Lord of the Rings reference or not. “Isabel.”

“Can I say something terrible?” she asked, in the smallest voice.

He waited.

“I _hate_ her,” she whispered.

Diggle gave a snort of laughter. “Felicity, if you think that counts as _terrible_ , I think nobody has to worry about you ever turning evil on us. Of course you hate Isabel — she’s never said a nice thing to you since she stormed into Queen Consolidated on day one. But the last thing you should be doing is letting someone like that get under your skin.”

Felicity’s mouth was still stubbornly downturned, and she pushed at her temples, hating how difficult it was to quantify — to _describe_ in actual words — her many and varying inadequacies that Isabel Rochev could draw attention to, just with a flick of her mascara-ed eyes.

“It’s not that,” she began, averting her face. “I’m used to people being nasty. It’s just…she’s right. She told me that it’s hard to make it as a woman in the business, and _she_ got this far on her own. _She_ made it to Stellmoor International, _she_ almost bought out Queen Consolidated, and _she’s_ practically the one running the whole company while Oliver does…you know what he does. And what did I do?” She let the coat thump into her lap, feeling like a sulky child. “I helped a billionaire with his laptop.”

“So you think you’re doing something wrong,” Diggle summarized.

“I don’t know,” she answered. “But Sara can kick ass at my night job — she’s the woman in black running around saving people — and Isabel _is_ kicking ass at my day job — she’s CEO of a Fortune 500 company. So where does that leave me?”

Diggle took the coat from her and brushed off the dust, laying it neatly across the arm of the couch. “With a…pretty indescribable set of skills,” he said. “You’re irreplaceable to us, Felicity. Isabel made it to the top on her own, but that still makes her a pretty lonely person, and being lonely doesn’t suit you. And even if Sara’s like a second Oliver, she could never copy what you do on a computer. So there’s really not much for you to worry about.”

Felicity bit her lip. “But what if he chooses her?”

It had been something of an unspoken fact between them, that Felicity was…interested. Fascinated. Enraptured.

By Oliver. _In like_ with him, at least. A crush she couldn’t quite seem to shake.

Diggle knew, and the teasing only went as far as saying nothing while Felicity ogled Oliver on the salmon ladder, or whatever shirtless workout he could think of next. Maybe the occasional smirk.

Now, he didn’t say anything for the longest time, as though he was weighing up the possibilities in his mind. “I can’t pretend that Oliver won’t do something stupid,” was his answer, finally. “You know him as well as I do, he probably will — at some point. But d’you want to know what I think?”

Felicity hoped that it wasn’t going to be crushing. “Mm,” she said, thumbing the coat’s lapel just to have something to do with her hands.

“I think that Oliver — for whatever reason — is still punishing himself for what happened on the island. Laurel, Helena…his track record with relationships are the kinds that were always going to self-destruct, right off the bat. He’s not the most forgiving person — especially when it comes to himself — but I’m willing to bet that one of these days, he’s going to realize that he deserves a shot at being happy. You just have to remember that.”

“But I’m not…you’re not saying…that _I’m_ …” she stammered into silence, her face flushed pink. “Not me.”

Diggle tipped his head to the side, smiling a little. “Why not?”

“Because I’m…” she looked down at herself, and up again. “I’m _me_. Girls like me — glasses, the shoes, the verbal _blech_ — never end up with guys like him.”

“Not true. You’re one of the most badass women on the planet, with or without a gun in your hand, and I know what I’m talking about because I married a woman just like that.”

The last part, so casually conveyed, almost let her slide right past it. But then came the double-take. Felicity blinked, running and re-running everything Diggle had ever said to her, including mention of the small, inconsequential fact that he was legally attached to — what was the word — a _wife_.

“Wait,” she said, just to be sure. “Is this like a fifth grade thing? Because by that logic, I’m still married to Tanya Bachmann from class A recess. Or do you mean the _officiant, dress, marriage certificate_ -kind of married? Like legit?”

Diggle scratched behind his ear, clearly recalling the day in question. “I don’t know about a dress — we were both standing on the back of an ATV in army uniform, and the officiant teleconferenced in…”

“Oh, the romance,” Felicity said, hands folded in front of her chest. “What’s her name?”

“Lyla Michaels.”

Diggle considerately left a pause open for her reaction, which suffice it to say had all the hallmark signs of mild shock, because _wow_ , people in the Foundry really had a problem with spitting out the whole story.

“John, why didn’t you tell us?” she said, trying not to sound reproachful. “We would have kept the secret.”

He shook his head. “It’s not that, Felicity. It’s just…when things ended between me and Lyla, they didn’t end right. I don’t like telling stories that aren’t finished, and it always felt that way with her, like there was still…something else.” He shrugged. “That’s why I have to go get her. She’s my shot at being happy, and I have to see it through.”

Seized by a sudden impulse — and a small stab of fear — Felicity reached for his hand. “I know Lyla’s important to you, but please…be careful, John.”

He gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze. “Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Isn't it nice when Tommy pulls shenanigans? :)


	8. The Big Oopsie (Moscow, Part III)

“So are we just having all our meetings in bathrooms now?” Tommy asked, sitting on the edge of the marble bathtub. “Is that what’s happening?”

Oliver — standing with his arms folded in the doorway — gave him a severe look. _Not helping_.

Felicity put a free bobby pin between her teeth and twisted the rest up into a knot at the back of her head. “I mean, we used to do them in fast food restaurants, so I don’t know _what_ you’re complaining about,” she mumbled, wrestling with her hair in front of the mirror.

As a matter of personal (and extremely private) preference, Oliver thought it looked much better down.

But that was neither here nor there, especially when Felicity had a crease between her eyebrows, one that had been there since they’d seen Diggle off to the pre-arranged arrest.

“He’ll be fine, Felicity, you know he will.”

In the corner of his eye, Tommy perked up at Oliver’s verbal reassurance, as though in approval. Felicity momentarily relaxed her frown, but she still looked like she wanted to be anywhere but their hotel room, least of all getting ready for a dinner engagement she hadn’t volunteered to be a part of, with a famously difficult investor who had plans that went categorically against their interests.

“On the pain of losing my mind-slash-humanity, speculating about the plans of Supreme Evil, is there a particular reason Isabel’s sending me to meet Mr Dubrovnik on my own?” she asked, turning her head from left to right to check for loose curls.

Oliver inclined his head, recalling the teeth-gritting conversation he’d had with Isabel that afternoon. “She said dinner tonight is the informal meeting. If Mr Dubrovnik wants to scale back his business with Queen Consolidated, she wants advance warning from you before we see him tomorrow morning. You did really well with the investors during the last party — that’s probably why she’s comfortable with you going on your own.”

The last part was meant to be a compliment, but no one, least of all Oliver himself, looked particularly convinced by Isabel’s logic. Or lack thereof. At this point he guessed it was mostly spite, most aptly summed up by the way a cat toyed with a mouse — just to see what, and how much she could do.

“Convenient timing,” Tommy said under his breath, pretending to inspect his fingernails. “Almost like she’s trying to get Felicity out of the hotel.”

Oliver agreed. “She still thinks the two of us are breaking HR rules, so I’m not surprised that she’s doing all she can to disrupt the schedule. Did she say anything to you in the car?”

“You’re forgiven for that, by the way.” Felicity flicked him a challenging glance in the mirror. “And it was…the usual. You know what she’s like. Always trying to win a competition so intense that you had _no idea_ you were even in it.”

It was as charitable a description of Isabel Rochev as Oliver could think of. But more importantly, something about her voice rang artificial, like she wasn’t being completely truthful, but Oliver didn’t want to press the issue — he had a feeling it was going to be something embarrassing to them both.

“So, the plan. You leave for the restaurant at eight, I’ll get updates from Anatoly, and —”

“—I shall swing by the restaurant at ten-thirty, fake an emergency if necessary and spring our jailbird out for the illegal prison break,” Tommy recited, and frowned. “I feel like that’s ironic somehow.”

Felicity beamed at him. “My hero,” she said affectionately. “Just do me a solid and steer clear of _any_ toilet-related excuses. I don’t think my dignity could take another hit after this dress.”

She was clearly sincere about being self-conscious, finding excuses to tug and pick at the skirt, constantly feeling the zipper like it was about to slide straight down her back.

Tommy made a disparaging noise. “What are you talking about, Smoak? You look like a million — what’s the currency here —?”

“—rubles,” Oliver interjected.

“— _rubles_ ,” he finished. “I should let you pick your own dresses more often. But on that note —” he glanced down at his suit pocket “—I am buzzing, and I don’t think my boss is happy I gallivanted off to Russia for the weekend.”

Entirely without prompting, Oliver and Felicity exchanged mutual looks of amusement. “Hm,” Oliver said thoughtfully. “And does this _boss_ work in the SCPD?”

Felicity covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking. Clutching his phone, Tommy eyed Oliver beadily and took the call. “Hey, you,” he said, casually reaching up to the knot of securely fastened curls at the back of Felicity’s head. “Yeah, free as a bird, just finishing up some stuff. I know, right?”

Ignoring the _what are you doing?_ expressions on both their faces, he slid a bobby pin out the side and — disregarding Felicity’s protest — re-pinned the resulting slide of ashy curls so it looked more relaxed, like she’d gathered the hair into a twist instead of wrestling to smooth it all down.

He winked at their reflections. _Better_ , he mouthed, and walked out the door. “I know, I don’t _try_ to look handsome, it just keeps happening…”

Felicity inspected the new hairstyle, giving it a ginger poke as though to check the structural integrity. “Wow. Do you think he’d be insulted if I tried to hire him for special occasions?”

“At least he learned something from dating all those models,” Oliver said offhandedly. “Though hair and makeup wasn’t exactly something I had in mind.”

“Well, he definitely didn’t learn the exchange rate,” she added, fiddling with her earrings, a series of teardrop crystals winking under the light. “A million rubles is actually worth about…a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Give or take. I did it again, didn’t I? Overanalyzed a compliment?”

“Little bit,” Oliver said. “You look very nice, by the way.”

Felicity blushed rosily at the praise, but she took it with gracious silence, her head tilted at an angle while she fastened the earrings. Blue suited her as much as green did, and the dress — a rich cobalt color — was scooped elegantly low beneath the collarbones and at the back, sleekly outlining her figure from waist to knee.

Oliver wished he was going with her. He wished — and this was like a dull ache somewhere in his side — that it was him she was dressing up for, that she’d be sitting across the small table at a glittering restaurant, smiling at the things he said and telling him about herself, the easy intimacy of trading secrets until maybe, just maybe, one of them leaned in for a kiss…

 _Stupid_.

Still, in the vein of stupid things to do, Oliver reached into his suit pocket for something he’d picked up at the hotel’s jewelry establishment — just on loan for the night — as soon as he’d found out that Isabel had contrived a reason for Felicity to meet an investor on her own.

Felicity didn’t notice the box until he put it down beside the tangle of hairpins. “Souvenir for Thea?” she inquired.

“Not exactly.” Oliver watched as she popped the box open herself and huffed in surprise at the contents. “I thought you might want something to wear tonight — for dinner.”

“ _Might_ ,” she breathed, carefully touching her thumb to one of the circular diamonds, just one of two dozen set side by side in the short necklace. “Oliver, this is…crazy expensive. Crazy inappropriate — I’m pretty sure I’m not even supposed to be _looking_ at this, because… _wow_.”

“It’s just a loan,” he said quickly, as though it might persuade her to wear it. “I thought it might make up for Isabel being…well…you know how she is.”

Felicity put the box back on the counter, her hands clasped together in front of her. “Oliver, I said yes to this job. It’s not your… _responsibility_ to get me candy, or flowers — or obscenely expensive diamond necklaces on loan — to make up for a cranky boss.”

“I know,” he said lightly. “But I wanted to.”

Felicity pressed her lips together, like she didn’t quite know how to respond. “How much did you pay for it?”

Oliver shrugged. “It was just the security deposit.”

“How much?”

“Fifteen thousand dollars.”

Felicity’s hands were about as far away from the necklace as they could get, like touching it anymore would leave some kind of mark. “I can’t.”

“Well, it’s already on loan for the night,” Oliver said reasonably, trying not to think about how he may or may not have run through the scenario with Tommy (the merciless teasing itself had been traumatizing). “You might as well try it on.”

“Try it on,” she muttered, and he got to his feet to help her. “Just…trying it on.”

“Right,” he said obligingly, slipping the necklace from the velvet box.

The back of his fingers brushed against the soft skin of her neck as he fastened it for her. The length of the necklace meant it sat just at the base of her throat, against her rapidly bumping pulse, a glittering final piece to round out her elegant hair and dress. The diamonds were as round as pearls, the starry gleam balanced to perfection by the understated setting.

“They think it might have been worn by a Russian princess,” he said, repeating what the jeweler had told him. “The last person who owned it was a Crimean duchess.”

Felicity made a sound halfway between a hoarse gasp and a laugh. “You’re really not making it easier on me, you know.”

They were both facing the mirror, and Oliver smiled at her reflection. “I thought you liked a challenge.”

She touched the lowest diamond with her fingertip, the stone trembling from her rapid pulse, and inhaled deeply. “Thank you,” she whispered.

Oliver nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and her hand slid down to grip his forearm, squeezing slightly.

If there was a moment when Oliver might have said something to change — _this_ — whatever it was between them, it was right then. But he looked down, and she was already walking out of the bathroom to show Tommy the necklace. Leaning on the side of the door, Oliver watched his friends laugh together, smiling when they threw a look his way, feeling — in spite of everything — just a little bit lonelier than before.

* * *

There was only so much pacing that could be done in a hotel suite, even one with two bedrooms, and Oliver, having sent Tommy off to the restaurant with explicit instructions to keep the excuses classy, headed down to the bar for a much-needed drink.

He ran into the diminutive manager on his way in.

“Ah, Mr Queen,” he said in Russian, beaming, “is your wife enjoying the Duchess Maria’s necklace?”

“Very much so,” Oliver said, adopting the persona’s mischievous smile, “she says she might be happy wearing nothing else for the rest of our time here.”

It was the kind of joke he’d never have found funny in the present day, but it _was_ one that a billionaire playboy with a history of conquests would have made, which was why Oliver did it anyway, to avert suspicion at a change of character. It worked, because the man chortled and walked on, exposing the person who’d been sitting at the bar behind him.

Isabel raised her eyebrows, as though to say _fancy seeing you here_.

“Vodka, please,” Oliver said to the bartender, in English this time, pretending like there was nothing to be self-conscious about.

As far as he knew, Isabel didn’t speak Russian.

The order came back with two shots, and Oliver turned back to the bartender. “I meant just one.”

“It’s for me,” Isabel said shortly, and nudged a chair out for him. “Care to join me? I’ve been told a classy woman never drinks alone.”

Oliver inclined his head in thanks, and seated himself by Isabel. They tapped glasses in silence, but she drained hers in one go. “ _Another_ ,” she said in Russian, and Oliver froze.

“So you speak Russian,” he observed.

“Mm.” Isabel didn’t bother holding back the smile. “Why yes, I do. But I suppose we’re both learning things about each other, like the fact that you also speak Russian, _and_ you seem to have picked up a wife on your so-called business trip to Moscow. Anyone I know?”

Oliver shook his head with a smile, keeping up the facade. “The manager’s an old family friend. He just assumed I was here with a woman for the weekend. My father — as capable a CEO as he was — had his occasional lapses in personal conduct, and I’m told that he…indulged those lapses in this establishment.”

Broadly speaking, Robert Queen having affairs was not an objective untruth, but Oliver wasn’t sure his father had ever stooped to using company trips as an excuse to entertain his extramarital partners. Then again, there were plenty of things that didn’t seem in-character for his father that later turned out to be very much the case.

Isabel narrowed her eyes at the ornate mirror across from their chairs. “I can’t quite imagine Moira Queen telling her son about his father’s tendency for roleplay,” she said seriously. “Did that happen after the second funeral, or the reading of the will?”

Oliver accepted the needling for what it was — a minor retaliation for the many annoyances he’d caused her over their short history as business partners. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

“Well, you’ve already worked some vodka into the conversation, so I’m at your mercy,” she answered, with a toss of her head that was almost playful.

Oliver laughed. “If you hate my family so much, why are you so determined to salvage its legacy?” he asked. “You could have sat back and watched it go down — might have been easier than trying to run the company with me.”

His bluntness made her chuckle, and she toyed with the rim of her empty glass. “Because I like a challenge, and because…as a woman, I know the only way to stand out is to do twice as well with half of what the men have. Queen Consolidated was ripe for a hostile takeover because it was weak, and when I’m done with it — no one’s ever going to think about trying to knock it down again. I know that’s not _exactly_ the promise I made to the shareholders at the last meeting…” they both laughed at that “…but in substance, yes. I don’t accept weakness, and I have no patience for it. I suppose that makes me a stone cold bitch, doesn’t it?”

Oliver shook his head. “If it were a man who said what you just did, everyone would be calling him _driven_. I don’t believe in double standards.”

Isabel was silent for a long moment, and her gaze — still appraising — was almost warm. “Can I ask _you_ a personal question?”

“I can’t promise I’ll answer.”

“Are you in love with her?”

Oliver’s stare was fixed on the bottom of his glass. From the directness of the question, he already knew it was pointless to try and pretend the _she_ to whom Isabel referred wasn’t already crystal clear. “I can’t say for sure,” he answered, thinking — surprisingly — about it as a serious question. “There’s no checklist for being in love with someone, and I’m not exactly an expert on the subject, am I?”

“So you promote her, you keep her close — or keep _yourself_ close to her — and…what?” Isabel asked. “What’s the endgame? You marry her? The IT girl from Vegas, paparazzi and blue-blood outrage notwithstanding, and bring her home to meet your family — what’s left of it, anyway. Is that it?”

“I don’t know.”

Isabel sighed. “ _Men_. You think by avoiding a straight answer, you can keep us waiting forever. I have some news for you — she won’t. A woman like Felicity Smoak is going to meet someone who has the balls to be honest about what he wants and not keep her dangling until he can bring himself to break it off. Maybe that’s all right by you, and maybe it isn’t, but that’s still time you’re not getting back, waiting for something to change.”

Oliver downed the shot in one go, and the slight buzzing in his ears got a little louder. “You say that like you have a solution.”

“I do,” she said, and he sensed her shifting in her chair, so that her bare knees brushed his underneath the bar. “Find someone who already knows she’s not interested in something you can’t give her. Find someone who already has a measure of who you are, not who she wants you to be. Find someone who’s going to be a _fantastic_ time in bed, and nothing more, because that’s what you both clearly want.”

The mood had altered significantly, and Oliver — his senses in overdrive — could smell her perfume, the heat from her breath on his neck, and the fact that she wanted him. Direct, unflinching, and uncompromising.

Isabel had an answer.

Felicity was a question, one that was always present — like a voice at the back of his mind — during every interaction, every smile and shared look. She was always laughing with someone else, always more relaxed, and there was always something unreadable in her eyes whenever she got to him, something that wrenched him out of focus and put him on the ledge of something unknown.

Did Oliver want to wait until he reached it on his own — this answer — if that day ever came at all? Or did he want something already in front of him, so easy, a pattern already laid out for him to follow?

What if he hurt Felicity?

As neatly as a door swinging closed, he put her out of his mind, and turned to look at Isabel. “You sound lonely,” he said in Russian.

She tossed the drink back, and the glass landed on the table with a sound of surprising finality. “As do you,” she answered, just as fluent as him.

* * *

The back of Oliver’s head cracked against the bedpost. They were both a little tipsy from the vodka, as clumsy as two people who prided themselves on control could be. Isabel worked on his neck, holding him by the shoulders like she needed to keep him still, and he could feel her teeth scraping against his skin like a file.

It was the drink — just the drink

“I don’t have a lot of time,” he broke off to say, and she lifted her head.

“I’ll be quick,” she promised, and shoved.

Oliver hit the mattress with a thump, and Isabel was climbing on top of him, her heels landing heavily on the carpeted floor as she kicked them off. It was methodical and almost measured, the way the two of them went through each step, like checking items off a list.

By some kind of unspoken agreement, he wasn’t looking at her, and she wasn’t looking at him. There was no laughter — in contrast to the drunken closeness at the hotel bar — like it was something inefficient to the whole process. She was as light as a ballet dancer, but the definition of her bones made her hard to the touch, like something made of diamond edges, and his hands kept slipping, as though they couldn’t quite find something to hold onto. Her fingernails scratched at his bare shoulders and back, and the only thought that jumped to Oliver’s mind was what Felicity said about Isabel.

_You know what she’s like. Always trying to win a competition so intense that you had no idea you were even in it._

Oliver shook his head — doggedly — to banish the messy idea from his head. Not now. Not here. Even if Isabel did touch him like she wanted something from him, like it was a contest that could _only_ end with him losing.

It was easy for his mind to wander, in spite of the circumstances. Almost like scratching an itch, something that should have been intimate and surprising and _important_ , not just a means to an end.

The dress on the dusty carpet was black, but Oliver found himself imagining it as blue, a bold streak of color that set off her skin — creamy to Isabel’s harder bronze. Undoing the zip and peeling the soft fabric from her hips. Earrings on the bedspread that were a line of winking crystals, and a necklace that might have been a wedding gift to a Romanov princess, a string of diamonds like starry pearls. Skin that curved and dipped and flushed underneath his touch, smiling lips and maybe a laugh — a beautiful sound like a flash of quicksilver light. Hair pulled gently from heavy pins and spread across the mattress, thick enough for his hands to tangle in, the shadows near the roots a secret he’d promised to keep.

It dawned on him, at the worst moment possible, who he’d really wanted — who he’d wanted all along — and that he _still_ wanted her.

“ _Felicity_.”

It was so quiet that he wasn’t even sure he’d said it, but there was a steep plunging sensation in the pit of his stomach like he’d just done something wrong. His eyes flew open, and he stared at the canopy of the bed over his head, heart racing faster than he’d imagined possible, wondering if she’d heard him.

Nothing had stopped; he could still feel Isabel moving, and after a moment’s hesitation, neither had he.

* * *

“We’re _so_ late,” Felicity said to herself, trying to dismantle the intricate puzzle of bobby pins at the back of her head while she hurried up the lobby staircase with Tommy. “Dubrovnik just kept _talking_ , and I didn’t want to tell him I needed a tampon —”

“— I can’t believe your go-to excuse for ending a dinner is faking a period,” Tommy said, mashing the elevator button with an eye-roll. “Must be Oliver rubbing off on you. One time it was kidney stones.”

“I don’t know, he seemed like a pretty traditional guy, maybe hearing about lady-problems gives him the jeebies.”

“ _Jeebies_ , yet another word I haven’t heard since elementary school.”

“Shut up — he liked me.”

While the elevator chugged up from the lobby, Felicity kept reaching up to make sure the necklace hadn’t fallen off.

“Missing something?” he said teasingly.

She flushed. “This might be the only time I’ll ever have diamonds around my neck. You _bet_ I’m going to make the most of it.”

The elevator stopped at their floor, and Tommy held the doors for her. “I don’t know…I have a feeling you haven’t seen the last of them.”

She threw him a smile over her shoulder, striding down the hallway towards the suite. “At least you know what to get me for Hanukkah.”

The keycard wasn’t in her purse, and Felicity started to knock. “Oliver?” she said. “We’re —”

The door flew open, and the words froze in her throat.

* * *

Oliver shrugged back into his suit jacket, only slightly wrinkled from being on the floor. Isabel was already in her dress, sitting on the edge of the mattress while she worked her tights back up.

“I have to go,” he said, silently appraising her for signs that she’d noticed his momentary lapse in concentration.

“Well, naturally I’m the type to cuddle,” she said dryly. “I’ll be gone in a second — I don’t make promises I can’t keep.”

Neither of them mentioned the noticeable lack of anything resembling heat, in the cold and almost calculated exercise they’d just participated in. Then again, it wasn’t exactly a first for Oliver, and her nonchalance pointed to the fact that it wasn’t a first for her either.

He held out her purse, which she took with a wry smile. “That was…fun. Let me know if you want to do it again, and maybe I’ll consider.”

In lieu of a response, he just smiled, fixing the expression on his face like it was a defensive mechanism. There was a knock on the door, and he answered it — very much without thinking.

He wished he had.

“Hey,” Felicity said, with a bright smile. “Sorry I’m late.”

She was a little less pristine, her dress wrinkled at the hips where she’d sat down, her chest flushed from the wine at dinner, more wisps of hair escaping from the gathered twist at the nape of her neck than ever. The necklace still glittered around her throat, the gleam stabbing at his eyes and reminding him that he’d done something extremely wrong.

It was Felicity unmasked — almost — looking like she was ready for bed.

 _Shit_.

“Felicity,” he began, but never got to finish.

Sleek as a cat removing itself from a favored perch, Isabel emerged from the suite with a smug smile. “I think she deserves the rest of the night off, don’t you, Oliver?” she said, already strolling down the corridor.

Right past Tommy, whose mouth was slightly open, the look on his face almost as serious as betrayal.

Felicity’s expression was curiously frozen in disbelief, and for once, only _once_ , Oliver wanted her to miss it — to _not_ make the connection. But of course she did (because what else could she think?) and for a single, unguarded moment, the hurt showed plain on her face.

It was a terrible situation, unspeakably uncomfortable, yet…

 _She cared_.

“Felicity —”

She ducked under his arm with surprising speed, her heels clicking at a rapid pace. “Whatever happens in Russia stays in Russia, right?” she said, and went straight into her room, shutting the door with a snap. “I’ll be out in a second, I just need to…change.”

Oliver was left standing stupidly in the open doorway, the look on his face nothing short of shell-shocked. Tommy walked up to him, shaking his head like he couldn’t think of a way to describe how badly he’d screwed up.

“You… _moron_ ,” he managed. “You — complete — _jackass_.”

Oliver cursed under his breath. How the hell was he supposed to have known?

* * *

 _Two minutes_.

Felicity stood against the wall with water running loudly from the tap, the back of her hand pressed to her mouth. She felt sick, and it wasn’t even any of her business.

Oliver had the full right to sleep with whoever he wanted to sleep with.

_But why her?_

She accidentally caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, ruby red lips in a white face, shaking silently in a fancy dress and high shoes, as true to herself as a doll pretending to be flesh and blood. Again, the borrowed necklace winked around her throat — the stupid, stupid present with a misleading romantic story.

 _Russian princess_.

Her cheeks flared with something that felt painfully like shame, and she fumbled with the clasp like it was red-hot, her breathing short and sharp — a cross between hiccups and dry sobs.

No tears. The unfastened necklace slithered from her hands and clattered across the counter, coming to a rest near the corner of the mirror. Felicity stared at it until her eyes burned, then she reached for the door.

A friend needed help. The rest could wait.

* * *

There was friendly conversation, impersonal smalltalk, and uncomfortable silences.

Felicity was pretty sure this could give the sub-arctic a run for its money. Every second it stretched on was like an extra layer of ice over the invisible wall between them. She’d been looking out the right jeep window — astutely avoiding the left side of the backseat — for so long that her neck felt like it had been welded into place.

Because every time she so much as looked at Oliver, a hard lump pressed against the sides of her throat, making it impossible to voice anything other than a strangled noise of frustration.

As far as inner monologues were concerned, she’d run out of expletives to pair with _you_ and _idiot_ since about mile two. Now she was just trying not to scream.

Isabel _knew_. Well, not exactly, since her version of the “truth” involved an inter-office affair, but everyone had told Felicity from day one that she was a terrible liar. Maleficent must have seen something to tip her off — that it wasn’t just gossip.

That Felicity genuinely cared about Oliver, crush or no crush.

And the Ice Queen had slept with him to prove a point — that she could win any contest, and it would _suck_ for any and all concerned, whether they’d entered the race or not.

“What was the point?” she asked, abruptly.

She’d had to croak the question; her voice was hoarse from the self-enforced quiet.

“The point of what?” Oliver said, not unkindly.

It just made her want to scream at him all the more.

“I mean…did you fight to be CEO just so you could sleep with her?” she said, realizing how nasty it sounded aloud. But she couldn’t think of another way to phrase something that was beyond her capabilities of comprehension. “I just — I just don’t understand. Seventy million women in Russia, and you chose her.”

“I thought _what happens in Russia, stays in Russia_ ,” he quoted, though he at least had the grace to sound discomfited about it.

“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re still _in_ Russia!” she said loudly. “She makes your life miserable, Oliver. Did you honestly think sleeping with her — and probably not calling afterwards — was going to change that? You basically just proved her point that you have _no_ qualms about getting involved with women in the office, much less your subordinates. If she decides to use that against you in front of the board, you’ll be —”

She forced herself to stop before she could say anything worse, settling for a (completely heartfelt): “ _Jesus_ , Oliver. What were you thinking?”

They lapsed back into loaded silence because Anatoly climbed back into the van with Tommy, the two of them reeking of cigarette smoke. “That was…interesting,” said the latter, giving his clothes a careful sniff. “Was I supposed to come out smelling like an ashtray?”

Anatoly chuckled. “At least if breakout fails, you will fit right in, eh?” he said cheerily, and the jeep lurched forward with him at the wheel.

* * *

Tommy didn’t know how breaking into gulags so they could break friends _out_ of said gulags were supposed to work, but he sensed that an alarm going off was a bad sign.

“What does _that_ mean?” he wondered aloud, twisting around in the passenger seat to look at Felicity.

“The explosive embedded in the lapel pin took out one of their walls, but the EMP pulse must have short-circuited from the cold or something,” she reported, fingers drumming out streams of code in her system hack. “I shut out the State Guard, but the FSB’s getting interested in the fireworks. I can’t hold them off for long.”

“Big friend and woman must come soon — or all of us become firewood,” Anatoly translated. “Maybe worse. They do not like Americans as much as I do.”

“They need backup,” Oliver said, and slid towards the side door. “I’m going. Felicity, talk me in.”

“Oliver!”

She reached past him and snagged the door handle before he could get to it, forcing him to stay inside the jeep. “They have assault rifles. You have martial arts and _not_ your special toys. Sit this one out.”

Some part of Tommy winced at the brutal honesty, and also mentally reminded himself not to piss Felicity off on one of her bad days. “You should listen to her, buddy. Even you aren’t bulletproof.”

Oliver still had his hand on the door. “We can’t leave John or Lyla behind, and I have a plan.” He almost smiled, and Tommy thought he was going to say _trust me_.

But he didn’t.

Then he was gone, landing in the snow with a crunch.

“ _Oliver!_ ” Instead of staying put, Felicity fumbled with her seatbelt. “The front gate is electrified — you —”

Tommy mentally redacted the profanity. “Felicity, he can handle it!”

“No, he can’t,” she snapped, and then it was her turn to jump from the jeep.

Anatoly raised his eyebrows. “Ach, these two. They will get each other killed.”

“Not _helping_.”

* * *

Oliver skirted close to the shadows, scanning the upper ramparts for patrolling sentries. Nothing. The camp was already short-staffed to begin with, and the alarm — still blaring in the distance — must have pulled more resources than they could afford.

He sensed movement at his back and whirled, thrusting the unknown assailant against the frozen wall with a muffled Russian curse.

“ _Jesus_ ,” she yelped, and he took a closer look. “It’s me.”

The agitation was instantly replaced by worry. “Felicity, stay with Anatoly. I can —”

“Saying you can handle it isn’t the same as having a plan,” she said fiercely. “That inner gate is wired to shock any attempts at sabotage — you’ll be fried before John and Lyla even get here.”

Oliver was momentarily surprised at how much she sounded like her usual self, until he remembered that it wasn’t her style to hold grudges, not when it counted, anyway. “Can you hack it?”

She shook her head, scattering snow from her hood. “But I _can_ tell you how to overload the circuit and blow through the gate. How’s your throwing arm?”

“Decent,” he answered, unsheathing a knife from his boot. “Tell me where.”

Her fingers curled around the sleeve of his coat. “Upper right, there’s a breaker inside. I’ve rerouted the power through the gate circuitry — you have to take out the breaker before it disrupts the overload.”

Oliver pressed Felicity into the shadows again, his arm in front of her, and they both waited for a group of sentries to race past. “About what happened — just now —”

“I know,” she interrupted, still not quite meeting his eyes. “Let’s just get John out.”

He nodded, and slipped out of their hiding place, knife in hand. “Tell me when.”

“One…”

He could hear her tapping on her computer, and the whine of the rising electrical current, surging through frayed wires…

“Two…”

A sentry had spotted them from the distance. There was a shout in Russian — an order to identify himself.

“Felicity.” Oliver’s breath came out as mist.

“Now!”

He hurled the knife, just as the first spray of bullets raised puffs of snow at his feet. The circuit breaker groaned, sparking from the knife buried in the steel, rapidly turning red as the metal overheated —

Oliver grabbed Felicity and hauled her behind a corner wall before the explosion. Bricks and bits of steel wire pelted the snow as a cloud of flames scorched a ten-feet radius around the yawning hole in the gate.

Her face was hidden in the front of his coat; he’d pressed her against the bricks out of instinct, shielding her from the debris.

“Okay?” he asked.

She nodded, and he pulled her along by the hand. They confronted the smoke head-on, and Oliver searched the inner courtyard for signs of life.

“There!” Felicity waved. “John!”

Their friend was a little worse for wear, helping a woman dressed all in black and leaning heavily on him. Lyla Michaels.

It actually _worked_.

“Good to see you,” Oliver said, when they met in the middle.

Diggle grinned, despite the cut in his lip. “Nice to know I’m not a permanent Russian. Anything happen while I was gone?”

Felicity stood on tiptoes to hug him and smiled at Lyla. “It’s…a long story,” she said, without looking at Oliver. “Now why don’t we get out of the cold?”

* * *

The morning of their departure was marked with a steady patter of gray rain on the window glass. Felicity folded the dinner dress into a dry-cleaning bag and reached for a sweater lying on the bed, shaking it out by the shoulders just so she could do it again.

There wasn’t a whole lot in which Felicity took after her mom, but doing a mean neat-freak fold was one of the takeaways, especially when she was stressed, which was why the inside of her suitcase looked like a Banana Republic before opening hours.

“We could break the coffeemaker,” Tommy suggested, sitting on the floor to watch her pack. “That might be pretty satisfying — just ripping off one of the cappy thingies. Granted, it kinda deadens the symbolism if you can’t throw it out the window — because _illegal_ — but it’s the thought that counts.”

Felicity gave a huff of amusement, using her chin to hold a shirt straight for folding. “Technology and I have a very amiable relationship — I’d like to think machines have a soft spot for me. Besides, the coffeemaker’s technically mine, so that just shoots the symbolism — if any — right in the face.”

Tommy blew out his breath, shaking his hands like he’d touched something hot. “Graphic,” he said. “I’ll take a _wild_ guess and say that you’re mad.”

Felicity turned on the spot, an odd shoe in each hand. “I’m not mad.”

“That’s exactly what someone who’s mad would say.”

“ _Tommy._ ” She threw the shoes into her suitcase and slammed the top down. “It’s not like someone _died_ , okay? He’s free to be as stupid as he wants. I’m not his best friend — I’m not his mother — though would I recommend that he get himself checked for STDs —”

“And frostbite,” he added meekly. “Don’t forget frostbite.”

“—hell yes. But as far as I’m concerned,” she said, throwing her suitcase open again because she’d forgotten a pair of socks, “I am _done_ meddling with his love life.”

Tommy raised a hand. “Um, as resident meddler with Oliver Queen’s love life, I have _never_ seen you in the clubhouse. We even have a karaoke bar and everything, but that’s not the point. What _is_ my point — you don’t actually think the Oopsie with the Human Migraine had anything to do with the L-word, right?”

Felicity didn’t answer, because she was getting that punched-in-the-stomach sensation all over again. “I’d like to think doing — _that_ — means something. But clearly, I’m not as experienced in the field of one night stands as the Great Lord of the Gigolos, so I don’t know.”

“Hurtful,” he conceded. “But if it helps, I really don’t think it meant anything.”

Felicity managed a little smile, because there was a lot to be said for Tommy trying to cheer her up, even though Oliver was still his best friend of — well — _life_. “It kinda doesn’t, but thanks.”

He nodded like it was expected, and she bent to kiss his cheek. “Thank you,” she said again, just for luck.

There was a tap on the door, and they both looked over. Oliver was standing outside. “Can I come in?” he asked.

Tommy gathered his legs up and got to his feet, patting the dust off his jeans. “Can’t believe I forgot that urgent thing in What’s-That-Place, huh?” he said innocently. “Guess I’ll meet you guys in the lobby.”

“Subtle,” Oliver muttered, as his friend passed.

“Only learn from the best,” he called, and the front door shut with a slam.

Just like that, they were alone. Felicity didn’t have to be reminded that they hadn’t spoken — really spoken — since the night of the breakout, and even if they’d put their differences aside under gunfire, for Diggle’s sake, it didn’t mean there wasn’t still a whole lot of ground to cover.

“John says he and Lyla are ready to go when we are,” he said, somewhat inanely, clearly cutting a wide circle around his point.

“Okay,” she said. “I’m just finishing up.”

She turned her back to check the bedside drawers again, waiting for him to leave. But he didn’t.

Felicity had to bite her lip and try — hard — not to find the situation ridiculous. It wasn’t like they’d been anything, not even an italicized _anything_ , and here they were, tiptoeing around each other like Oliver sleeping with Isabel was a world-ending turn of events.

It wasn’t, and it didn’t have any right to be.

It also wasn’t worth leaving Russia with a murky conscience, because waiting for Oliver to make the first move was like waiting for a glacier to melt, so she started first — for real.

“I’m sorry — about what I said, in the car. It was rude. I know you worked hard — I shouldn’t have said what I did about your…motives. But obviously you had a reason. I don’t know if it was the leggy model-ness, or it was one of your chess moves in the whole double identity game — it’s clearly not my business.”

She didn’t smile, because she knew it would have turned out brittle and forced, too much like Isabel for her liking. “Just…why?” she asked, in a very small voice. “Why her?”

Oliver looked acutely uncomfortable, but he had the decency to maintain eye contact as he explained. “It didn’t mean anything,” he said. “We were talking over drinks, and it just…happened. It helped me get a better measure of how she thinks, that’s all.”

“Oh.”

Felicity nodded, and leaned over to zip up her packed suitcase, well aware that Oliver was watching her the whole time. She’d spent a ridiculous amount of time (on par with the circumstances) considering her knee-jerk reaction, trying to reach a quantifiable answer as to why she felt like someone had taken a red-hot set of brass knuckles to her insides, when all Oliver had done was sleep with a grown, consenting (albeit personality-challenged) and attractive woman, probably to make his double life a little easier.

Then it hit her. Because it _hadn’t_ meant anything to Oliver. Cold, hard math. He hadn't even considered what it would look like to Isabel, the  _validation_ it gave to the rumors about Felicity sleeping her way to her current job. Or maybe it had, and she just didn't factor in at all. Isabel was a means to an end, personal preferences aside. It was a matter of convenience, and very much something old Oliver would have done, the one who found it easier to pretend to be a carefree rich kid while his mom ran the family company, to shun family and friends after the Undertaking and retreat to Lian Yu.

She just thought he’d grown a little since then.

Clearly, she was wrong.

Before she could forget, Felicity reached for the velvet-covered box sitting on top of the vanity, and laid it carefully at the foot of the bed, within easy reach for Oliver.

She hadn’t shut the lid, and the diamonds glittered under the wan sunbeam that cut a single stripe across the duvet cover, throwing a refracted constellation of lights onto the ceiling.

“Here,” she said, giving it another push. “Thank you for letting me wear it.”

Oliver took up the box himself, and nodded. Nothing else. He even stepped aside to let her pass with the suitcase, and watched her walk all the way across the living room, to the main door.

“Felicity,” he said, finally.

Her fingers were on the handle, but she turned back. “Hm?”

“Because of the life that I lead,” he said carefully, using each word with purpose, “I just think it’s better not to be with someone that I could really care about.”

Felicity nodded, even though she was far from accepting it.

“Oliver, I’m just going to say something once, and I’d really like you to hear it. I know it might seem easier to be who you’ve always been — do what you’ve always done — but I don’t think everything you've been up until now is going to make you happy, and you _deserve_ to be. I don’t know who’s going to make you happy — I really don’t, but whoever that person is, I think it’s someone a lot better than Isabel Rochev.” She smiled at him, and felt like she might have meant it. “That’s all I wanted to say. See you downstairs.”

The door swung shut on Oliver standing in the middle of the room, staring out the window as the skies poured with rain.

* * *

A recurring part of Tommy Merlyn’s M.O. seemed to be showing up to places with food. What the hell, at least it made for a great conversation starter, especially if he had two options available. The local coffee place round the corner from Queen Consolidated had _finally_ rolled out the caramel pumpkin option, which was what he showed up with (times two), and a bag of nut-free banana biscotti.

Oliver was working in his office (shocker) when he got to the top floor, though Tommy took a moment for a quick once-over. Mopey grumpy cat face, check. Very much alone-liness, also check. No Felicity in sight, triple check.

How he’d come across the information was irrelevant, but he had it on good authority (fine, Diggle) that three o’clock on Wednesdays was when Felicity made her report to the CEO. Which made her absence (especially considering it was three-fifteen) all the more glaring.

Anyway.

“Hey,” he said, shouldering into the office with gifts of food. “Busy?”

“Hey. I wasn’t expecting you,” Oliver glanced at his assistant’s empty desk, as though to check why he hadn’t been refused entry. “Oh.”

Tommy thwacked the side of his head with the biscotti bag. “ _Oh_ is very happy to see you too.”

Oliver made a vague sound of protest when Tommy planted himself on the edge of his desk, right on top of some documents with a sticky note that said ISABEL in red. Nothing important then.

The second pumpkin latte went on the desk too, only just within reach for Oliver, depending on his next answer or two. “So,” Tommy said casually, between sips of his coffee. “How’ve you been?”

His big, beautifully blue eyes narrowed. “I just saw you last night.”

“Right, but I mean that in the metaphysical sense.” He gestured grandly. “Cosmically. Occupationally. Romantically.”

Oliver exhaled loudly. “Tommy —”

“I’ll take that as a _no_.” Tommy plopped the coffee out of the way before his best friend could grab it. “Was it worth it?” he asked.

Oliver had the good sense _not_ to play dumb. “I don’t know.”

Tommy shook his head in exasperation, because he _was_ exasperated, and it usually took him very little effort to laugh things off. “It’s not even slut-shaming,” he said, thinking out loud. “I’m stupid-shaming you. Because _Jesus Christ_ , that was stupid.”

Oliver made a noise that might have been a grunt of agreement. “I didn’t know she cared.”

Tommy thumped a fist against his forehead. “You mean making the trip to Lian Yu to bring you home, lying to save your green leathered ass, and just generally saving your life was — what — professional courtesy?”

Oliver had the good grace not to try and qualify his response with an explanation. “I said her name by accident,” he admitted. “Felicity.”

 _That_ was news. Tommy edged the coffee a little further. “Where?”

“Bed.”

“With the human migraine.”

“Yes.”

“Hm.” Tommy stared up at the ceiling, running over his personal log for experiential equivalence. “This kind of Freudian slip ever happen before?”

“No.”

“Interesting. Are you gonna do anything about it?”

“You want me to send flowers and an apology? I don’t think Isabel noticed,” Oliver said, cleanly — perfectly — missing the point.

Tommy swore he might have caught a look at his own brain, rolling his eyes as hard as he did. “About. Felicity,” he said through his teeth.

“Oh.” Oliver shrugged, overcompensatingly casual. “No.”

Another _thwack_ of the biscotti bag, and Tommy straightened up slightly, a bright smile on his face, because he’d just seen Felicity emerge from the elevators, in conversation with one of the girls from IT (practically her twin).

“Okay,” he said, waving when she caught sight of him. “Then I _whole-heartedly_ apologize for what’s about to happen next.”

Oliver sighed. “Do I want to know?”

“Oh, you’ll find out. Because if you’re not going to fix the big doo-doo you made in one of _the_ best relationships of your life, I’m going to flirt with the object of your affections until you pry that shapely head out of your ass and decide to take a shot at being something resembling _happy_.”

Tommy winked, and snagged both latte and biscotti on his way out.

“Hey, gorgeous,” he said, interrupting Felicity mid-sentence with a kiss on the cheek.

Granted, the polite European greeting was pretty standard for them — being friends — but Tommy was counting on Oliver’s caveman vision not to register that. He chucked Felicity underneath the chin and presented her with the coffee, well aware that Oliver’s glare was fixed squarely on his back.

“What are you doing?” she asked quietly, while her friend (Brie something) watched the whole exchange with a wide-open mouth.

Tommy put on his most knee-melting smile. “You’ll thank me later.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I know that literally nobody is happy that Oliver did in fact schtup Isabel. I'm happy to discuss the choice in the comments, but in brief, I couldn't justify removing such a crucial shift in Olicity's relationship, even if it's fanfic. I kept it vague, so hopefully the scene itself wasn't too awful. I did particularly like Stephen Amell's headcanon that the reason for Isabel wanting to kill Felicity was because of the accidental name-drop in their one night stand, so there you go.  
> @Lademonessa, your plot bunny was brilliant, and funny, and completely in character for everyone. I'm sorry I didn't use it, and it was amazing of you to share such a gorgeous idea. I hope you'll end up fleshing out the scene yourself some day, but I know you're busy with your lovely fics :)
> 
> About where it goes next, I'm still coming up with ideas for the Vertigo episode that won't make the chapter a re-tread of what we already know. Suggestions, once again, are very much appreciated. Cheers!


	9. Aftershocks (Vertigo, Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helloooooo. Still following the story? :P  
> Thanks for not being incredibly pissed off with me for the Sequence of Events That Shall Not Be Named. It had to happen, at least from my point of view, and I'm very happy that you understood. (Hugs)

Jean Loring was a smart woman. She’d made a career out of smart choices, from her years as a Stanford undergrad, all the way to the California State Bar, late nights and boys club attitudes in the courtroom, backbreaking effort that finally translated to a name partnership at Bently & Loring, Attorneys at Law.

It was implicitly understood between herself and the client she was defending that under normal circumstances, the case would have gone into the Pro Bono pile reserved for the first year associates, maybe not even then.

Attorney Jean Loring didn’t lose cases, and she certainly didn’t choose ones that came with a frenzy of sensationalist media coverage and an unwinnable premise.

_I aided and abetted the murder of five hundred and three innocent lives._

_But I changed my mind less than an hour before it happened._

_Malcolm Merlyn is dead, and I was afraid for my life._

_I have children, and I’m a good person._

_Unwinnable_. It was the first thing she’d thought, as soon as she’d gotten the call. It was the first thing Alfred Bently said, when she’d told him she was taking up the case, against her professional instincts. The truth: Moira Queen had spent most of her time in the public eye as a cool and distant figure of considerable personal wealth and influence. This stood in unfortunate contrast to the plea of duress they were trying to argue, when the client in question looked like she could have stared Death down without blinking, and politely asked it to go screw itself. Even to the most impressionable layman, the former CEO of Queen Consolidated being an unhappy puppet — by an individual too dead to question, no less — was a twist too convenient to swallow.

To win would mean successfully reversing years of built-in prejudices and set impressions in the span of a single trial, in the minds of twelve strangers in the jury box, when the lives of five hundred and three people hovered over the courtroom like a looming shadow. She knew enough about murder trials to know that blood demanded blood, and Starling City wasn’t going to stop rattling the chains when the Glades was still marked by a yawning crater.

Moira Queen was an old friend, an old _dear_ friend, and while Jean believed her story, she had her reservations regarding their chances of winning the case. At the present, it felt like all she could really do was make sure they went down fighting.

She shook her head silently at the merciless dissection of Moira Queen’s defence. They’d called her children into the prison for a reason — to try and hash out the details of testifying and the finalized version of her defence. With reporters and watching eyes of the jury, the last thing she needed was a look of surprise flitting across her son or daughter’s faces, fatally undermining the official story.

In actual fact, the only person she would rather have not included wasn’t even related to Moira at all. Jean hadn’t been expecting Malcolm’s son to show up with Oliver and Thea, except everyone involved — Moira included — had treated it with peremptory acceptance, as though it was unthinkable that Thomas Merlyn wouldn’t be involved in this, a family affair.

No one seemed to mention that the trial would, in effect, would paint his deceased father as the devil himself.

Not having been acquainted with Malcolm due to personal preference, Jean hadn’t had much of an opportunity to meet his son over the years, and she _was_ startled by what she saw. The boy had his father’s good looks, no doubt about it. Pale skin and dark hair, clear blue eyes with just the right amount of gray in them, as much a contrast to Moira’s golden son as yin and yang. But where Malcolm’s good looks were predatory — almost cruel, his son’s were rubbed of their hard edges, softened somehow, either by experience, or from his mother Rebecca.

Jean didn’t quite remember what Rebecca Merlyn had been like, though the word _kind_ did spring to mind. She ran some kind of clinic — in the city. There was some bad business with it, another vague tidbit or story dredged up from one of the many dinners at someone’s vast house.

Too long ago to remember.

In spite of the distinctive mistrust she had, for someone related to the mass murderer who’d destroyed her home city, she found herself taking a reluctant liking to the kid, the more she watched from a distance. He was teasing and affectionate with Thea, like she was the little sister he’d never had, and brotherly with Oliver, drawing smiles easily from his gruff face. Even Moira softened when she was around him, grasping his hand every now and then across the table, warming in a rare smile when she answered his questions.

Jean unfolded her arms as the idea began to form. It was risky, but it was an option, and they were hard-pressed for options. Steps would have to be taken, of course, to make sure there wasn’t any dirt that could harm Moira’s already-fragile case, but that was true of any witness. The key was to be prepared for it.

Tommy was clearly unlike his father.

She just needed to know if those differences ran deep enough for him to take the stand, and maybe — just maybe — they might win the impossible.

* * *

“Whatever shampoo you’re using in here, it’s working,” Tommy said, pretending to check on Moira’s roots. “Can’t even see the gray.”

He was lying; there was more ash in her hair than ever, from the strain and stress of a publicized trial, but they didn’t let him into the prison block to be the reporter of Obvious Information.

He was visiting family.

“Don’t tease me, Tommy,” Moira answered, patting his hand sternly. “The first thing I’m going to do once I get home is take a long, hot shower. And rest assured, there won’t be eight women and a guard watching.”

Both her children perked up, like they were twelve and she’d just mentioned Santa.

“ _If_ ,” she amended, with a slight wince. “I’m sorry. I should have chosen my words more carefully —”

“No, mom,” Thea insisted, grasping her hand too. “That’s really good. You haven’t talked like that since…”

She stumbled, failing to think of an example. Oliver hastily came to his sister’s defence. “We all need to be optimistic,” he said quietly. “I’m sure Jean has a lot of great ideas for the defence. Jean?”

Moira’s lawyer had been standing so quietly in the corner — observing — for such a long time, that Tommy had almost forgotten she was there. She unglued herself from the wall and walked over, sliding onto the bench beside her client.

“I do,” she said finally. “But there’s no guarantee you’ll like it.”

The single look she flashed in Tommy’s direction was indicator number one as to what the defence involved, and he braced himself to hear what she wanted to say.

“My dad,” he guessed. “You’re going to do the lawyer thing and cut him up with a pair of attorney scissors, aren’t you?”

Jean inclined her head. “I’m afraid so. Moira’s best — and only — route of defence is still to plead that she was coerced into helping an evil man —” (Tommy flinched) “— carry out a scheme she didn’t fully understand, and once she did, good conscience, even in the face of fear for her life and family, motivated the public warning on live television.”

No one spoke for the longest time, and it was exceedingly hard to tell whether it was from skepticism, or the fact that it would have been too awkward for anyone except Tommy to give the post-mortem character assassination the _OK_.

Unfortunately, this was one of those times when he preferred to be the quiet one.

“Does Tommy need to testify?” Oliver asked, straight to the point.

“No,” Moira said immediately. She rested her hand on top of Tommy’s wrist before he could speak. “Jean, I don’t want my children to take the stand, and Thomas is as good as a son to the family. I won’t have him picked apart by the wolves for _my_ foolish mistake.”

In spite of the situation, Tommy and Oliver exchanged looks, instinctive responses to one of them being called by their formal names. _Uh-oh, who’s in trouble now?_

Thea leaned forward, almost stammering with desperation. “Mom, Jean’s already talked to us. The jury’s been hearing wall to wall coverage of what an _awful_ person you are. Letting us take the stand may be the only way to fight that in the courtroom.”

Oliver nodded. “Let us do this for you, mom. You’ve been in prison for too long, and the only reason you’ll be leaving is because the jury comes back with a _Not Guilty_. That’s all we’re going to accept.”

“I’m afraid that’s not entirely up to you, Oliver,” Moira said, with her usual pragmatism. “Jean is _my_ lawyer, and she will run _my_ defence. I refuse to force a testimony from anyone, especially not Tommy.”

She turned her acute, bright gaze onto Tommy, who met her head on. “Now, I know what it means to have divided loyalties. Malcolm was your father, and you have every reason to remember the man who raised you with nothing but fondness. I won’t have you pull yourself apart for my sake. Do not agree to anything unless you really want to.”

Tommy wasn’t usually a nitpicker (fine, he kinda was), and she was being especially editorial when it came to listing Malcolm’s accomplishments. “Hm,” he said seriously. “That’s weird, because I remember who brought me to pick out my first tux when I was fourteen, and who drove me straight to the hospital after I swallowed that — what was it —?” he turned to Oliver for help.

“— chess piece,” he added, smiling a little as though he knew where Tommy was going with this.

“It was a stupid bet, but you still got me to the Emergency Room. Fun fact — I _also_ remember who bailed me out of trouble after Ollie punched that reporter in the face.” Tommy shook his head slightly. “And it wasn’t Malcolm, for _any_ of those times.”

Moira’s eyes looked a little brighter, and she had to clear her throat before she could answer. “I can’t thank you enough,” she said thickly, clasping his hands in her thin ones. “But Tommy, you should know — ah —”

“There’s nothing else to know,” he said, and turned to Jean. “What do you need from me?”

Jean moved so smoothly that Tommy suspected she’d known all along he was going to testify. “Let’s get started then,” she said, already writing out the strategy with a shiny fountain pen.

* * *

“So we’re decided on the Yamakashi account,” Isabel said, a gleaming fingernail tapping on the letterhead of her meeting agenda. “No forward progress until the next quarterly earnings report. Agreed?”

Oliver — at the fourth consecutive board meeting he hadn’t missed — glanced around the conference room for any hands raised in objection, well aware that Isabel was eyeing everyone the way a farmer scanned a field for weeds.

Felicity, sitting in her usual place beside him (a strangely reassuring fact, given all that had happened), was in the middle of checking her phone beneath the table top. _That_ was less reassuring, since he knew there was a limited roster of reasons that could make Felicity divert her attention from a meeting, even if it was being chaired by Isabel. He studied her out the corner of his eye, trying to guess if the reason for her distraction was Foundry-related business.

The corner of her mouth quirked in a smile, and she turned the phone facedown, though not before she’d typed out a quick one-handed reply.

Oliver forced himself to look straight ahead. If Tommy’s grand scheme of annoying him through flirting with Felicity was still going strong, he was determined not to let it faze him.

“Oh, and the last order of business,” Isabel said, interrupting his (somewhat dark) thoughts of bodily harm, “with the State v Moira Queen trial coming up, I’m putting in an order for increased security around the lobby and verified ID checks. The media circus is bound to come our way for obvious reasons —”

The pause, perfectly timed, allowed everyone’s gazes to skitter past Oliver, as though he hadn’t already gotten the implication.

“— and the last thing we need is a reporter getting into our systems — or digging up something about our employees that I’d rather not see plastered across Page Six. Let’s try to keep Queen Consolidated out of the gossip pages, shall we?”

Oliver glanced down at the table, surreptitiously checking to see if Felicity had her pen (red) in her left hand. She’d tap it sometimes, if she could sense him getting agitated by Isabel’s verbal sniping, a private signal between them that meant _calm down, I’m here_.

The pen was nowhere near her hand, and she was looking almost determinedly at the windows ahead of the conference table.

 _Right_.

Another reminder that things weren’t exactly the same, not since Moscow. They were similar enough to be deceptive, but it was as though someone had taken the scene and shifted it by a matter of degrees, and Oliver was still trying to maneuver his way through the newly skewed landscape.

“I’ll assume everyone intends well-wishes for my mother,” he said finally, to break the tension. “Otherwise we might want to think about a name change.”

There was a gentle murmur of laughter from the board. They liked Oliver, his absences notwithstanding. Many of them had been present during Moira Queen’s tenure as CEO, and there was an ingrained loyalty from the years his family had been in charge of the company, a kind of reassuring continuity: father, mother, and now son.

Isabel could never hope to match it, competence and determination be damned, and he knew it scraped at her like a daily annoyance, that for all her accomplishments, she still came second to Oliver in that one, somewhat crucial aspect.

By unspoken agreement, everyone began to disperse. Oliver was momentarily held up as several members of the board stopped to wish him good luck in person, but by the time he was through with the handshaking, Felicity was on her feet, efficiently gathering up her computer and notes like she had somewhere else to be. While technically true, he’d been under the vague impression that she’d walk with him like she usually did.

“I think that went well,” he said to her, in an undertone. “Could you talk me through the Cobalt report? I don’t think I really —”

“Oliver, can I see you for a minute?” Isabel said.

Even though it had been phrased as a question, it was very much toned as a demand, and they all knew it. Oliver held up his hand to stall, but Felicity was already pushing her chair in, only narrowly missing his toes.

“I’ll have the summary on your desk by this afternoon,” she said quickly. “Isabel, do you want a copy too?”

Isabel looked up, a rare instance of surprise showing on her face. “That…would be very helpful, Felicity. Thank you.”

“No problem. You’ll have it by three.”

Oliver gave her a look. “Felicity —”

She wagged a finger at the door. “Digg’s outside.”

Before Oliver could say anything else, she walked straight past him without a backward glance, meeting their friend outside the conference room. Diggle gave Oliver an apologetic look over Felicity’s head, but the two of them made their way to the elevators, leaving him alone with Isabel.

Oliver frowned at the hallway — now deserted — and contemplated the abruptness of Felicity’s departure, not for possible explanations, because it was one of those unique times when he already _knew_ why.

He’d just assumed that things would be back to normal by now.

“ _Brr_ ,” Isabel commented. “Trouble in paradise?”

It was an odd set of circumstances. On the one hand, Felicity behaved like Oliver was more her boss than friend, and even if he were, it was an acquaintance of weeks, rather than over a year. On the other side of the equation, Isabel had been treating him with a noticeable absence of her usual disdain, in a way that might even be construed as _friendly_.

She was poised on the arm of a chair, one leg folded over the other. Oliver kept himself at a professional distance, his hands in his pockets. “You wanted a minute?” he asked, quietly declining to engage.

Even if there was no real way to put things back to the way they were, Oliver believed it was a smart thing to treat Moscow as the last time he’d ever voluntarily discuss Felicity in front of Isabel Rochev. For someone who’d been working off suspicions, she had a surprisingly accurate handle on his pressure points, and he disliked the feeling of being manipulated through someone he cared about.

Isabel seemed to sense that he’d drawn a line through the topic of conversation, and didn’t pursue it. “I just wanted to wish you and your family luck in private,” she said. “I know Moira and I haven’t had the most cordial relationship, but I still wish her all the best.”

Oliver inclined his head. “I’ll pass it on, thank you.”

“But Oliver —” There was a note of warning in her voice, and he braced himself inwardly for what he was about to hear. “As unthinkable as that is for the Queens, there’s still a very big chance that the trial might not go your way. If that happens, I want to know you’ll do the right thing as CEO of the company.”

Oliver waited. “And that would be?” he said.

“I'm sure you love your mother, and you want to be a good son, but from a business perspective, distancing yourself from the convicted mass murderer would be the smart thing to do.”

His hands — out of sight — clenched into tight fists. “I’ll take that into consideration. Thank you, Isabel. Is that all?”

Isabel’s eyes narrowed slightly at his curtness, but her lips formed an unconvincing smile. “Yes,” she answered. “I think that’s all for now.”

* * *

“Do you think we could get sushi later, not Big Belly?” Felicity said, fidgeting with the waist of her pencil skirt. “I think the food products from that establishment are turning out as advertised.”

Diggle gave an abstract grunt behind her. As per their usual workday routine, she was in the process of proofreading her summary of the Cobalt report while he watched the news on the main monitor. The computer was supposed to be her desktop, but she preferred working on her tablet anyway, and it felt like a somewhat-middle finger to the establishment (fine, mostly Isabel) to let someone else use the work computer to watch TV.

Every screen in Starling was getting constant coverage of Moira Queen’s trial, a fever pitch of conjecture and soundbites of interviews with the bereaved, all before a judge and jury had even heard the case.

“Former CEO Moira Queen goes on trial tomorrow, where she will face charges for the murder of five hundred and three people, victims of the earthquake that devastated the Glades. While some question the aggressive attitude of the prosecution, and whether she is in fact being held as a scapegoat for the main instigator — Merlyn Global’s CEO Malcolm Merlyn, now deceased — far more are crying out for justice.”

“I think _that_ might be the fairest thing anyone has ever said about Moira Queen on television,” Felicity said, as TV anchor Bethany Snow moved on to other news. “Everyone else seems to be blanking on the person who put the earthquake machines down there in the first place.”

Diggle shook his head. “You can’t prosecute a dead man,” he said, and she could tell that everything about the trial wasn’t sitting well with him, not just from the way he kept pulling at his tie like it was trying to throttle him. “She’s not my favorite person in the world, but the way the media’s talking about her — I can’t see how any jury won’t come in ready to convict.”

Felicity paused mid-read, and pushed back in her chair, hands folded on her stomach. “I know I’m usually the optimist, but I think we all need a backup plan. You know — _if_.”

She let the rest of the sentence hang, but it was clear Diggle knew what she meant. He shot her a look that was both appraising and curious. “You’re not gonna talk to him? I thought the pep talks were your job.”

Felicity almost smiled. “Of course I will — I mean, I do. I still talk to him.”

Diggle had the remarkable ability to say ‘ _fess up_ with a single gesture, in this case, a raised eyebrow. “You’re freezing him out,” he guessed, and waved her off before she could protest. “No judgment, just making sure we’re all on the same page. God knows there’s not enough of that around here.”

“I’m not freezing him out,” Felicity clarified, brushing a minuscule speck of lint from her skirt. “I’m taking a step back. Reserving some personal space. I think I got wrapped up a little hard and fast with the whole thing — forgot to think about what was a good idea for me.”

“ _Personal space_ ,” he repeated. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days? Tommy told me you have a date tonight.”

Felicity flicked him on the knee. “It’s just dinner, and you know what I mean. I feel…so _stupid_ , because I acted like a kid with her first crush. But instead of a hacktivist club in a college dorm room — long story, I’ll fill you in later — I joined up a secret basement vigilante group, hacked god knows how many federal databases and _definitely_ violated the Patriot Act…which I know on some level I did for Oliver. And it turns out that he doesn’t even _stoop_ to consider what it might say about me, the person he promoted against _everyone’s_ advice, if he sleeps with my other boss. In conclusion, that stings, and I’m a tiny bit peeved at him. So yes, personal space. I think that’s what I need right now.”

Diggle sighed heavily, like he didn’t disagree at all. “Look, Felicity, what Oliver did was stupid. We both know he’s crazy good at making stupid choices, and of course it hurts, but his mother’s on trial right now — maybe facing life in prison — and you have to know that if it was your life on the line, he’d be there for you too. No hesitation whatsoever.”

Felicity’s chin was resting on her hands, and she thought about it, she really did.

_But._

She smiled ruefully. “I know, John, and I _know_ I’m being selfish here, but if there _has_ to be a gun to my head before Oliver shows me that he cares — that’s not enough.”

“Then do what you have to do.” Diggle held out his hand, and she grasped it. Though the quiet moment was cut in half by the realization that his skin was…a little warmer to the touch than normal human health required.

She rolled her chair closer and took another look at him. There was sweat beading on his forehead and neck, which was weird, because the air conditioning at QC was almost constantly set to frigid. “You okay? You look a little… _hot_. And not _hot_ in an _I’m-hitting-on-you_ way, because things with you and Lyla are going stupid-happy great, and you’re my friend. _Mazel tov_ , by the way. Do I sound bitter? Trust me, I’m not. When I start taking scissors to Hallmark cards and collect cherub heads in a bowl, _that’s_ when you should call the cray-cray police —”

Diggle yanked at his collar again, and she saw the dark patches where he’d almost sweat straight through the shirt. “I’m not doing so great, actually,” he interrupted. “Might be the flu, but I don’t—”

“— and you sat here letting me go on about _my_ problems?” she demanded, snatching up the office phone. “I’ll call a car, you go home and chicken-soup it up.”

“I can’t, Oliver needs a bodyguard. The trial…”

She cupped her hand over the receiver and glared fiercely, waiting for the security center to pick up. “I’m calling in a replacement for you. Don’t make me use my loud v—”

Before she could finish the sentence, Diggle staggered to his feet, breathing harsh and fast. He only made it as far as half a step before his legs buckled, and he landed on her floor with a thud, dead to the world.

“John!”

* * *

“You would _not_ believe how many of our friends are still single. Still single and ready to — never mind.” Tommy flicked through the contacts on his phone, leaning on the corner of Oliver’s desk.

Determined not to give his best friend the satisfaction of being annoyed, Oliver’s only response was to reach over and tug a stack of important contracts out from under Tommy’s ass.

“You remember that photographer guy who did the promo shots for Verdant?” Tommy asked, as though the deafening silence hadn’t dampened his enthusiasm in the slightest. “Thea snagged his number for a rainy day — also because I may or may not have forgotten to pay him for some pick-up shots. Anyway, Mr James Olsen is one good-looking guy, funny, tall… _great_ smile. He’s in town this week, and I set them up on a date.”

Oliver looked up sharply, his mouth half-open, and Tommy watched as he fought to twist the protest into an unrelated question. “How…exactly was my sister involved?” he recovered.

“She was helping me around the club, okay?” Tommy said, insufferably smug. “Especially since a certain somebody wasn’t around. You would not _believe_ the discounts she gets for flirting with suppliers.”

“So you both have that in common,” Oliver muttered, flipping a page so hard that it made a noise like a whip-crack.

He refrained from asking about the date, and the thinly veiled dig seemed to go straight over his head and out the thirty-fourth floor window. “Or, _hey_ — remember the Wayne kid? Boris? Benson? Whatever — anyway, I heard he just got back from being dead. Billionaire, dropped out of _Princeton_ , no idea why that sounds familiar, but eh — he might be Felicity’s type. I think Thea has his number, ‘scuse me…”

He snagged Oliver’s office phone and started to dial, notwithstanding the fact that he had a fully functioning cell phone in his hand. “So that’s five-oh-two…”

Oliver smoothly pressed down on the phone’s base to cut off the call. “This is my _office_ , not a _Match.com_ meeting.”

Tommy dropped the receiver with a little huff. “I’m surprised you even know what that is, but just FYI, the hot-off-the-press pop culture reference would be Tinder.”

“I don’t care.”

He winked. “Sure, you don’t. I’ll just text her and find out.”

“Whatever.”

“You know you could stop all this if you just went up to Felicity and apologized.”

“I have _been_ apologetic,” Oliver said, trying to keep himself from sounding defensive. “I haven’t brought it up since it happened. And for that matter, what exactly did I do wrong?”

Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose, holding up two fingers. “A, being _apologetic_ isn’t the same thing as apologizing, let’s get that one out of the way first. And B, on the subject of how you screwed up, you do realize that Isabel probably thinks — even more than she usually does — that you and Felicity are sleeping together, right? Well, _were_. I’m guessing the Felicity in Maleficent's reality dumped you after you schtupped someone else on a romantic getaway. I’m also guessing that Rochev has a way of spreading office rumors, and they just got a _whole_ lot more credible thanks to you.”

“It’s just a —”

Tommy rolled up one of the contracts and whacked Oliver on the shoulder. “She’s hurt. And you need to make that right. Verbally, not with one of your ridiculous sublime codes.”

Oliver rubbed the spot where he’d been hit, even though it hadn’t actually stung that much. “Fine — I’ll look into it. After the trial.”

Tommy held the makeshift bat aloft for another second, eyes narrowed while he sussed out Oliver’s level of sincerity. “After the trial,” he agreed, and lowered his weapon. “Also — I think you’re vibrating.”

“What? Oh —” Oliver reached into his jacket and Tommy managed to read the display upside down. “It’s Felicity.”

“Huh. Man up and take it.”

Oliver gave him a very non-appreciative glare and took the call. “Felicity,” he said, and his expression twisted into one of pure surprise. “He _what?_ ”

* * *

“Now I may have skipped med school, but I don’t think flu patients normally throw up,” Tommy said helpfully, sitting by the makeshift sickbed in the Foundry basement.

Diggle rolled onto his side, his face and back slick with perspiration. “I wish you hadn’t seen that.”

“Yeah, you and me both, buddy. Lucky for you, I have a great gag reflex — ha, that’s what she said. Feel better yet?”

Diggle cracked an eyelid. “Worse.”

“Do we know what it is?” Oliver asked.

Felicity felt Diggle’s forehead again, kneeling on the floor beside the cot. “You may have been too passed out to notice, but I took a sample of your blood at the office and dropped it off with a chemist at QC. Long story, but the guy owes me a favor after I fixed his computer — he downloaded a suspicious email file — celebrity sex tape, figures — and it would have crashed the company server —”

Diggle struggled to sit up, but she pressed him back down, sign _numero uno_ that he wasn’t his usual self, that someone as tiny as Felicity could push a guy twice her weight over with the use of mild violence.

“—Felicity, what about the blood test?” Oliver interrupted, visibly concerned by what he was seeing.

“Positive for trace amounts of Vertigo.”

“What?” Diggle almost rolled straight off the bed, but Tommy pushed him back on. “I’ve never taken that stuff in my life.”

“You must have been exposed to it somehow,” Oliver said, his voice tight with frustration. “ _Damn it_. I thought we’d flushed Vertigo out of the Glades.”

“That was _you_?” Tommy said, and everyone (Diggle included) twisted round to look at him. “Oh, sorry. Not the point.”

“I’ve been digging through police reports, and there _was_ some chatter about the drug recently, but nothing serious until right after the quake,” Felicity said. “Things were difficult, people were looking for easy outs, a way to take the edge off. But the timing’s hinky — the Count went to Iron Heights, and —”

“— he might have gotten out the same way as the Barton Mathis,” Oliver finished, clearly having the same thought.

 _Huh_. Tommy wondered if it would make things interesting, to point out that even during a bump in the old friendship road, they could still finish the other’s sentences.

Nope, maybe some other time.

“Felicity —”

Though no one said a thing, the overtly familiar tone made everyone — a unit which included Oliver — hesitate, and Tommy could hear the little wheels turning inside his pretty head. “I’m sorry to ask,” he continued. “But —”

“I’ll stay with John,” she said immediately. “You have the trial to prep for, and I’m sure your mom wants to see you before it all starts. Don’t worry, I know where you keep the Vertigo antidote. I’ll handle it.”

“Thank you,” he said, very quietly. And like it meant _I’m sorry_.

Felicity nodded, and smiled as though it was a habit she’d almost forgotten. “Concentrate on your mom. I’ll take care of things down here.”

“What about your da—” Tommy began.

“I’ll call and cancel,” she said. “But tell him I’m sorry. Family emergency.”

Tommy made a finger-gun at her. “Gotcha. Don’t worry, he’s a sweetheart.”

In all honesty, Felicity didn’t look like someone thinking about a date when one of her closest friends was shivering under a fleece blanket.

“Keep us posted,” Tommy said, following Oliver towards the staircase for the meeting with Jean Loring.

She waved, and he swore that he heard Diggle mutter, “Good to know you still take my advice.”

“Well, it doesn’t need to be a gun to _his_ head,” she answered.

All highly intriguing, but they were already late.

* * *

“How do I look?” Tommy said, standing in front of the full-length mirror in his stiffest (no jokes, please) suit and tie since the one he’d worn to Oliver’s funeral.

McKenna narrowed her eyes at him over a mug of fresh coffee. “Didn’t you wear that to Oliver’s wake?”

He gave her a serious look in the mirror. “Recycling is _not_ a crime.”

She laughed through her nose and went back to cutting through Raisa’s pancakes. Tommy had been staying with the Queens since the quake, in the guest bedroom he used to take during sleepover nights. He was pleased to say that there was still a general mess around any area of habitation, except for the one excavated spot on the armchair that McKenna was using.

Since Oliver had gone to the Foundry early to check on Diggle, Tommy had called her to ask (very politely) if she’d give him a lift to the courthouse. A cleared seat in an otherwise messy room was the least he could do for her.

“Are you sure you want to testify?” she asked seriously. “Trials get ugly, and this one is _guaranteed_ to be a witch-hunt. ADA Donner’s up for a promotion next year, and if he wins this, it’ll be the case of his career.”

Tommy sat on the edge of the coffee table and snagged a piece of pancake, careful not to get syrup on his lapel. “I don’t recall having much of a choice — morally speaking. And even if I did, Moira’s family. She’s the closest person I have to a mom, and I won’t let her go to prison for the rest of her life.”

None of this seemed to be new information to McKenna. “They’re gonna say some terrible things about your dad.”

“You remember what he was like.” He shrugged. “I was always the disappointment.”

“Tommy…”

“He loved my mom. I guess it was enough that when she died, the love just…ran out,” he said, matter-of-factly. “People tell me I look like her, and I’m pretty sure that didn’t help.”

McKenna put the plate aside and leaned forward. “Well, I don’t think you’re a disappointment,” she said, smoothing down the more unruly aspects of his hair. “And your mom was very beautiful, so that makes you kinda beautiful too.”

Tommy grinned and went for a stray blueberry while she attempted to make him look presentable. “You haven’t seen my stage fright face.”

“You know somebody taught me a trick once,” she said casually. “Hold your breath, just for three seconds, and then say what you were going to say anyway. Like…”

Her hand was on his cheek and Tommy instinctively looked up, a split second of surprise before she bent her head and touched her lips to his. It was a shock at first, and his mind went into a full-on panic flail at the ridiculous possibility that he might have forgotten how to kiss someone, but then his arm reached up so he could curl his fingers in her straight, black hair, and he did the normal (and totally overdue) thing, which was to pull her closer so he could kiss her back.

It was light, and easy, and nothing like he’d expected. He was used to wrestling with the weight of shared history, and all the complexities that came with dating someone like Laurel Lance, but this was…simpler. Impulsive, but he had enough field experience to know that overthinking things was _hugely_ overrated.

Better to let all the pretty lights go off inside his brain and enjoy the flood of chemical sensation that came from kissing someone he actually liked, and in spite of his very talkative shortcomings, actually liked him _back_.

_One. Two. Much longer than three._

But the both of them seemed very okay with pretending that it wasn’t.

“Like that,” Tommy finished, and they smiled at each other.

* * *

The car pulled up to the front of the courthouse, a constant blaze of flashing lights and shouting only barely muffled by the closed windows. Beside him, Thea tensed, and Oliver took her hand. “Ready?” he said to his sister.

She nodded.

Their security team was waiting to steer them through the crush of people, but they still shoved and pushed to get closer. Oliver put his arm out to stop them from jostling Thea, and kept moving forward.

“Miss Queen, will you be testifying in defence of your mother?”

“Mr Queen, how will a conviction affect your company’s future?”

“Mr Queen, can you comment on the reports that your mother tried to take her life in prison?”

Thea gave a muffled gasp at the last question, and Oliver twisted around to find the journalist responsible, but it was impossible to see past the blinding flashes and they all seemed to blend into one clamoring horde, like animals mad with the scent of blood.

They were at the courthouse steps now, and he heard the slam of a barrier behind them. Crowd control measures had been put in place to keep out the protesters, and the crush eased, allowing him to take a deep breath like it had been physically pressing on his lungs.

“Mr Queen,” said a member of his security team. “Ms Loring says she’s waiting for you inside the courtroom.”

Oliver nodded. Thea was a little pale, and he kept her close as they hurried across the marble floors. In contrast to the madness outside, no one seemed to be paying them any attention within the courthouse, like everyone else had bigger things to worry about than the problems of two strangers, even relatively well-known ones.

It reassured him to no end, but what he saw as he rounded the corner made that small fact seem infinitely trivial in the scope of it all.

Felicity was standing outside the courtroom, hands in the pocket of her coat, pacing a little like she’d been there for a while.

Thea noticed too, and her brow furrowed. “Hey, doesn’t she work with you?”

“Yeah,” Oliver said, slowing his pace as he approached.

Felicity smiled gently at his sister. “Miss Queen,” she said. “I hope it goes well for your mom.”

“Thank you.” Thea smiled back, though it faded rapidly from the nerves. She shot a look at Oliver. “I’ll see you in there, Ollie.”

He kissed her forehead. “I’ll be a minute.”

They both watched her disappear through the double doors, and there was an immediate, awkward pause.

“What…what are you doing here?” he asked. “You know you don’t have to come.”

“I know,” she answered, a little nervously. “But you’re not going to stop me from being there for a friend, are you?”

“I didn’t know you still counted me as a friend,” he said, for lack of better phrasing.

She had the good grace to pretend like she had no idea what he was talking about. “Of course you are,” she said, and smiled.

* * *

There was a long list of worries on Felicity’s list. One — Diggle, still in the Foundry with all the symptoms of Vertigo withdrawal, only minimally affected by the cure she’d whipped up from Oliver’s stash. Two — Count Vertigo was on the loose again, spreading his drugs all over the neighborhood through unknown means. Three — general calamity and Ice Queens ruling the office.

But none of that mattered for the moment, not when she was there to support a friend during one of the worst moments of his life.

Even though the windows were bulletproof and high off the ground, she thought she could still hear the angry protesters screaming outside the courthouse. There were most definitely people watching in the gallery; she’d seen them queuing outside the courtroom to get in, and they were barely keeping their voices below the tone of normal conversation.

Their presence made her nervy, the breathless excitement translating to restlessness on her part, because she was about to watch a woman — mother of a close friend — fight to prove her innocence in front of an unhappy crowd. A quick mental headcount: Tommy on her left, Oliver on her right, McKenna and Thea on either side of them respectively. One row of somber-faced people who — besides the family lawyer — might have been the only ones _not_ calling for Moira Queen’s blood.

There was a rush of noise when the doors opened, and Felicity’s heart jumped into her throat. Cameras clicked rapidly as Moira Queen stepped out into the courtroom, seemingly unfazed by the crowd gathered to watch her fight. She was dressed in a neat gray suit, pressed to perfection, her hair ashier than it used to be, more lined around the eyes and mouth, but otherwise she was still capable of looking past the noise as though it didn’t exist, and she did.

Her attention went straight to her children, and she held them in her iron-gray gaze. Warmth was something Felicity did _not_ associate with Moira Queen, which was why she was momentarily stunned to see the depths of love and trust with which she looked at her son and daughter, as though just by being there, they'd already made her unspeakably proud. Oliver was leaned slightly forward, and he nodded slightly to her. Mother and son exchanged small smiles of reassurance, and seemingly at ease, Moira’s stare continued to sweep coolly across those present. For McKenna there was a hint of familiarity (right, they’d all grown up together), and it warmed even more when she reached Tommy, practically the surrogate son.

Then Felicity, and a minute line appeared between her eyebrows, like she didn’t quite know what to make of the blonde girl sitting beside her son, unassumingly present like she had a part to play and a reason to be there.

_Hi, I'm your son's...barely something. I hope you don't get a life sentence for murder._

Maybe not.

Felicity forced herself to keep her eyes straight, and Moira eventually looked back around as the judge called for order in the courtroom.

“State versus Moira Queen, the Honorable Judge Hope presiding,” said the bailiff, over the low buzz of whispering in the background.

The judge surveyed them from the bench. “Are the parties ready for opening statements?” he asked.

Loring rose gracefully, steely blonde and no-nonsense demeanor displayed to perfection. “Your Honor, the Defence would once again file a motion to dismiss the charges against my client. Moira Queen was acting under duress, and the Prosecution’s case is utterly without merit, not to mention a media event to hold my client responsible for a crime that was planned and executed by someone unfortunately deceased. Malcolm Merlyn is the one who should be on trial, not Mrs Queen.”

ADA Donner was on his feet. “Five hundred and three lives beg to differ, Your Honor,” he said, his voice ringing unpleasantly in her ears, like he was putting on a show for everyone present. “Mrs Queen aided and abetted Malcolm Merlyn’s Undertaking — that has been the Prosecution’s stance all along. We oppose the motion to dismiss, on the simple grounds that she must be held responsible for what she has done.”

The judge nodded. “Understood. I’m sorry Ms Loring, I dismiss the Defence’s motion, and the trial will proceed as scheduled.”

While Loring seated herself again, looking unsurprised, ADA Donner made a noise of courteous interruption. “Your Honor, the State would like to enter one more plea before the trial begins.”

Felicity’s skin began to crawl, and she looked at Oliver. But he was watching Donner, every muscle in his upper body tensed with apprehension.

Judge Hope frowned. “This is _highly_ irregular, Mr Donner,” he said. “We have pre-trial motions for a reason.”

“My sincere apologies, Your Honor, but the Prosecution received new evidence recently that significantly adds to the case against Mrs Queen. It is for this reason that the DA’s office has requested that I submit a notice of intention, pursuant to rule of criminal procedure fifteen.”

Loring’s chair screeched as she shot back up, her previous coolness replaced with indignant fury. “Your Honor, that goes against all rules of professional conduct. Mr Donner had ample opportunity to file this particular notice of intent before trial, and to ambush us with said notice on the day itself — that is behavior nothing short of unconscionable!”

“What is unconscionable is to allow Moira Queen to escape consequences when there are five hundred and three people dead because of her actions, and we the State…”

“What’s he doing?” Thea whispered to Oliver. “What’s rule fifteen?”

Felicity could hear McKenna murmuring to Tommy, who started like someone had stuck him with a needle.

It could only mean one thing — _bad_ news.

“Yes, Your Honor,” Loring said, her tone biting. “But surely Mrs Queen deserves some prior notice that the District Attorney wishes to seek the _death penalty_.”

“Oh my god,” Felicity said.

The whispering, already loud, erupted into full-blown chaos. The cameras were clicking like a thousand pincers, lights flashing with total abandon as the press realized the dramatic turn of events.

Oliver ignored all of it and reached for his mother’s shoulder. “Mom, we’ll fight this,” he said fiercely. “We won’t let them take you from us. Mom, don’t —”

The rest was lost in the shouting, as the press fed on the fact that Moira Queen was literally going to have to fight for her life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Granted, I have half a law degree (from the UK, still working on the other half) and I haven't even gotten to criminal procedure yet, but I'm assuming you can't say you want the death penalty on the day of trial. I'm doing it strictly for drama, since it was supposed to happen in the Dollmaker episode and I kinda glossed over that. Whoops. ANYWAY.  
> Part II next week! Got some good stuff lined up :)


	10. World Upside Down (Vertigo, Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so it turns out that this one’s a two-parter again. Not doing this on purpose, it just happened :( Heavily ironic that I’m writing about Diggle having Vertigo-like symptoms when the flu is making me understand his pain on a cellular level. Kids, don’t write while you have the flu. Things spiral out of control. Don’t do it. *dies from coughing*

The door banged open to a mass of shouting and more flashing cameras. Thea winced, and Tommy moved instinctively to shield her against the intrusion, but Jean slammed it shut behind her and leaned on the panels for a second, looking exhausted.

Moira lifted her head with a placid expression. “Well,” she said. “That clearly went according to plan.”

“Donner’s a puppy,” Jean spat. “He’s had a trump card up his sleeve for a while — I just made the mistake of thinking he’d have the decency to level the playing field.”

Oliver was on his feet, having been pacing near the windows while they all waited for Jean to return from a conference in the judge’s chambers. “Well? He’s not letting Donner ask for the death penalty, right? He can’t do that.”

“He can,” Jean said simply. “Given the seriousness of the charges, Judge Hope is allowing the State to proceed, and we have the weekend to reshuffle our defence.”

“That’s two days!” Tommy said indignantly.

“I know. Normally, it’d be a few weeks, maybe even a month. But he wants to get this over with, and frankly, I’m not sure how waiting any longer is going to shape media perception in our favor.”

Thea made a strangled noise behind her hands, but Moira nodded in agreement, sitting very straight in the chair. “And did ADA Donner disclose his supposed trump card against me?” she asked, as though it was an enquiry about the weather.

“Just that it concerns your relationship with the deceased, Malcolm Merlyn,” Jean said. “Naturally, he wouldn’t be any more specific, which is why I have to ask _you_. What does Donner have that could break our case?”

Oliver was watching his mother very carefully. Her disposition had always veered towards composed and collected, even in the worst of times. While it made her seem chilly to outsiders, he knew it was strength.

But he’d gotten very good at observing people since the island, and singling out their tells. Moira’s was a single look, a flick of her eyes towards the floor before they returned to whatever they were meant to be on, a split second for her to realign her defences and make sure that her counterpart saw only what she wanted them to see.

Moira did it now, a brief flicker towards the ground before they returned to Jean’s face, and his heart sank at the realization that _they_ were the counterparts in this situation, because his mother was lying.

“I don’t know,” she said coolly. “I really have no idea what he means.”

* * *

“She’s lying,” Oliver said, as soon as he left the room with Tommy. Thea was still with Jean and their mother, working on her testimony for the resumed trial on Thursday. He would have stayed, but the both of them had work to do.

Tommy looked around in alarm. “What? Your mom?”

“She’s holding something back, and I think it’s about your dad. She knows what Donner has, but if she won’t tell us, then —”

“—there’s a bigger chance of a jaw drop moment when he springs it on everyone in court,” Tommy agreed. “Okay, well if she won’t tell us, and since Donner’s more likely to give you a lap dance than tell us whatever the hell that trump card is, it means we’re going to have to do the detective work by ourselves. Which — goes without saying — will be _kinda_ hard, because neither of us went to law school, and we don’t exactly have a friend in the DA’s office.”

“Right,” Oliver said, pulling out his phone. “But the last time I did the math, a police sergeant and a detective still liked you, and I’m willing to bet that Donner used warrants to pull whatever he has on my mother and Malcolm.”

Tommy shook his head. “You’re surprisingly sneaky, you know that?”

“So they tell me,” Oliver muttered.

* * *

Diggle was hunched over and shivering with cold sweat, but he still found the energy to glare at Oliver when he came down the stairs. “What are you doing down here?” he said. “Your mother’s fighting the death penalty. You should be working with the lawyers, not wandering into a club basement.”

Felicity wouldn’t have phrased it quite so bluntly, but she agreed. “Oliver, are you sure?” she asked.

“Tommy’s helping out,” he said evenly. “If John managed to get this sick without actually taking any Vertigo, I’m betting there are others in worse shape. We have to find the source, and shut him down. Why didn’t the cure work?”

“Simple answer: the Count modified the recipe.” Felicity slid into her chair and pulled up the chemical breakdown of the compound. “More addictive, less bonding receptors for a cure to latch onto. Basically, he’s made it _way_ easier to get high, but harder to get clean.” She winced, looking around at Diggle. “Sorry.”

“No worries,” he grunted. “Assume I always want to know what’s killing me.”

Concern for their friend’s health aside, it didn’t mean Felicity couldn’t still be fascinated by the idea of a Frankenstein-ed drug recipe, and she definitely was. “Oh, it’s not going to _kill_ you, that would defeat the purpose. I’m guessing he’s engineered the recipe to give the target group a psycho-compulsive need to ingest Vertigo, and the longer it drags on, the worse the side-effects get, so loss of motor control, muscle spasms…now I’m _not_ quite sure about the bladder part of it, but —”

“—yeah, that’s more than I needed to find out,” Diggle said. “Any idea where this son of a bitch might be hiding?”

“It’ll be local,” Oliver guessed. “He didn’t strike me as the kind of person who’s happy about watching the mayhem from a distance, especially if he created it. Check the Glades — abandoned properties, any location with the space and seclusion for him to run operations.”

“At least we can check Queen Industrial’s steel manufacturing off the list,” Felicity commented, scanning rapidly through properties on the city database. “As far as I know, an arrow-related vigilante’s still hogging all the space down there.”

“Funny.” Oliver was behind her chair, the most she’d let him near her since the disastrous Moscow getaway. “What would be a sign that the property’s being used for drug manufacturing?”

“Dogs,” Diggle suggested. “Drug lords always keep their security tight. If the building’s abandoned but the fence has a shiny new padlock, it’s a pretty good bet that there’s something in there they don’t want people looking into.”

“That’s good, but given time constraints — and the lack of manpower — I don’t think you have the time to check out each building, even if Roy Harper called in as a temp.” Felicity squinted at the extensive list of abandoned buildings in the Glades area, easily twice the number it would have been a year ago, especially since the quake. “But off the top of my head…illicit drug manufacturing doesn’t just require people, it needs power. And I don’t mean the _stare-down_ kind of power, I mean the actual, _zzz-zap_ power. Let’s just cross-reference the list with the city’s electricity grid… _aha._ ”

“There you go.” Felicity turned around in her chair and pointed, satisfied with her amateur sleuthing. “Municipal Records building. Huge power consumption in the last month, but it’s been abandoned since the city records office went completely online. I give you _fishy_.”

“You need backup?” Diggle asked.

Oliver shook his head. “I can handle this on my own, you stay here. Felicity — what are you doing?”

Felicity stopped, Diggle’s keys to the (tragically still undecorated) van in her hand. “What?” she said. “Digg said I could borrow the van.”

Oliver looked like he was about to laugh, if the Sea-Witch from the office hadn’t drained his sense of humor along with his sense of shame ( _rude_ , but she could afford to be bitter in her own thought process). “No. Out of the question,” he said flatly. “You’re not coming with me.”

Felicity raised a single eyebrow. “Normally, no, I wouldn’t, but our priority isn’t just stopping the Count — horrible name, BTW — it’s manufacturing a cure for the hundreds of people with withdrawal symptoms. Which means you’ll need to bring back enough information for me — or someone more qualified — to reverse-engineer a cure.”

“Right.” Oliver still didn’t seem to get where she was going with this. “So naturally, you would have to be in the field.”

Oh. For. Frack’s. Sake.

One of the perks of being just the smallest bit peeved with a friend of reasonable duration was the absence of the need to tiptoe around fragile egos, including his whopper of a self-perception.

“Last time I checked, you flunked out of freshman biology and the chemistry elective. _But,_ fortunately for you, I passed with flying colors, so that means I know what I’m doing when it comes to looking through an illegal drug lab for usable material. Oh, and extra bonus points, if he has it on an encrypted computer,” she pointed both thumbs at herself, “I’m your girl. I mean, not your _girl-girl_ , because we’re not — anyway, I’m like a Swiss Army knife. If the Swiss Army knife didn’t have an actual _knife_ component, and was more of an ethernet, flash drive, Cobalt-hacking kind of Swiss Army… _thing_. I’m useful and I’m coming with you — is what I’m saying.”

In the short silence that directly followed her sales pitch, Oliver gave Diggle a look of the silent-plea-for-help variety (or maybe just translation), but the latter just shrugged, too exhausted to watch them bicker their way to a solution ( _yes_ ). “Watch out for dogs,” he said helpfully.

* * *

“I feel like this should be illegal,” Quentin said, as the printer in his apartment (yes, he actually owned a _printer_ ) continued to chug pieces of paper over the floor.

Tommy mimed a flick of his hair, when in actual fact he had a highlighter in his mouth and another in his hand. “I know, I keep reminding the local authorities that hotness should be a controlled substance, but they never listen to me.”

McKenna shrugged at Quentin like she was saying, _it’s not my fault_. “There’s no law against being a detective,” she pointed out. “Even an annoying one.”

“Well, what else am I gonna do?” Quentin sighed, and stooped to reach one of the files. “But I should warn you, I was always a better detective when I was drunk.”

There was a pause.

“Kidding,” he said. “Recovering alcoholics are allowed to do that, you know.”

Tommy still nudged a mug of coffee closer to the police sergeant. “We need you sober for this one, buddy. Jesus, this lawyer guy really got into _everything_ , didn’t he?”

“He was a building a case,” McKenna answered, clicking through the police database on her laptop. “I can pull the warrants he filed, but it looks like I’ll have to sift through them manually.”

“Well, there _is_ a faster way to do it,” Tommy said, thinking about Felicity and her hacking proficiency. “But it’s not strictly speaking legal.”

“So, _illegal_.”

“I wasn’t gonna say it like _that_.”

“Hold on, hold on.” Quentin thwacked the page he was holding, fresh from the printer. “Merlyn Global — lawyer guy wanted to pull Malcolm’s company email. Why would he want to do that?”

“Jean said that Donner’s evidence is about Oliver’s mom and my dad — maybe they sent emails about the Undertaking?”

“Maybe,” McKenna said doubtfully. “But that wouldn’t change their case — the State’s position is that Moira aided and abetted. Email correspondence doesn’t add anything new to that.”

Tommy looked back at the stack of phone records he was poring over, systematically highlighting anything Moira- or Malcolm-related. “Right…” he said, scratching his head absently with the business end of the stationery. “Moira’s defence is based on the fact that she didn’t have a choice. So if _I_ was the lawyer —”

Quentin snorted. “That’ll be the day.”

Tommy shushed him, still following the train of thought. “If I was the lawyer, I’d want to show that she _did_ have a choice — that Malcolm couldn’t have been a threat to her life, because…because what? They were friends?”

“Still feels like we’re missing something,” McKenna said doubtfully. “Something big.”

“Just my two cents, but I’d fire that lawyer friend on the defence,” Quentin said, continuing through his pile of printouts. “Even if I hadn’t known Moira since you and Oliver were in diapers, there’s no way I’d believe a woman like that wouldn’t do anything unless she really wanted to.”

Tommy winced, even though a part of him suspected Quentin spoke for a larger population. “Well, they don’t invite me along to trial prep to be the bearer of bad news.”

McKenna tapped the side of her laptop while she thought, her eyes fixed on the far wall. “Moira says that she had reason to be afraid of Malcolm. He’d killed her husband by sinking the Queen’s Gambit — the same wreck that almost killed her son —”

“— don’t forget the kidnapped ex-husband,” Quentin added.

“Right, but Walter didn’t die,” she responded. “Malcolm didn’t kill him. Donner could spin that to hurt her story — make it seem like the threats weren’t as serious as she made them out to be.”

Tommy stuck a finger in the air. “Fuzzy father-son feelings aside, I’m pretty sure Walter was the exception, not the rule. Malcolm killed five hundred and three people, not including Robert and god knows who else.”

McKenna nodded slightly, as though in agreement (cue mental fist-pump). “Okay, if Walter was the exception, the million dollar question is — why?”

“Bet Donner found out,” Quentin said grimly. “Or he wouldn’t be asking for the electric chair.”

* * *

“I don’t like this,” Oliver repeated, for what felt like the fiftieth time since they’d left the Foundry.

_They_. Plural. Oliver was — by training, and experience — prone to taking on tasks by himself, and even when Diggle accompanied him into the field, he still had the occasional nagging sense of unease.

Diggle was an experienced war veteran. Felicity was a genius, and while he was sure she’d done plenty of breaking and entering of the virtual variety (mostly to help the team), her advertised skill set didn’t include physical training and any kind of weapons proficiency.

“You should wait in the van,” he said, another attempt to keep her out of the zone of danger. “I’ll clear the area and then you can do a sweep.”

Given the fact that they’d already broken through the outer fence, his suggestion didn’t appear to hold much water in real terms, and Felicity — her face lit by the glow from her tablet screen — rolled her eyes. “Your objection, _once again_ , is duly noted. I’m reading heat signatures, and there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot going on inside the building. I see some guard dogs near the entrance, but I’m assuming you have some tranq darts up your sleeve. They might have split operations between two locations — or moved house.”

Momentarily diverted from his worrying, Oliver considered the options. “Makes sense, if they’re expanding. So Vertigo wants to infect the rest of the city.”

“Still doesn’t tell us _how_ he did it in the first place,” she pointed out. “How would Vertigo manage to infect someone like Diggle?”

“Your guess is probably better than mine,” he muttered, craning his neck to gauge a likely entrance through the windows.

She smirked. “Well, at least you know _that_.”

It was the kind of teasing pre-Moscow Felicity would have indulged in, just slightly more barbed. Fortunately, Oliver knew something to wipe the smugness off her face, even if it was an awkward situation that would put them uncomfortable close. He fired a grappling arrow towards the roof and snagged the taut wire in his fist. “Hold on tight,” he said.

Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she curled her fingers into his sleeves and let him brace an arm around her waist. “In case you were wondering,” she muttered. “The circumstances are still _very_ platonic.”

* * *

One of the massive Rottweilers near the entrance snorted, a leg kicking mid-sleep. Felicity stepped gingerly over it, ignoring Oliver’s outstretched hand for support. “Ever considered a steak arrow?” she asked. “Ribeye dart? Sure, they’ll have an expiry date, but we could freeze them.”

“Very funny.” Oliver advanced through the manufacturing plant with his bow at the ready, scanning the balcony that ran the perimeter of the ground floor like he was expecting gunmen to jump out from the shadows.

“The heat signature’s clear,” she said, silently adding: _you paranoid little f_ —

“Felicity.” Oliver was at one of the worktables. “Can you use any of this?”

She stepped closer to the general messiness that was Count Vertigo’s string of operations, complete with oversized vats of toxic yellow chemicals hooked up to massive butane tanks, and foam crates taped firmly shut over its drug-related contents. There were no chairs, but she could pick out the individual stations from the used instruments and equipment lying discarded, like the people using them had only just stepped away.

Unnervingly, there was a smear of blood — darkened to black — squarely in the middle of one such spot, and she followed it to the matching streaks trailing across the floor, like someone had fallen…and been dragged away.

_Not the time_.

There didn’t seem to be any samples left on the tables. There were a few smashed vials, the remnants of something yellowish clinging to their insides, half-concealed by a dusting of shattered glass, and she slipped them into a biohazard bag for closer examination back at the Foundry. Oliver was still circling behind her, on the lookout for any sign of intruders.

“Sorry,” he said suddenly.

Felicity glanced at him. She’d been in the middle of prying open an abandoned laptop — encrypted, of course — when he spoke. “You’ll need to be more specific than that,” she answered, her attention back on the breaking through the password-protected interface.

“Tommy said you had a date. The other night.”

Felicity snorted to herself. _Of course_ , the apology would be about something that — in actual fact — wasn’t pissing her off that much to begin with. Granted, this photographer friend of Tommy’s seemed to have nice stuff going on for him, and probably would have paid for dinner at a nice restaurant, but Felicity was as serious about dating as an 18th Century diagnosis of female hysteria — which was to say, _not_.

“I’ll probably reschedule,” she said anyway, just for the hell of it. “I’ve been looking for an excuse to break out my stash of diamond necklaces.”

Oliver didn’t laugh, but in all fairness, she didn’t find it all that funny. More like _ha-ha_ in a sad way. “I’m still sorry,” he said.

Felicity had the dubious talent of being able to tell when Oliver was being serious, and this wasn’t one of those times. “No you’re not,” she said, and looked back at the screen.

Thankfully, the interface cracked before Oliver could make an unconvincing comeback, and Felicity did her best version of digital snooping. Most of the files were still double-encrypted, and cracking them would take more time than she wanted to spend in the creepy drug den. Even though she would have given up wi-fi for a month instead of admitting it to Oliver, she was a little uneasy at being so… _close_ to everything.

Especially when the _everything_ in question didn’t quite have the abandoned-building feeling of a crime scene discovery just a little too late, but like the owners had momentarily stepped away and were due back any minute.

Anyway, she was here to work, not overthink.

“Let’s see…” she said, running through recent activity on the laptop. “Hypothetically, if I were diabolical drug manufacturing plans, where would I be hiding?”

Oliver was at her elbow now, peering at the screen as well. “Those look like residential lists.”

“Work addresses, I think,” she corrected. “They’re cluster estimates — predictions for how many people the Vertigo might end up affecting — which still doesn’t tell us the h—”

There was a slam, and Felicity yelped. Oliver immediately pushed her behind him, his bow directed at the source of the noise.

“It’s not nice to play with someone else’s toys, you know,” said a voice from the dark.

Felicity clapped a hand over her mouth, biting back the instinct to say Oliver’s name in warning; she was so used to being on the comms where slipping up didn’t matter.

It did here.

His shoulders were tense, like he’d recognized the voice immediately. Though she didn’t see how he wouldn’t. It was the kind that was impossible to forget, one that almost seemed to have a life of its own, a built-in crawl like hundreds of little centipede legs, a lazy drawl that instinctively set her teeth on edge.

_So that’s what crazy sounds like_.

Vertigo loomed out of the shadows with a sneer, his skin so pale that it looked almost green, as ghostly as a drowned man with an inhuman amount of life left in him. “Heard about the name change,” he said, and his eyes flicked Oliver from head to toe like the _swish_ of a cat’s tail. “Bit obvious, don’t you think?”

Oliver shifted slightly, his shoulder interposing between her line of sight and Vertigo, and she realized that he was shielding her as best he could, making sure Crazy Eyes didn’t catch sight of her very much undisguised face. It was a stall tactic, and it could only buy them so much time.

Right. Behind Oliver’s back, Felicity felt for the cables connected to the laptop and carefully — _quietly_ — eased them free. An on-site decryption was _clearly_ not on the cards, and she didn’t want to find out under gunfire whether the gods of satellite and wireless internet were smiling down on the whole messy situation.

What the hell — she’d gotten data off a bullet-ridden computer before. One more, for old time’s sake.

The computer was against her spine now, and she slid her hand up to grip the back of Oliver’s suit, a wordless signal that she was ready to run.

Vertigo hopped down from the staircase, landing with a cacophonous clang of boots on steel, loud enough to make her wince. He held his arms out, gesturing at their surroundings. “Like my place? I know, I know — I would have cleaned up, but this place is a rental, and you caught us just as we were moving house.”

Alerted by some unknown signal, the doors at Vertigo’s back opened and his men filed in behind him, armed and very much hostile. They showed no signs of stopping, and Felicity held her breath, until Oliver — for all intents and purposes ice cold — fired an arrow as a warning shot.

The sound of an arrow going through flesh was indescribably… _yuck_. Felicity shut her eyes, her forehead pressed to Oliver’s back — hard — until she could feel his heart thudding through the leather.

In stark contrast, Vertigo watched the man drop and writhe, an arrow protruding from his kneecap, screams echoing off the walls. “ _Tsk_ ,” he said reprovingly. “I know you wanted me alone, but there’s no need to shoot at the help.”

“It’ll be a lot worse if you take another step,” Oliver growled, aiming a fresh arrow back at Vertigo’s chest.

He wagged his finger. “Now we both know that’s a big old fib, don’t we? I heard about this new no-killing thing — personally, I think it’s a shame, so few pleasures in life, why cut yourself off from the best of them? But at the same time…”

Vertigo opened his mouth in mock-surprise, and took a loud step forward, like it was landmine territory and he was expecting it to explode.

Oliver tensed, but he didn’t shoot.

Vertigo clapped his hands. “So for once, the rumor mill isn’t churning out pure garbage,” he said. “Hm. I should get myself a subscription.”

“How are you circulating the Vertigo?” Oliver asked, his tone very much of the _not kidding around_ variety. “Tell me, or —”

“You’ll what?” Vertigo climbed onto one of the tables, his arms out by his sides. “Kill me? We both know that’s not going to happen. You’ve lost your nerve. Can I give you a bit of professional advice, crazy to crazy?” He snapped his fingers, and his guards all braced their guns in a single, ominous rush. “It’s handy to keep a killing instinct around semi-automatics.”

Felicity gave a shaky gasp in response to the _terrible idea_ -ness of the whole situation (arrow vs guns, the old debate), though maybe it was an involuntary sound that told herself — and probably Oliver too — just how much she didn’t want him to shoot, not even someone like Vertigo.

“What have we here?” Vertigo said abruptly, peering around Oliver like he’d sighted treasure. “You brought a friend too. Funny, I didn’t know you had a thing for blondes, or I’d have put in the extra effort.” To emphasize his point, he smoothed back his hair, a gesture as vain as it was derisive. “ _Pretty_. Speaks to your taste, I suppose.”

Felicity’s skin crawled and every instinct told her to back away, but she felt a small spike in Oliver’s heartbeat, so sudden that it might have been a blip. The point of his arrow hovered squarely over Vertigo’s chest. Felicity could sense his internal struggle, between instinct and the so-far-unbroken rule. It would be easy — he’d done it so many times before. So simple to just loose the string and let the arrow fly.

_But_.

“Go on,” Vertigo urged. “ _Do it_. Prove me wrong.”

In the end, Oliver did break the stalemate, but not in the way that anyone was expecting. He turned smoothly, the arrow angled low, and Felicity saw — in the split second before he fired — what he was aiming for.

_The gas._

The arrow tore through the steel tank and a column of fire roared towards the ceiling, simultaneously erupting in a slick line that sliced the room in two — him on one side, Vertigo on the other.

For a moment, the two sides stared at each other through the flames. Hot air gusted towards Oliver and Felicity like the breath of a pissed-off dragon, while Vertigo’s taunting face glowed phosphorus-white in between the flames. “I’ll be seeing you, Mr Arrow!” he called. “Very, very soon.”

Oliver reached for Felicity’s arm. “Let’s go,” he said. “Come on — Felicity, _go_.”

The sound of her name snapped her clear from the horrified fascination, and they ran for it, Vertigo’s laughter ringing shrilly in her ears.

* * *

“ _Ow_ ,” Oliver said.

Tommy dabbed unapologetically at the burn on his arm. “Lesson learned — don’t piss off the person who’s the best at taking care of you,” he answered. “I _don’t_ have small hands and my favorite thing to do at the bar is fail at juggling glasses. Call it the Pavlovian technique.”

All this he said in an undertone, because Felicity was working halfway across the room with a somewhat smoky laptop that looked like it had seen better days. Still, the truth got him a fierce glare in return, though Oliver had the stones not to disagree. In terms of priorities, it was abundantly clear that he’d dropped a couple of rungs thanks to the Big Oopsie in Moscow, which left the amateur nursing to the sorta-clumsy best friend.

Who may or may not have been a little sulky, because in _his_ nursing-related fantasy, he wasn’t supposed to be doing the work, and the person doing said nursing didn’t have an overabundance of tattoos — or man parts.

But that was neither here nor there.

“That’s…got to be one of the more interesting getaways I’ve heard,” Diggle said, in response to the short recap of the encounter with Vertigo. “I think it’s safe to say we need to work on your methods for dealing with guns, though.”

In a somewhat similar vein as the banged-up laptop, Diggle was still clammy from the modified Vertigo, interrupted every now and then by an unstoppable bout of shivering. Felicity broke off in the middle of her typing to put a hand on his forehead. “Are you sure you don’t want to call Lyla?” she asked, her frown making it clear that the temperature was very much in the zone of concern.

Diggle shook his head determinedly. “The last thing I need is someone else worrying about me.”

“Well, it’s not wasted on _you_ ,” she said, with a pointed glance in Oliver’s direction.

Who grunted, but only because Tommy had slapped on the sterile bandage hard enough to make a dude of average pain tolerance break down in baby sobs. “Guard dogs and fireworks. Are you always this dramatic?” he asked.

Oliver gingerly tested his arm, as though expecting the skin to pop and snap. “Now’s not the time to call me on it,” he said irritably. “Did you find anything on my mother?”

“ _Bubkes_.” Tommy reached for a pile of his notes, which — for all its mind-mapping and scribbled ideas — looked a lot less credible in the light of day, and a _lot_ more _Beautiful Mind_. Not in the good way. “The downside of working with two reasonably law-abiding detectives means database searches and caffeine-boosted brainpower. We’ll keep digging, but all we know at this point is that Donner was interested in the Walter Steele kidnapping…and like, twenty years worth of phone records and emails.”

A crease appeared in Oliver’s forehead. “Why?” he asked. “What does that have to do with my mother and Malcolm?”

“You’re not going to like the answer, but I think the only person who can say at this point is your mom,” Tommy said. “Besides my dad — who might have one or two issues with taking the stand, you know, being dead — she’s the only person who knows the whole story.”

The look on Oliver’s face already told Tommy how likely he thought it was that Moira would talk.

“At the risk of breaking up the brooding time, that might actually be a good thing,” Felicity interjected, making everyone turn. “Oliver, you said your mother isn’t planning to testify, right? It’s just Thea and Tommy, so if Donner’s evidence hinges on something to do with Walter’s kidnapping, he could ask the two of you about it, but I’m assuming the answer’s going to be zilch in terms of usefulness anyway. He can’t use what he has to expose Moira unless she — or Malcolm — testifies, and we all know both those things aren’t happening.”

There was an awed silence, and Tommy whistled. “Someone put on her lawyer hat today.”

“I may or may not get irritated by inaccuracies in TV procedurals,” she said primly. “Helps to know what I’m mad about.”

Oliver looked like he very much appreciated the sudden sharing of expertise, though the sentiment would most likely _not_ have garnered the same appreciation from his lady love (cue frustration). He nodded and got to his feet with a low grunt as his shirt chafed the fresh bandage. “At least there’s some good news to go around. Anything on the computer?”

Felicity propped it up so they could all see, drumming one knuckle into the irregular bullet-shaped dent squarely in the middle of the wiring. “It’s not exactly an abundance of bullet holes, but it’ll take some reconstructing before I can pull data from the drive.”

“You’ve done it before,” Oliver said quietly.

Felicity shot him a look over her glasses, as though surprised that he’d remembered, but — shockingly — declined to comment. Still, her cheeks were bright pink while she typed, and the both of them — Dummy and Genius — seemed determined to look anywhere _except_ at each other.

Well aware of how Oliver Queen had wandered (aimlessly) into a certain cubicle back in the good old days of Queen Consolidated, Tommy thought it was a cute coincidence how things had lined up for a second try — though given the circumstances, it couldn’t have come at a worse time, given the current fritz in Queen-Smoak relations.

When the broad grin on his face only got a blank-faced stare from Oliver, Tommy hiccoughed and leaned around her to see the screen. “Incomprehensible numbers and symbol thingies,” he reported. “I think my brain missed the Alien squiggle update patch. Help me out, m’lady?”

“High Nerd Speak, actually,” Felicity corrected, her snappy wit not in the least bit dampened by the radar-fraying tension in the room. “Most of the files are red herrings, what we really want is the modified Vertigo recipe and any indication of how he’s choosing his targets.”

Diggle coughed unwillingly, which got him looks of concern from everyone in the room. “So, two needles in a haystack made by crazy.”

“We’ll find something,” Oliver said reassuringly, an impression somewhat undercut by him getting ready to leave.

“And where are you off to?” Tommy asked.

“I have some work to do at the office,” he answered, and pointed at the ceiling. “You have a bar to run, Diggle needs to concentrate on feeling better, and Felicity —”

“—will order in some sushi and keep working on the hard drive,” she finished, her back still to him. “I’ll text if anything changes.”

Oliver seemed to be hovering on the verge of saying something else, but true to knucklehead form, turned on his heel and started up the staircase instead. Tommy heard the door slam, and Diggle shook his head. “I feel like you were nicer to him the first time he came in with a few bullets in a laptop.”

Tommy sighed at the look on Felicity’s face. “I need a drink,” he muttered.

* * *

Oliver watched his mother straighten the front of her jacket in the small mirror she’d been given, pulling the sleeves straight like she was just stepping out to meet with investors, not facing a courtroom full of reporters and a dozen strangers in a jury box. They were in a private room, but Oliver couldn’t lose the buzzing in his ears, like he could already hear the noise and speculation waiting for them outside.

Beside him, Thea was chewing on her thumbnail, a nervous childhood habit that seemed to have resurrected itself for the trial. She was watching Moira too, her eyes wide and unblinking, like the latter’s appearance of utter calm was a facade that might slip at any moment.

Moira’s gaze flickered towards them in the mirror.

“Should I be worried that my children don’t seem to be their usual selves?” she asked, sounding almost amused. “What happened to being beacons of positivity?”

The gentle teasing was lost on both of the Queen children, though Oliver attempted to return the smile. “Hard to do under the circumstances,” he said quietly.

Thea inspected her thoroughly-chewed fingernail. “All I can think about is finding a crowbar and beating the living crap out of Adam Donner.”

Far from chiding her daughter, Moira ran a brush through her hair with a little smile. “I thought that was Mr Harper’s specialty,” she said. “I’m assuming he’s here to support the family cause?”

Thea made a noise that might have been a snort. “Tommy’s watching him for me. Roy might be a little notorious around the bailiffs after disciplinary hearing number 802, and he’s allergic to being stuffed into a suit.”

Moira _tsk_ -ed quietly. “I’m afraid those two might be fuel and fire,” she commented. “Such a shame Mr Diggle’s been off sick, I hope he’s feeling better.”

Oliver looked up, his expression carefully controlled. “It’s flu season. These things happen.”

“I noticed that Miss Smoak was in attendance during the last trial,” she said, with a measuring glance in his direction. “Rather kind of her to come. Did the board ask her to act as representative?”

“No,” he answered, glad Tommy wasn’t there to fill in the gaps. “She’s a friend.”

“I see.” Moira’s reflection had a little smile again, all while she adjusted her hair in the mirror. “Well, do thank her for me. I seem to be finding support in the strangest places these days.”

There was a knock on the door, and Jean leaned inside. “Thea, we’re about ready for you,” she said. “I want to have a quick word before you take the stand.”

Moira nodded. “Thank you, Jean — but I wonder if you wouldn’t mind giving me a moment with my children?”

She hesitated, time constraints evident on her mind, but acquiesced anyway. “Of course. I’ll be right outside.”

The door shut again, and Moira turned, both hands outstretched. Oliver and Thea obediently mirrored the gesture, and she grasped their hands in a firm, unshakably cool grip. “I don’t want to see those long faces,” she said gently. “I will face whatever happens today in that courtroom with my head held high, but I’ll be damned if my children walk out of there feeling ashamed because of something _I_ did. It’s been an awful few months, but you have both made me very proud through it all. No mother deserves what you have given me, and I want the two of you to know that I love you very, very much.”

Thea leapt to her feet and threw her arms around Moira, hard enough to make her step back from the force of it. “Love you too, mom,” she whispered.

Moira stroked her daughter’s dark curls and blinked rapidly in a rare display of emotion. Oliver met Moira’s gaze over Thea’s shoulder and nodded. “Whatever happens, we’ll be here,” he said.

Moira nodded back. “Then I’m the luckiest mother in the world.”

* * *

“Please state your name for the record,” said Donner.

Thea leaned into the mic, set a little too close to the stand. “Thea Dearden Queen,” she said nervously, tucking a curl behind her ear.

Every gesture had been meticulously coached into her by Jean. Hands folded behind the stand, out of sight. She had a habit of playing with her necklace. _Don’t._ It made her look shifty. Oliver kept his eyes on his sister’s face, nodding slightly when they made eye contact. It had been agreed during prep that only one of the Queen children would testify, and in the interests of establishing Moira’s character, Oliver would come off as jaded and rehearsed. Thea, as the younger sibling, and — Jean said this with a faint grimace — female, would play better with an unsympathetic jury.

It was decided, but it didn’t mean Oliver liked the idea of subjecting his sister to intense scrutiny, not in a trial where appearances seemed to matter infinitely more than the truth. They’d prepped her for testimony, practiced cross-examination scenarios, and she was cool under pressure. It was going to be fine. Still, he was on edge. They all had reason to be, knowing that Donner had a trump card and the intent to play it.

In the same row, Roy was sitting very straight, the exact opposite of his usual slouch, his attention fixed determinedly on the stand. He’d spent most of the waiting period fidgeting with the tie around his neck, one of Jean’s preconditions before he was allowed to attend the trial. As abrasive as their encounters usually were, Oliver was silently grateful to see him there to support Thea and Moira, unfazed about joining their lonely section of the courtroom, the minority voice in the middle of an unfriendly majority. McKenna was on duty at the precinct, which meant that Tommy was by himself, pulling double duty as a witness and as a semi-babysitter to keep Thea’s firestarter boyfriend out of trouble.

The seat beside Oliver was empty, because Felicity wasn’t there. Diggle was even weaker than before, and they’d practically had to wrestle him into accepting an IV. With the evidence still locked in the hard drive and Vertigo on the move, it didn’t make sense to split her time for anything less than a necessity.

That was the rational reason, but Oliver felt himself glance at the vacant space, wishing he’d been bold enough to ask her to come anyway, instead of telling her to stay in the Foundry.

“Thank you for testifying today,” Donner said courteously. “I understand this puts you in a difficult position. You have my sincerest apologies for that.”

Oliver and Tommy exchanged silent looks — unconvinced. Donner had a reputation for aggressive cross-examinations, which made his ostentatious politeness all the more unnerving. Thea didn’t seem to think it was anything other than a tactic, but there was a crease between her eyebrows when she responded. “After everything the press has been saying about my mother? I think it’s fair for someone who actually knows her to set the record straight.”

“That’s very good — setting the record straight, I like that.” Donner chuckled in apparent approval, tapping a folder against the back of his hand. A few members of the jury smiled with him.

Oliver shook his head slightly. _Damn._

“So, Miss Queen, you’ve stated under oath that you only learned about your mother’s involvement with this…Undertaking during the press conference we just saw. Is that correct?”

“Yes. I was there when it happened.”

“I see. It must have been a nasty shock, hearing your mother admit — in front of all those people — that she’d planned a devastating attack on the Glades, and everyone in them.”

Jean’s chair screeched. “Objection,” she said. “Argumentative — counsel isn’t asking my witness a question. And even if he were, my client was forced to participate in _Malcolm Merlyn’s_ plan, which does not make her the instigator.”

The judge shifted in his seat. “Sustained,” he sighed, with obvious reluctance. “Mr Donner, please rephrase.”

Donner inclined his head. “Yes, Your Honor,” he said. “Miss Queen, could you describe your reaction upon learning of your mother’s involvement in the Undertaking?”

“Shock, of course,” Thea said. “Confused. My mother would never have harmed anyone on purpose — the Undertaking couldn’t have been her idea.”

“I’m sure it was a blow,” Donner agreed. “At the time, were you involved with Mr Harper? Roy William Harper Jr? Is that correct?”

Jean was on her feet again. “Your Honor — relevance.”

“Let the witness answer, and maybe we’ll see,” was the judge’s acid reply. “Miss Queen, please respond to Mr Donner’s question.”

Thea’s eyes flickered towards Roy. “Before the Undertaking,” she said, cautiously. “But we weren’t together when it happened.”

“I see. And Mr Harper’s residence at the time — and to this day — is in the Glades, correct?”

“Yes.”

“It’s my understanding that the Undertaking was dependent on two seismic devices, and if one hadn’t suffered an unexpected malfunction, the Glades would have been completely destroyed, harming, or — quite possibly — killing Mr Harper, is that correct?”

Thea blinked rapidly at the unexpected turn in the questioning. “Maybe, but —”

“Your mother stated in her press conference that she knew of Malcolm Merlyn’s plan, which presumably means that she was well aware of the danger to Mr Harper while it was in preparation, a period of time when your relationship was still current, is that true?”

“My mother didn’t know I was dating Roy,” Thea said. “She didn’t try to harm him on purpose — she warned people like him to run.”

“Five minutes before the Undertaking,” Donner added smoothly. “But following that line of testimony, why was your mother not aware of your relationship with Mr Harper?”

“I…” Thea didn’t look to Jean for help, but Oliver could tell she was thinking rapidly for an answer that wouldn’t injure Moira’s character. “I didn’t see the point. I keep my personal life private.”

Donner raised his eyebrows. “Really? So it wasn’t because you knew your mother wouldn’t approve of someone from the Glades?”

“Objection.” Jean was starting to show her irritation. “Counsel is attempting to lead my witness.”

“Withdrawn,” Donner said graciously, but the courtroom was buzzing again.

Roy cursed, very quietly, but Oliver shook his head in response to Thea’s anxious look. Nothing to worry about.

Donner waited for the noise to quiet before resuming his questioning, like it was a round of supportive applause during a show, and he was the lead actor.

“Let’s fast forward a little, Miss Queen,” he continued. “You’ve said previously that you visited your mother in prison. Does that mean you didn’t go down to the precinct to see her, shortly after the arrest?”

Thea had taken the brief pause to regain her composure, and sat with her hands folded in her lap. “I didn’t see her until she was moved to Iron Heights, yes.”

“Do you remember the date of your first visit?”

“Not exactly, no.”

Donner pretended to look surprised. “Well, lucky for us, the State has a record of your visits to Iron Heights.” He left the file open on the table top. “Your first visit to your mother was in early October, _five months_ after she was transferred to prison. Why did it take you so long to see her?”

This was expected, and Oliver knew the answer they’d rehearsed, now repeated word perfect by his sister. “My mother didn’t want me to see her like that,” she said. “It was hard for her, and us — myself and my brother, I mean. It took a while to convince her that meeting us would be a good thing.”

“Almost as though she had a guilty conscience,” he remarked.

“ _Objection_ —”

“—withdrawn.” Again, another friendly smile. “If what you say is true, then why was your brother visiting her every week apart from the time he spent out of the country? Surely, Mrs Queen loves both her children equally. If she was willing to see your brother, I’m sure she would have seen you as well. So why did it take you more than four months to see your mother, after she presumably became receptive to visits in prison?”

“It’s complicated, we didn’t…the Undertaking was a shock. To all of us. I needed time.”

“I’m sure you did, but the fact remains that Mr Queen visited your mother in Iron Heights, significantly earlier than yourself. Which begs the question: why?”

“Objection, Your Honor —”

The judge silenced her with a wave. “I’ll allow it. Please answer, Miss Queen.”

Thea looked up from her hands, her eyes blazing in defiance. “It was complicated,” she repeated, enunciating each word with thinly-veiled frustration. “But she’s my mother —”

My point exactly!” Donner’s voice was rising, all pretense of courtesy abandoned. “You were angry with your mother —”

“I _forgave_ her,” Thea’s voice had a quaver in it now. “It wasn’t my mother’s fault—”

“This is _bullshit_ ,” Tommy hissed.

Oliver could feel his temper rising in response to the protective instinct for his sister. Donner was moving in for the kill, and he was finding it increasingly difficult to just sit there and let him do it.

“You forgave Mrs Queen because she’s your mother, but what justification can you give the jury to do the same? For a woman who stood behind a plan that devastated an entire section of the city? For a woman who only changed her mind only five minutes before it was carried out, and to this day, refuses to admit her share of the responsibility?”

Oliver’s vision swam from a stabbing pain behind his eyes, but he kept his stare on Thea’s face, drained of all color, because she’d tried. She’d tried her best.

The damage was done.

“Silence is an adequate response, Miss Queen,” Donner said silkily. “No further questions for the witness.”


	11. Revelations (Vertigo, Part III)

Tommy splashed his face and bent over the sink, letting the freezing water run from forehead to chin. He exhaled in a single, exquisitely expressive curse word, because there were disasters, and there were Titanics.

Note to self: not the movie, but the catastrophic ship.

He wasn’t a lawyer, but even he knew that Thea’s testimony hadn’t gone as planned. Which upped the pressure on his side of the equation, and he was nervous. Given his track record with judges and the law (not even _thinking_ about a certain basement in an innocent-ish nightclub), he was jittery about being put under the microscope.

But family was important, and Moira needed him, now more than ever.

The door opened just as Tommy was patting his face dry with a paper towel.

“Quite a trial, wouldn’t you say?”

It was Adam Donner, looking incontrovertibly smug. Tommy took his time with the paper, balling the sheet up small and tossing it into the trash, instead of indulging in a somewhat violent (and improbable) urge to make him eat it.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said, pretending to check his reflection in the mirror. “The Prosecution’s being a dick.”

Donner laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“I wouldn’t.” Tommy gave him a light-hearted salute. “Catch you later.”

“She’s lying, you know,” Donner said, stopping him short. “Misrepresentation by omission is still a lie, and whatever she said — or didn’t say — to get you to testify on her behalf, Moira Queen is just using you.”

“Because that’s just _so_ convincing coming from the guy who wants to put her in the electric chair,” Tommy said sarcastically. “Excuse me.”

Donner lifted his chin so he could adjust his tie in the mirror. “Oh good, so I’m assuming you know exactly what went on between her and Malcolm, then.”

Instead of walking straight out, Tommy braced a hand against the handle to keep it shut, because while instinct told him not to trust a guy like Donner, he already knew that Moira was holding something back about the whole story. “What the hell are you talking about? She was blackmailed.”

“I don’t think that’s what the adults would call it,” Donner said, with another one of his slippery smiles. “But run along to mommy and pretend to be one big happy family. I imagine playing make-believe won’t be so easy when she’s on death row.”

* * *

The hallways seemed to be twice as busy after lunch, and Tommy lost track of how many times he had to say “excuse me”, just to get from one end of the corridor to another. He needed to track down his big dumb idiot of a best friend before trial resumed.

Because a horrible, very no-good suspicion had started to form at the back of his mind. Moira and Malcolm had always been close, at least when Robert was still alive. They were so similar that at times, when Moira made a gesture — something offhand — it struck him out of nowhere like a kind of deja vu.

Maybe —?

He needed someone to talk him down from the insanity ledge, and ironically, the person he trusted most to do it had a habit of spending his nights dressed up as a less PG-13 Robin Hood. Irony, that relentless little b—

“Oliver!” Tommy said, spotting the back of his head. “Hey, I need to — _gah_ , people.”

“There you are.” McKenna sounded relieved, and reached up to fix his hair again (cute, but not the time). “We were about to send a search party.”

Felicity was there too, and judging by the adorable crinkle in her nose, she was making _aw_ noises inside her head. Tommy looked from one face to another, distracted by the _weird_ of the whole hallway meet-up (ex-girlfriend, now a kinda-sorta-something with the best friend, and _Felicity_ , who didn’t have a word capable of description), until he finally got to Oliver, who cocked his head in a wordless question, probably noticing that his best friend had a case of the crazy eyes.

“Please tell me you’re here to drop off some liquid courage,” he said lamely. “Because I have a problem performing in front of people.”

“Which is a reference to some childhood trauma — like a school play,” Felicity said quickly, coming to the rescue (babbler’s sympathy, what could he say?) “not…the other thing. Which you’re — like — _twenty_ years too young for. Not that I would know. Because…”

She trailed off absentmindedly, looking for something in her pocket.

“I like you,” said McKenna, very much amused by the Smoak factor. “Also, sorry about the liquid courage, but you’re not allowed to drink in here. So I brought coffee.”

Tommy took the cup. “No donut?”

“I don’t think you want frosting on your suit when you’re on the stand — take it from me, it makes the jury jealous.”

_The stand. Moira_.

People were moving past them into the courtroom, filing into their seats. “I think it’s starting,” Oliver said. “Everything okay? You look…”

Handsome. Distracted. Nutso.

“…rattled.”

Tommy pressed his lips together and took a drag of hot coffee, feeling his eyes water from the temperature. “Nope,” he coughed. “All good.”

_Please go well,_ he prayed, not wanting to see the scenario where it didn’t. _Please_.

* * *

“Mr Merlyn,” said Jean. “How would you describe the relationship between you and your father? Were you close?”

They were well into his questioning, but Tommy still had to be careful not to poke his face with the microphone when he answered. “Not really. My mom died when I was nine, and my dad…became someone different. That guy didn’t have a lot of time for his son. After the Undertaking, I guess I found out why.”

It was hard to see faces when he was on the stand, everyone sort of blended into each other — which helped, not being able to see their reactions. Merlyn was _not_ a good last name to have in Starling City, much less a trial for the murders of five hundred and three innocent people, and the last thing he needed was to see disbelief, or worse case scenario, revulsion on a stranger’s face.

“On the subject of that fateful night, was the Undertaking a surprise to you?”

“Yes,” Tommy said. “I was shocked — everyone was. Moira Queen would never have done _anything_ like the Undertaking, not by choice.”

“So you believe my client when she says she acted under duress, even if the duress supposedly came from your own father?”

That question had been his speed bump during trial prep, because just trying to recall that night — that _moment_ — when Malcolm’s face had darkened, the way he’d shouted that innocent people deserved to die, made Tommy more nervous than he already was, trying to find the words to describe the exact instant he realized his father was insane.

“My dad was…unstable,” he said carefully. “When I confronted him about the Undertaking, he told me that everyone in the Glades deserved to die because my mom was murdered. He wanted to wipe the slate clean and start again, even if it meant killing every single person there. If that’s something he could say to his own son, I think he might have said a lot worse to Moira Queen. So yes, I believe her.”

“One last question. Why should we believe _you_?” Jean asked. “By your own admission, you grew up in the Queen household, you’re best friends with Oliver Queen, you work with Thea Queen at Verdant, and Moira Queen was like a mother to you. Why should the jury believe your testimony to my client’s character, over everything else?”

In the time it took to consider his answer, Tommy broke his rule not to look. In the sea of strangers, he found the faces in the crowd, three people who mattered more than anything in the world. Oliver, Thea, and Moira. Family wasn’t as simple as genetics, the small coincidence of being related to someone by blood. It was the choices they made, and the ties that mattered.

Tommy took a deep breath, because he was about to break one of those ties, and as overdue as it was, it still meant he was giving up even the slightest pretense that Malcolm had been the father he wanted.

Oliver was watching him, knowing the full extent of what Malcolm had done — more than anyone else in the room. He nodded silently, and Tommy felt his sense of balance again.

“Because…my dad did a terrible thing. He planned and carried out the murder of hundreds of innocent people. Even if I wasn’t close to Malcolm, even if I barely knew who he really was, I know there’s a target on my back because of my last name. The Hoods almost killed me because I’m a Merlyn. People hate him, and I’m sure there are people out there who hate me too. The smart thing to do would be keeping my head down, but I can’t do that. Moira doesn’t deserve to die for Malcolm’s mistake, and I can’t sit here in good conscience and do nothing about it.”

“Thank you, Mr Merlyn.” Jean nodded in approval, and returned to her chair. “Your witness, Mr Donner.”

There was a lot of creaking in the benches during the brief pause, and Tommy wiped his palms on his pants, trying not to fidget. Moira removed the hand covering her mouth and showed him her smile, quiet and deeply felt. _Thank you_ , she mouthed.

Tommy smiled back, but it didn’t last, because Donner was getting his turn in the bear pit.

“Thank you for testifying, Mr Merlyn,” he said, and Tommy felt his insides twist with dislike. “It’s admirable of you to act according to your conscience, but I have some trouble with the description of the relationship between yourself and your father. You say you weren’t close after the death of your mother, yet your father continued to support you financially for most of your adult life, when you dropped out of college, for instance, and certain…legal troubles with the young Mr Queen. To the point that your first real employment came at the age of twenty-seven. That seems to suggest _some_ kind of closeness.”

“With all due respect,” Tommy said, meaning _not_ , “bankrolling a stupid kid through his twenties isn’t really the kind of parenting that counts as _close_. It was easier for Malcolm to turn the other way, and he did.”

“So what changed? Why didn’t you continue living off the allowance he gave you?”

Tommy shifted his weight. “Twenty-seven’s a little late for independence, but better late than never. My best friend was looking for a partner in his club, and I thought it was a good idea to see what I could do, away from my father.”

“Right. But isn’t it true that Malcolm Merlyn cut you off from the family bank account?”

The phrasing was enough to make anyone wince. “That’s another way to spin it, yes.”

“Did you resent that?”

“Objection — leading the witness,” Jean cut in.

Donner inclined his head. “Did the sudden severance of financial ties create any negative emotions between yourself and the deceased Mr Merlyn?” he asked.

Tommy shrugged. “Of course, but —”

“—it turned out for the best,” Donner suggested, with a sardonic look tossed in the jury’s direction. “Understood. How would you describe the relationship between the defendant Mrs Queen and your father? Conventional?”

“On the outside, yes.”

“There’s plenty of evidence that they crossed paths in business and social settings. Hospital records even show that he came to see her while she was hospitalized after an attempted assassination. That seems like a friendship to me, not at all like Mrs Queen was avoiding an individual who’d made threats to the safety of her family.”

“Malcolm was very good at keeping up appearances. It’s not as if he could have drawn a line across his throat every time they saw each other — he’s not a cartoon character,” Tommy said flatly.

That elicited a murmur of laughter in the courtroom. Donner’s stare hardened to unfriendly points. “I see. You were in a relationship with a Miss Laurel Lance until her death, is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“How did she die?”

“Objection — relevance, Your Honor.”

“Mr Donner, you seem to be making a lot of detours into your witnesses’ personal lives,” said Judge Hope laconically. “My appreciation for theatrics aside, I’d like to get through this as painlessly as possible. Sustained.”

“Of course, Your Honor.” Donner turned back to Tommy. “Miss Lance was an unfortunate casualty of the Undertaking, was she not?”

He unclenched his jaw. “Yes.”

“The CNRI building — situated in the Glades — collapsed from the earthquake, and she sustained fatal injuries. Just like Miss Queen and Mr Harper, don’t you think Moira Queen knew about the risks when she supposedly agreed to help Malcolm Merlyn under duress?”

“I don’t see how that’s relevant.”

“It’s relevant because Mrs Queen’s story is that Malcolm Merlyn threatened the lives of her family in order to compel her acquiescence. Miss Lance — like yourself — practically grew up in the Queen household. Wouldn’t it have been reasonably foreseeable to Mrs Queen, given the location and nature of Miss Lance’s work at CNRI, that she might sustain grievous harm, were the Undertaking to proceed?”

“Objection! Inflammatory.”

“Mr Donner is merely working with Mrs Queen’s version of events,” said the judge. “Go ahead and answer, Mr Merlyn.”

Tommy didn’t have a short fuse by nature, but he was finding it increasingly hard not to put Diggle’s teachings of the fist-to-face variety to good use, especially where Donner was concerned. Down in the benches, Oliver’s face was paler than he’d ever seen it, and if anyone was paying attention, the look in his eye was a straight-up Arrow glare.

Which mean _dangerous_.

“Laurel didn’t deserve to die,” Tommy said, suppressing his temper, “but I don’t hold Moira responsible for that. More people would have died if she hadn’t warned them. That’s the truth.”

“Mr Merlyn,” Donner said, with something resembling pity, “the truth is that Moira Queen only acted to help Moira Queen. Yes, her children may have been threatened, but it seems strangely convenient to gloss over the fact that she knew a close friend of the family would likely sustain serious — if not fatal — injury, yet did nothing to change that. Except issue a televised warning a mere _five_ minutes before the terrible attack was to begin. Now how does that sit with your conscience?”

* * *

A file landed onto the table, spinning across the polished wood and coming to rest just in front of Moira’s folded hands.

“There you go,” said Donner, leaning back in his chair. “Life, with the possibility of parole. After today, I’d strongly advise you to consider it.”

Moira’s expression hadn’t changed since the proceedings had wrapped up for the day. She was still staring out the window like Donner wasn’t speaking at all, her eyes slightly narrowed against the brightness of the sunset. Seated at her elbow, Oliver sensed that they were already losing her, and she was retreating to some distant, closed place inside of herself, a place that veered remarkably close to admitting defeat.

Jean scoffed, scanning the front page. “How magnanimous of you to extend your unsolicited legal services to my client, but we’re not pleading out. If you were so confident of your case against my client, you’d be sticking to your guns, not offering us a quiet way out.”

“Please.” Donner smirked. “I’m doing this out of professional courtesy. A family friend — for all intents and purposes as thick as thieves with your client — turns out to have been blackmailing her into aiding and abetting mass murder? The whole thing reeks of a guilty conscience. I have the jury eating out the palm of my hand, and your last two witnesses only added a few more smears to her so-called character. Thank you, by the way.”

The last part, he threw to Thea and Tommy, whose faces bore surprisingly identical looks of pure dislike.

“Forgive me if I’m not taking opposing counsel’s word as gospel,” Jean answered. “I know you like playing poker, Adam, and this is me calling your bluff. We’re continuing with the trial.”

Donner rapped his knuckles on the table, and got up to go. “The deal’s good until trial starts tomorrow morning. Oh, and in case your big plan involves getting Mrs Queen to testify, I wouldn’t advise it. The upside of subpoenaing twenty years worth of records about your client and her supposed blackmailer is that I have a very thick file full of evidence that Malcolm Merlyn was nowhere near the threat she claims he was, and I don’t think you’d want some of those things getting out in open court. The press always makes it sound so ugly in the reprints.”

Oliver glared silently at him from across the table. “Sounds like you’re doing the blackmailing now, Mr Donner,” he said bluntly.

Donner gleamed, shrugging back into his suit jacket with total unconcern. “Think about it,” he said to Moira. “See you tomorrow.”

The door slammed, and Tommy gave it another thump for good measure. “That crowbar’s looking _pretty_ good right about now,” he said furiously. “Granted, the only thing I have in the trunk of my car is a Mexican wrestling mask and a toy lightsaber, but I think Roy could make it work.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Jean said sternly. “After what happened in there, the last thing we need is sabotage of opposing counsel.”

“We’re not taking the deal, right?” Thea said. “The fact that he’s chickening out means that we’ve done something good.”

“Exactly,” Jean said. “Your mother’s going to testify. We’ve heard from too many third parties — she needs to tell her story now.”

“No,” Moira said suddenly.

There was a silence.

“What?” Thea said.

“I mean _no_ ,” she repeated. “I accept Mr Donner’s deal.”

Tommy dropped back into a chair. “Is it opposite day?”

“I’m afraid not.” Moira smiled stiffly at her children. “Thank you for all you’ve done today, but I think it’s time to recognize when a fight is no longer worth carrying on.”

“It’s my fault,” Thea said, her voice shaking. “I was supposed to help you, but I just made it worse.”

“No, sweetheart,” Moira promised, laying a hand on her daughter’s cheek. “It wasn’t you — or Tommy. I’m so very grateful for all your help, but…”

“You don’t want to testify,” Oliver guessed.

Tommy glanced at him, the two of them well aware of the very real possibility that Donner had evidence against Moira, and the fact that he’d be able to use it against her if she took the stand.

“You’re right, I don’t,” she admitted. “I thought my case was worth fighting, but after today…I’m very tired of seeing the people I love torn to shreds for my sake, and if I’m being honest, I’m not entirely sure I deserve any kind of forgiveness, much less a pardon from twelve complete strangers.”

“Is this because of Laurel?” Tommy asked, and Oliver looked at him, remembering the raw expression on his face when Donner raised the subject during trial.

“Laurel, and the other five hundred and two people that lost their lives because I let sleeping dogs lie. Sometimes unfriendly words are the ones you need to hear, and I think Mr Donner makes a valid point about the gravity of what I’ve done.”

“That’s _crap_!” Thea snapped. “After what you told me and Ollie this morning — about being proud, and holding your head high — are you seriously telling me that the second it gets hard, you're just rolling over and letting Donner walk all over you in front of that jury?”

Moira tried to take her hands again. “Sweetheart —”

“No,” Thea said, wrenching her arms free. Her chair screeched across the tiles. “No, mom. You may be okay with going quietly — but I’m not. We still need you, and if that doesn’t mean anything, then you’re not my mother. You’re just like Malcolm Merlyn.”

“ _Speedy_ ,” Oliver began, but she’d already stormed out of the room.

The door rattled in the frame from the force of being slammed, and Moira brought her fingertips up to her temples like she was nursing a headache. “Your sister was always the more emotional one.”

“She’s not completely wrong,” Oliver said frankly. “You’re not anything like Malcolm, but we do need you.”

“What does Donner have on you that you don’t want us to know?” Tommy asked.

Moira had gone extremely still, her face like marble. “I’ve made my choice,” she declared. “Please help Thea come to terms with it. I want to be able to see my daughter, until the end.”

Jean cleared her throat. “Moira, I don’t advise accepting a plea —”

“—thank you, Jean, for all you’ve done. But we both know that life in prison is the best outcome that we could have hoped for.” Moira’s bright stare was as hard as diamond, her walls thrown back up to protect her secrets again. “I’m afraid I’m just not that strong, and I think it’s time I let my sins catch up to me, don’t you?”

* * *

“Day one of the Moira Queen trial has just concluded, and we’ve been told that things don’t look good for the defence. Channel-52’s legal correspondent describes Mrs Queen’s demeanor as very collected, almost detached, even when her daughter Thea Queen was being cross-examined by Assistant District Attorney Adam Donner. Notorious billionaire playboy Tommy Merlyn was also there to speak in Mrs Queen’s defence, and had some shocking secrets to disclose about his relationship with his father, Malcolm Merlyn. What does this mean for Moira Queen’s case? More after the break —”

Oliver turned off the monitor before he could hear anything else and faced away from the desk, his stare fixed on the ceiling. His head was throbbing, and had been throbbing since he’d seen his sister and best friend attacked on the stand. The pain was like an ice pick driving from the peak of his skull to the base of his neck, radiating in low ebbs that made it hard to focus on any one thing. The lights were all out in his office, but Starling City still glimmered below his windows, a sprawl of color and sound that should have reminded him exactly what he was fighting for, but not tonight. Of all times, not tonight. He closed his eyes against the distant brightness and tried to concentrate on controlling the pain inside his skull.

It was impossible to think. He was going to lose his mother, who would spend the rest of her life in prison because of some secret she couldn’t bear them to hear, because the justice system allowed someone like Donner to warp everything said in her defence into something hideous and immoral, because it allowed him to press strategically on her pressure points — the people closest to her — until she gave in.

It looked like she had. He knew Jean would hold out for as long as possible, hoping that Moira would change her mind at the last minute and fight back, but he didn’t know. He just didn’t know if she was going to this time.

What made it ten times worse was the feeling of being powerless. The Hood, the Arrow, they were personas that fought in the gray, against the loopholes and allowances in the justice system that allowed corruption and the underbelly of the city to prosper.

But the Arrow couldn’t fight this. Moira Queen was being judged by a jury of her peers, and there was nothing he could do to change that. Anything else would be…unthinkable.

There was a soft tap on the door, and he flinched at the sparks of pain that went off behind his eyes. “Hey,” Felicity said, peering at him in the half-shadow. “Am I interrupting anything?”

Oliver’s first thought was the Foundry, whether he’d missed any messages about developments in the Vertigo case. “Did something happen?” he asked. “Is it Diggle?”

“No — nothing work-related,” she promised. “Just thought I’d check on you, after what happened in court today.”

Oliver gave her a rueful smile. “I’m just thinking.”

“Ah.” She didn’t look at all surprised by his answer, and moved a chair around his desk so that she could sit near him. “I _was_ going to show up at the mansion, but then I thought about where Mr Broody would want to do his brooding without being disturbed, and the office after-hours seemed like a pretty good bet.”

“Clearly it didn’t work,” he observed. “Since you’re already here.”

“Well, I thought you’d make the exception for me,” she said lightly.

_Always_ , he answered, as a matter of instinct. But Oliver only gave Felicity another close-lipped smile despite the pain in his head, a part of him content to know that they were reaching some kind of a median again. She still cared, even after everything.

“Tommy told me about the deal,” she said, after a pause. “Life sentence. Your mom wants to take it?”

Oliver nodded, his hands folded across his stomach. “She doesn’t want to testify, and that’s the best possible outcome for the trial, because at least she’ll get to see us, even if it’s in prison. My sister’s not happy about it.”

Felicity sighed. “Of course not. She’s your mother. They’re tearing her apart in court because she’s the only person left to blame — doesn’t sound very fair to me.”

“No,” he agreed.

“Doesn’t mean it’s fair for you to tear yourself apart either.”

Oliver’s surprise was short-lived, because Felicity responded with a look that — in its usual, unfailing way — cut through the pretense meant for other people. Not her.

_Not for them_.

The thought of what changed between them since Moscow — what he’d given up — made his chest feel tight and uncomfortable, but all of that seemed to be trivial now, with the way she leaned forward to listen, waiting for whatever it was that he wanted to tell her.

She still looked at him the same way. Maybe it was a little sadder than before, maybe it was nothing more than worrying between friends, but there was still the same undefinable quality that went straight to his core, a chemical _rightness_ that made confiding in her a foregone conclusion.

“The truth is,” he said. “I’ve been sitting here for the last hour, thinking about all the ways I failed my mother. The night of the Undertaking, I should have done more besides fight Malcolm to beat him. I should have done something, to make sure he’d be alive to stand trial for his crimes. I let him escape justice. That’s _my_ fault, Felicity.”

She didn’t look at all convinced. “John was there,” she reminded him. “The way he described it, I don’t think Malcolm gave you much of a choice.”

Oliver shook his head and turned away again to face the wall, sick with the feeling of being completely helpless. He fought to control his breathing, choosing words between the rising ache pressing against his skull like hot steam forced into a too-tight space. “There’s always a choice. I’ve spent the last few months trying to prove that, and the night I fought Malcolm — I let my emotions get the better of me. Now my mother’s paying the price.”

“That’s not true,” Felicity said stubbornly. “You know that’s not what happened.”

“But I’m going to lose her,” he said, too tired, too worn down by the migraine tearing at the insides of his head to pretend anymore. “It’s my fault that she’s going to prison, my fault that my sister’s going to lose her mother. I can’t do anything to stop it, and there’s no one — _no one_ — else to blame but myself.”

“ _Hey_.” Felicity wasn’t in the chair anymore, but on her knees beside him, a hand on his arm to make him look at her. He did it with difficulty, almost reluctantly, focusing on her face through the reddish haze in front of his eyes. The only light came from the windows across the room, lingering strangely on her hair and skin, a glow as understated as a pearl’s.

Gradually, quietly, it got a little easier. The pain retreated, and Oliver was reminded — marked by another small pang in his chest — that she was so, incredibly, beautiful to him.

“The last time I checked,” she said slowly, “vigilantes — even guilt-spiraling ones like you — are allowed to have feelings. Malcolm was stronger than you, and he _would_ have killed you on that rooftop. You beat him because you turned your emotions into strength, and they pushed you to fight, and live. I think your mom would be more grateful for that than anything else.”

Oliver stared at her fingers, resting easily on his forearm, deliberating whether to reach out and cover them with his hand.

Then —

“You are not going to lose your mother,” she told him. “Moira doesn’t want to testify because she’s afraid she’ll lose you and your sister if she tells the truth. _You_ have to make her believe that she won’t.”

“How?”

Felicity tipped her head to one side, a teasing challenge. “You Queens don’t scare that easily, and if there’s one thing I know about Oliver Jonas Queen, it’s that he can inspire one hell of a fight, even in the most unlikely people. Say, an IT girl down eighteen floors. Or an army vet turned private security. Right?”

Oliver wondered if Felicity had any idea what she could do, armed with nothing but her heart on her sleeve and an unwavering sense of faith. “Thank you, Felicity,” he said, meaning it.

She smiled softly. “Anytime.”

* * *

“So there you go,” Oliver summarized, Tommy on one side, Thea on the other. “The three of us reached a consensus that we don’t care what secrets Donner might end up exposing during trial, or whatever you end up saying on the stand.”

“Because family’s what matters,” Tommy continued. “And you’re not going to spend the rest of your life in prison because of fear.”

“You stood up in front of the whole city, to Malcolm’s threats. You can be brave,” Thea said firmly. “We’re just taking away the only excuse you have left not to be.”

Moira had both her hands pressed to her lips, and she took them away only to lay them flat, trembling just a little, on the table between them.

“You’ll hate me for it,” she said at last. “I haven’t been completely honest with you, and it will be nothing short of a betrayal if I tell you why.”

Her blue eyes flickered towards Tommy at the last part, and Oliver — who’d spoken to him beforehand — knew that a suspicion was all but confirmed.

“Mom,” Oliver said. “I think we might already know.”

Thea glanced curiously at the two of them. “Know what?” she asked.

“Donner, that little d—” Oliver kicked Tommy beneath the table, and he cleared his throat, taking a brief pause to rephrase. “Donner approached me yesterday. Even if you don’t end up testifying, he’ll still make sure everyone finds out what happened between you and Malcolm. So it really doesn’t make a difference whether it comes out during trial, or after you go to prison for life.”

Thea was watching all of them with apprehension, but she took Oliver’s hand with a nod, braced to hear it. In the meantime, Moira gave them one of her searching stares, tinged with something like desperation, as though she had to memorize something in their faces that would disappear as soon as she told the truth.

“Mom, it’s time to give the truth its day,” he said. “Please.”

Finally — _finally_ — she nodded. "Fight it is, then."

* * *

Something buzzed, and Felicity grunted, her forehead glued to the steel tabletop. “Five more minutes.”

A click, and the smell of coffee tickled her nose. “Morning,” Diggle said pleasantly, despite the outward appearance of having been chewed up by death and spat back out again. “You conked out about an hour ago. Long day?”

Felicity straightened up, pushing her glasses into her hair so that she could wipe her eyes. “Stayed up late last night,” she said. “Oliver was at the office.”

Diggle raised his eyebrows. “That serious, huh? Did you two make up?”

“Not like _that_ ,” she muttered, burying her face in the instant coffee. “It was about his mom.”

“Ah,” he said, pointing behind him at the TV. “I’ve been keeping an eye on that. Looks like she just testified, and the press _loved_ it. An affair with Malcolm Merlyn.”

If Felicity wasn’t so sleepy, she might have thrown up in her mouth a little. “Ew,” she muttered. Though if she was being honest, strangely not all that surprising. But more on that later.

“Well, we can’t do anything about that,” he said reasonably. “What we _can_ do is try and figure out how the Vertigo’s getting around the city.”

“ _Fun_ ,” she agreed, checking her phone for messages. Missed call from Oliver, but it wasn’t as if she could do anything about that now. “Oo, looks like the chemist at QC managed to get something off the vials I snagged at the drug lab.”

“Anything good?”

“It’s trace,” she said, bringing up the chemical breakdown report on the main screen. “Which means not enough to manufacture an antidote. But, the devil’s in the details. Besides the Vertigo, there’s...formaldehyde, gelatin, thimerosal, and egg proteins.”

Diggle shook his head groggily. “Is that supposed to mean something?”

“Thimerosal…thimerosal…” She narrowed her eyes, checking against the database. “It’s a chemical preservative. Used to prevent bacterial buildups in storage. Wait — egg proteins. Formaldehyde. That’s it!”

Papers scattered across the floor when she made a dive for the other keyboard, opening the lists of random addresses across the city. Just reading them in one go made no sense, but putting them into context —

The addresses snaked around the city, forming some kind of trail, which Diggle now squinted at. “Those don’t look very random, but what does this have to do with eggs?”

“They’re not random at all,” she said, her heart racing as she worked through the theory. “I think I know how he’s getting people infected. Egg proteins and formaldehyde are the basic ingredients of vaccines. Does any of this look familiar?"

He nodded. “You’re right. That’s where I got my flu shot — there was a truck from the city health authority.”

“The Count must have hijacked the supply or something,” she said. “I should be able to find the compromised van if I cross-reference the infections with official routes… _aha_.”

“My god. That’s round the corner from Queen Consolidated,” Diggle said. “We have to tell Oliver.”

Felicity shot a worried glance at the news. “He’ll be tied up for hours. I’ll go — we just need a sample. I’ll get in, get out. Drop it off with my guy at the lab.”

“You still remember how to throw a punch?” he asked grimly.

“Don’t worry,” she said, pulling on her coat. “Just another late night at the office.”

* * *

Felicity felt more than a little stupid, bringing a baseball bat to a flu truck, but Diggle’s motto was to _always be prepared_ (or was that the Eagle Scout slogan?) and in the absence of firearms proficiency, she figured the threat of blunt force trauma would be good enough to give any bad guy pause.

She’d found it behind the bar at Verdant for some reason, maybe Tommy’s backup measure in case crowd control failed, but she hoped that he hadn’t gotten it for sentimental value, just in case things went pear-shaped with her unsanctioned _IOU_.

The van was parked off the main road, though thankfully, not in a sketchy alley. It was past rush hour, which meant pedestrians few and far between, and no one to ask questions about why a business casual-wearing young woman was taking a stroll while clutching a baseball bat at an indecent hour of the night. A police siren in the distance made her pick up the pace, heels clacking across damp asphalt as she hurried up to the doors. The driver’s seat was empty, and in the absence of any lock-picking skills, Felicity did the next best thing.

Which was to smash the window and unlock the door from the inside.

“ _Sorry_ ,” she whispered, silently pledging an anonymous donation to the hospital fund the first chance she got.

The broken glass in the pane gleamed like a circle of jagged teeth as she swept a flashlight across the entrance. The inside was set up like a regular clinic, glass cabinets and drawers full of sterile medical supplies.

_If I was a Vertigo-tainted flu vaccine, where would I be hiding?_

_Fridge._

“Bingo,” she breathed, as cold air misted around vials of yellowish vaccine.

Glass crunched underfoot, and a shadow stretched across the counter. “Funny,” said a familiar voice. “Have we met?”

* * *

“More shocking revelations from day two of the Moira Queen trial. We’ve just been told that the jury has retired to begin their deliberations,” said a reporter outside the main courtroom. “One of the many bombshells to drop during a truly _sensational_ trial was the admission that Moira Queen previously had an affair with Malcolm Merlyn —”

“Jesus,” Tommy muttered, elbowing past the guy with the boom mic. “You’d think the vultures would wait for the corpse to actually _be_ a corpse before they start picking at it.”

Everyone was on edge given the circumstances, but Oliver wished he hadn’t said it, because the reporter — in a feat of supernatural hearing — pivoted immediately in pursuit of Tommy. “Brune Grenier, Channel 52. Is that a comment on the case, Mr Merlyn?” she called, followed closely by the cameras. “Are you saying that Moira Queen is likely to be found guilty?”

“Hey — _hey_ ,” McKenna snapped, interposing herself between them and the reporters, her police badge on display. “You have a press permit to be within courthouse premises, but that doesn’t extend to harassing witnesses and family members. Move away, please.”

Everyone on the Queen side of the proceedings eyed her with some admiration, especially Tommy, which Oliver found mildly ironic, for all his talk of being a playboy, he always ended up with women who could take him with one hand tied behind their backs.

“I knew I liked you for a reason,” he said, bumping his side against hers. “Even if you never bring me donuts.”

“Mm,” she said, but quickly grew serious again. “I know one of the bailiffs in charge of chaperoning the jury. He usually takes the orders for dinner right about now, but apparently the foreman told him they wouldn’t be needing it.”

Thea was biting her nails again. “That’s bad, right?”

McKenna looked grim. “It means they might be coming back with a verdict pretty soon.”

“So that’s bad,” Thea confirmed, looking grimly out over the staircase. “God, I need a drink.”

Oliver didn’t disagree, but it was one of those times where not having anything useful to say was better substituted with silence. He scanned through his messages, ignoring the ones from the office, because the unique brand of patience required for dealing with Isabel was momentarily in short supply. There was a missed call from Felicity, less than fifteen minutes ago.

He swiped to return it, ignoring a significant eyebrow quirk from Tommy, the resident busybody. It continued to ring, giving him enough time to pace all the way to the end of the hall, which struck him as slightly odd. Felicity was usually the one who answered calls immediately, hell or high water.

It didn’t occur to him that he was nervous until the call connected and the bubble of tension in his chest dissolved. “Felicity?” he said. “Is everything —?”

“The blonde can’t come to the phone right now,” said a familiar metallic drawl. “Can I take a message, Oliver?”

Oliver was silent, his eyes fixed unseeing on the street outside the window.

“Sorry, how rude of me. Should I call you Oliver, or do you prefer _Arrow_? One never knows with the crazies.”

“What have you done?” he said, sounding nothing like himself.

“Oo, that’s a scary voice.” There was a creak like Vertigo had got up from a chair, sauntering now to wherever Felicity was, just a short distance away. “Now, darling, I’m afraid your boyfriend wants proof of life. Give him a little something, would you?”

The seconds dragged on. “Hm. Not very talkative, is she?” he said. “Quite the glare on her though, not unlike yourself, but I digress. And before you ask the dull little questions like _how_ and _why_ , let’s just say that I never forget a face. Miss Pretty over here’s been in the papers recently — big promotion for the small town Vegas girl, yada-yada — so imagine my surprise when I see her running around with Starling City’s little Robin Hood impersonator, interfering with my honest day’s work. Now, that’s odd, because someone with a big job like that shouldn’t have the time to be a little crimefighting busybody, _unless_ someone upstairs is in on the joke. Then I remember that a billionaire playboy tried to buy off me last year, right before the Hood crashed in and threw me to the men in white coats. _Oliver Queen_. How does that line go? ‘Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times —” Vertigo broke off with a curse, like Felicity had attacked him.

Oliver couldn’t do anything except listen. A crash like a chair being overturned, the splinter of breaking glass, a cackle of maniacal laughter followed by a sharp cry of pain.

_Felicity._

“Pardon the interruption,” Vertigo said, sounding out of breath. “Like I was saying — once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, and three times is enemy action. And I don’t think you want to find out what happens to enemies when I have to ask again, do you?”

Oliver slowly turned back to face the others, his vision strangely sharp, everything — down to the finest detail — in extreme focus. Tommy was the only one looking over, and he frowned, mouthing: _what?_

“Tell me where,” he said.

“Excellent. I think you’ll find us at the top of a certain office building, where I shall be sampling the _very_ fine bottle of scotch you keep in the cabinet by the window. I’d hurry now, before Count Vertigo gets bored. I don’t think Miss Pretty will stay that way once she starts hallucinating her worst nightmares, do you?”

* * *

Felicity Smoak was pissed. Mostly at herself, which was worse. As if it wasn’t bad enough that she was being held hostage in her office building of all places, also in the vein of _worse_ was being zip-tied to a bumpy conference room chair and not being able to do anything about it, byproduct of her unscripted choice to attack Count Crazy Eyes while he was on the phone with Oliver.

She noted the three fingernail gouges in his cheek with uncharacteristic vindictiveness, and went back to contemplating the alternate reality where she had the hands free to whack him with a baseball bat.

Said bat was unfortunately lying somewhere on the floor of the flu vaccination truck, and the Count was sipping Oliver’s scotch straight from the cut crystal bottle like nobody’s business, his gun resting on his knee.

The gun was almost _obscene_ with how gun-like it was, the kind of sidearm guys with equipment issues would wear on their belt to overcompensate, the Lead-and-Ammo version of a bright red Ferrari.

Vertigo’s snake-like eyes were on her before she could look away, and he held up his weapon, turning it from side to side with tremendous unconcern. “Oh, this?” he said. “Took it off some redneck I met on my way out from Iron Heights. Had his skull smashed in from falling rubble, corn syrup and brains _everywhere_. Gaudy, isn’t it? Bit too Buffalo Bill for my taste, but beggars can’t be choosers, and I’m nothing if not consistent.”

_Consistently crazy_ , but Felicity didn’t say anything. She only glared.

“Brr,” Vertigo said, pretending to shiver. “I can see why he likes you — you’ve got the angry-eyes down pat.”

No answer, and he nursed another mouthful of scotch, _ah_ -ing when it finally went down. His boots were on Oliver’s keyboard, jiggling every now and then from the tune he hummed under his breath. “So how does someone like Oliver Queen go from silver spoon playboy to hooded vigilante by night? Is it the boredom, or the extra money to burn?”

Felicity’s throat came unstuck when she finally had a reason to answer, but only because she wanted Vertigo to know the reason why Oliver was going to beat him into next Wednesday. “Because psychos like you deserve to be stopped by heroes like him,” she said huskily.

Vertigo actually threw his head back and laughed, wheezing until the scotch in the bottle had mostly splashed all over the floor. “Oh sweetheart, I may be crazy as a bag of cats, but if you think Mr-Runs-Across-Rooftops-in-a-Robin-Hood-Costume is one _iota_ less insane than I am, well — I’m afraid you’re going to have to rethink some things, including what makes him a hero. Hint: rugged good looks aren’t enough.”

Felicity knew it was pointless to try and argue with the Count’s special brand of insanity, but she’d had a lot of time to think things over since being tied to the chair, and some pieces just didn’t make sense to her.

“So you manufactured the Vertigo-tainted vaccine and infected people through a compromised mobile clinic, but there’s no way you could have gotten the drugs past city regulation without being found out,” she said. “How’d you do it?”

Vertigo cocked his head, surveying her with renewed interest. “Are we playing _quid pro quo_ now, Clarice?”

She shrugged as best she could, given the restraints. “Just wondering if you wanted to share.”

“Fine,” he sighed. “I’ll be Hannibal Lecter, but only because I'm bored of having a staring contest with myself.”

Moving with surprising speed, Vertigo swung his feet off the table and prowled across the room, circling around her chair like a cat that had caught a scent. “Right on all counts, Clarice, just missing the gold star for one little thing. A _benefactor_. Someone who happens to hate the Arrow as much as I do. Set me up after I slipped out of Iron Heights. Barton Mathis went back to old habits and got his neck snapped for it, but I stayed alive because I know how to make a product that appeals to a wider audience. My rich little friend certainly knows the value of a good chemical scare, and he _knows_ what gets Mr Arrow crawling out of the shadows, guns a-blazing.”

The muzzle of the gun slid along her shoulder. “Metaphorically, of course.”

In other random thoughts of the day, Felicity wished she’d worn a dress with a higher neckline.

But she’d also spent enough time around Oliver to know that Crazy Eyes had overlooked one crucial thing about choosing the right hostage venue.

It was smart to go for solid walls, not glass, because in an unlit room facing brightly lit skyscrapers, the reflection from the neon lights was enough to hide the fact that someone was standing right outside the door.

“Did you catch all that?” she said, her voice surprisingly steady, and waited to hear Oliver’s reply.

* * *

Oliver stepped through the open doorway in full Arrow gear, his bow clutched at his side. He pulled back the hood, baring his face, because what was the point of it now?

Felicity was tied to a chair, her face white with anger but otherwise unharmed. He checked her from head to toe anyway, a once-over to make sure she hadn’t been injured. It didn’t look like she had, not visibly, anyway.

“Did he hurt you?” he asked, at a carefully controlled decibel.

She shook her head. “I’m sorry,” she said, like it was important.

Oliver finally looked away from Felicity, to Count Vertigo, who stood behind the chair with his gloved fingers on her neck and curling in her hair. “Hello, you,” he said. “Nice to finally put a face to the name. I hope you don't mind that I’ve borrowed your office — it’s just so nice to see the giant crater your mother put in the Glades. Which reminds me, how _is_ the charming mass-murderess? Sentenced to be a human circuit conductor yet?”

“What do you want from me?” Oliver asked.

Vertigo rolled his eyes, and Felicity grimaced as his hands snaked down to her shoulders. She writhed furiously in the chair, the plastic zip ties digging into her wrists from the effort of trying to get away. “Revenge is a dish best served a year cold,” he said, ignoring her struggling. “I know it’s hard to pay attention with Miss Pretty here, but _do_ try to keep up, Oliver.”

His name was like a weapon Vertigo thought he could throw in his face, but Oliver’s name had only ever been a balm where Felicity was concerned.

“Your benefactor — who is he?”

Vertigo tsk-ed in disapproval. “Don’t spoil the fun. Suffice it to say he’s got means and a beef with the Hooded Wannabe Hero. After all he’s done for me, seems only fair I deliver on my promise.”

“Which is?”

Vertigo reached behind him with a smirk.

“ _Oliver!_ ”

Felicity didn’t need to warn him twice. Oliver heard the gun and dived out of the way, skidding behind the cover of a pillar. The bullets smashed rapid-fire through the glass, showering him with dust when they embedded in the concrete.

Oliver was armed now, waiting in the shadows, listening for Vertigo’s next move. “You missed,” he called.

Two more gunshots splintered the last of the office walls, another going straight through the window and leaving a series of irregular, rippling cracks.

The chamber clicked, empty.

Vertigo hissed with annoyance. “Come along now,” he said.

“Don’t touch me!” Felicity snarled, but he heard the _snick_ of a knife cutting through the restraints and her stumbling footsteps as he hauled her along with him.

They were coming around through the conference room, and Oliver slipped around the entrance to flank him, moving low to keep out of sight. He emerged behind them, and the flicker of movement was enough for Vertigo to spin around, an arm across Felicity’s throat to pin her in front of him like a human shield.

But it was the syringes in his other hand that made Oliver stop short, the razor-thin needle points just barely scraping the thudding pulse in her neck.

Vertigo drew them around and around in a slow, taunting circle, his eyes never leaving Oliver’s face. “In case you were wondering, a triple dose of pure Vertigo is enough to cause severe hallucinations and eventual heart failure in under six minutes. Would’ve been eight, but she’s rather small, isn’t she?”

Felicity jerked her head furiously, forced to stay still by the threat of getting injected with Vertigo. “Oliver, _don’t_ ,” she said. “I’m not worth it.”

“Oh, I think you’ll find that you are,” Vertigo hissed. “Lower your bow, Mr Arrow, or we’ll see how fast this one drops from her high.”

Oliver could hear the blood hammering in his ears, as the point of his arrow hovered uncertainly between targets. He couldn’t aim and not risk hitting Felicity, and he couldn’t fire with a guarantee that Vertigo wouldn’t have time to dose her with the modified drug.

It was a trump card, and Vertigo knew it. “Let her go,” he said. “Let her go, and we’ll settle this between us.”

“I agree,” Vertigo said. “Now lower — your — bow.”

Felicity’s throat convulsed like she was fighting furiously not to make a sound, but their eyes met, and she gave another shake of her head.

Against all of his instincts, the arrow skittered across the ground, and Oliver let the bow fall back to his side. Felicity shut her eyes briefly and opened them again in silent relief, even though she still had three needles pressed to her skin.

“I did what you asked,” he said, his gaze not leaving hers. “Your problem is with me — not with her.”

Vertigo looked momentarily thoughtful. “As I was just telling your girlfriend, I’m nothing if not consistent, and killing someone after not making _any_ promises as to their wellbeing sounds like something I would do, doesn’t it?”

Oliver saw his arm draw back. “ _Don’t_ —”

It seemed to happen in slow motion, and then all at once. If there had been a choice to make, Oliver made it the moment Vertigo became a threat to Felicity’s life. Three arrows left his bow before the needles even touched her skin, the first in Vertigo’s arm to immobilize the muscle, the second and third driving deep into his chest in a killing shot.

It was messy and vicious, and even Vertigo’s face seemed to be a mask of surprise, frozen in a laugh as blood dripped from his lips. He’d dropped Felicity from the shock of the arrows, and stumbled backwards — drunkenly, still aspirating blood — towards the cracked window.

The glass gave way with a surprisingly delicate sound, and Oliver watched him fall, soundlessly through the break and vanishing from sight.

There was a scream in the street below, and it dawned on him — what he’d just done.

He’d become a killer again.

He didn’t know what was worse — the fact that he’d broken the rule, a rule meant to differentiate himself from the murderer who’d shocked his oldest friend, or the fact that he didn’t regret doing it at all, not if it was to protect her.

Felicity was on the ground, shaking in the middle of the broken glass, a hand over her mouth. She gasped his name, and Oliver went to her — he always would.

“Hey, hey — you’re all right,” he said, on his knees in front of her. “You’re all right.”

There was blood on her neck and hands; he smoothed it away, because it was blood meant for him to take on, breathing hard like the aftermath of killing Vertigo was something that could physically register.

Felicity lifted her head and looked at him without saying a word. There were tears in her eyes, but something in his face must have told her everything she needed to know, because she moved in a blur and flung her arms around his neck, throwing her weight into him with enough force to make him fall back on one hand, the other braced against her back to hold them steady.

He couldn’t tell her breathing from his, they were both nearly gasping from the shock. She was so close that he could feel her heart pounding in her chest, and she was crying, her tears wet against his neck. It took him a long time to understand what she was saying, until he did.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered, as though she knew — of course she had to know — what it had cost him. “I'm so sorry.”

Oliver turned his face into Felicity’s hair and closed his eyes, because she was worth it to him, worth all of it and more.

* * *

Felicity watched the dirt on her her hands and face run down her skin like wet ink, carried down the rusty drain along with the smell of blood. Blinking water from her lashes, she scrubbed the back of her hands, scraping fingernails over the skin just to watch it turn pink. Clean. Shutting her eyes, she turned her face into the blinding hot spray, deep breaths through her mouth to clear her brain.

The Foundry shower was hooked up to a maze of ancient plumbing, a constant source of gurgling (if not some kind of steam), and Oliver’s basic standards for a shower space meant that it only needed to be strong enough to wash away the more stubborn bloodstains. Needless to say, the glowing endorsement meant that she rarely had a reason to shower in the basement, even after self-defence lessons with Diggle.

Having a psychopath’s blood on her skin was a pretty good reason to break the tradition.

She shivered again, and gave the faucet another twist towards the red, gasping when the water gushed out hotter still.

The pipes gurgled in the walls when she finally turned off the shower, steam rising off the wet tiles beneath her feet and clinging to her skin. The bench outside the cubicle had her spare clothes, an oversized MIT sweatshirt and yoga tights, the clothing version of comfort food.

Her hair dripped down one shoulder as she stood in the doorway, listening to the news along with Oliver. He was still in a suit like he’d come straight from the courthouse after hearing the verdict, his tie on the arm of his chair, shirt unbuttoned to the collar and the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

“In a shocking turn of events after a trial unlike anything Starling City has ever seen — Moira Queen has been acquitted of murder. Despite what many described as an airtight case pursued by ADA Adam Donner, the jury returned with a unanimous verdict of _not guilty_. Some say that it was Moira Queen’s own testimony that may have shifted the tide, but we go now to our legal correspondent and Mrs Queen’s defence attorney, Ms Jean Loring. Jean —”

A draft blew the door closed with a creak, and Oliver looked around, his frown shifting to something like relief. “Hey,” he said. “Everything okay?”

Felicity nodded, self-consciously scrubbing at the skin beneath her eyes. Her least favorite thing to do in front of anyone was cry, and she’d basically bawled her eyes out back in Queen Consolidated, which was… _embarrassing_ , to say the least. Oliver showed no signs of it as he watched her slide easily into her usual chair beside him, tucking her legs up on the seat. “Where’s Digg?” she asked, accepting the glass he held out to her.

“Sent him home with the antidote,” he said, an identical one in his hand. “He looked better already.”

Felicity nodded, inspecting the contents of her glass. Clear, which probably meant gin, or —

"God, that's terrible," she coughed, but choked down another swallow to fight the clamminess in her fingers. "For future reference — _not_ that I'm saying we should make a habit out of this, trauma-drinking, I mean — I'm red wine kind of girl."

Oliver seemed to have no trouble whatsoever downing his vodka, though his expression was as grim as someone taking his medicine. "I know, but Verdant's liquor supply was a little short on _Château Lafite Rothschild_. Probably need to have a word with the manager."

A flicker of humor there, and Felicity warmed to it. She reoriented her grip around the glass, sitting with her chin propped on her knee. “I’m glad your mom’s going home.”

“I still don’t know how. We all thought she was going to…” He stopped himself just in time, shaking his head a little, as if warding off an unwanted thought. “It’s done. We all need some rest, especially you.”

Felicity appreciated the undeserved tactfulness, especially since he was the one with the lion’s share of the emotional baggage. She swirled the vodka around in her glass, taking the time to choose her words. “Oliver?”

“Hm?” He’d turned off the sound, and looked at her with friendly curiosity.

“I know things have been…weird,” she said. “Since Moscow. I was protecting myself — you know — for a lot of different reasons, but one of them was because I thought the only way I’d ever find out you cared was if someone had a gun to my head, and I — um — didn't want to have to be in that kind of situation before you put me first.”

“Felicity —”

She cleared her throat, hating how thick her voice sounded, how scratchy it was from the crying. “It was stupid of me to think that, and I’m sorry for putting you in a position where you had to choose. I forced you to kill again, and I want you to know that killing Vertigo...it’s not your fault. It’s mine, and it won’t happen again.”

Oliver’s response was to hold out his hand, palm up. She reached out and took it, shyly, in spite of everything, blushing when his fingers curled against her skin. “Felicity, you didn’t force me to do anything," he said carefully, deliberately, like it was important for her to hear. "Because of the way that I am, it's not always...easy to show that I care. But tonight I didn’t choose — because there was no choice to make. It’s always you. It’s always been you, and I’m sorry for making you doubt it.”

That didn’t sound platonic at all, but for the sake of reaching equilibrium after a few days that redefined _upside down_ , Felicity was content to treat it as though it was. Baby steps. Two friends, just sharing a drink at the end of a _very_ long day.

“Back to normal, Mr Queen?” she said, smiling up at him.

“It would be an honor, Miss Smoak,” he said, smiling back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Phew, not platonic at all ;)  
> \- I know I’ve Frankensteined the whole trial arc from a bunch of different episodes (and Donner didn't keel over from the Vertigo), but I’M ON FLU MEDICATION LEAVE ME ALONE.  
> \- Count Vertigo is so fun to write! Bit of a shame that he's dead, but eh.  
> \- I'm also still not entirely sure how the DA's office found out about Malcolm and Moira having an affair. Sure, they got subpoenas for the records, but did they really find something????  
> \- Still a CRACKING episode though, worth the twenty-ish rewatches it took to finish the rewrite :)))))
> 
> Next week (or whenever I can get out of bed again) – BARRY ALLEN. Suggestions, requests, are all very much welcome :) Thanks for supporting the story!  
> Edit: Thanks to a certain _somebody_ , I now have an idea for the next chapter, which includes an office Christmas party. *glares*


	12. Coincidences, Progress, and Desperate Measures (Barry Allen, Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: shenanigans ahead :)

**_One Year Ago_ **

Felicity wasn’t dressed for Verdant, not even remotely. Unless pastel-shade button downs and flat shoes had suddenly become socially acceptable nightclub wear, it may have explained why her cab driver kept missing the turn for the alleyway, concealed staircase to the Arrowcave — sorry, _Foundry_ — and all.

“Sir,” she said, rapping on the plastic divider, “could you let me out here, please?”

The plastic screeched about two inches to the left and wedged there, apparently incapable of budging any further (which was  _for sure_ a good omen). “What? We’re not there yet, lady.” As if to prove his point, he stepped on the gas and the taxi shot forward with enough force to jolt her back into her seat. “Been doing this fifteen years. You just sit tight.”

Fighting the strangle-hold on her seatbelt, Felicity inched forward to the tiny gap again. “Um, sir? I have this driving app — which is _great_ , by the way — and you should take a left to make up for that missed turn, it’ll get you right in front of Verdant.”

He sounded thoroughly unimpressed by the technology. “Yeah, that’s a _club_. You got the wrong address — must be one of the apartment buildings down the street. There’s no way you meant Verdant.”

“What, because I _gave_ you the address Verdant?” she said, but he didn’t seem to hear. “Sir — _sir_ , I’d like to get out at the nightclub please. Hello?”

With an explosive sigh, the driver hauled at the wheel (throwing her back again) and made a completely illegal U-turn (earning a wave of furious honking from the other cars), pulling up smack in front of the teeming club. A tad more conspicuous than she wanted to be, but she could walk.

“Thank you,” she said meekly, and paid (plus tip).

The guy was in such a hurry to take off that he barely even waited for her to slam the door, taking off with a screech of burnt tires like she’d tried to pay him in human hair or worse. Maybe eyeballs.

At which point, it started to rain. Because _of course_.

The foldable umbrella she carried was wedged at the bottom of her bag, and the drizzle continued to soak into her hair and back of her neck while she rummaged her way through a week’s worth of takeout receipts. “Eagle scout — should always — be _prepared_!” she grunted, yanking it free (accompanied by an emergency tampon).

She sincerely hoped no one spotted the last thing, but at least she had something over her head. Rain drummed onto the polka dot umbrella and rolled down the sides while she took a moment to remind herself that she was a grown woman, that a frustrating taxi ride and unpredictable rain could not defeat her, she was beauty, she was grace, she was Miss United St—

A car door slammed, interrupting her mental detour.

“Thank you, sir!” the guy said, stooped slightly to shout into the taxi window.

If it had still been there, because the yellow cab was long gone before he’d even gotten to _sir_ , headlights melting away into the rain. Forgetting her manners (and ability to do sneaky sidelong looks), Felicity stared at her new sidewalk buddy, because he looked even less dressed for a club than she was. Or everything, for that matter.

He had a dog-eared _TIME_ magazine over his head instead of an umbrella, but most of the rain was still having a field day with his coat and jeans, darkening the sweater and checked shirt peeking through the collar. Unless Converse and ties were _also_ new club couture, Felicity took a wild stab and guessed that he’d come straight from work too.

But she was starting job #2 of the night. What was his excuse?

“You’re not from around here, are you?” she said.

Sidewalk Sneakers turned at the sound of her voice, raising a tiny furrow of water around his shoes when he did. He was taller than the rim of her umbrella, which meant he had to stoop slightly to answer.

The magazine was still kinda in the way, but she spotted dimples and a wide smile in the dim light. “What gave me away?” he asked.

Felicity pointed at the dimples. “ _That_ , and the fact that you just said ‘thank you’ — well, tried to say ‘thank you’ — to a Starling City cab. You’re only supposed to do that if they come straight at you and stop just in time to avoid —” she made a _squelch_ sound, and immediately regretted it. “Sorry, am I scaring you off? Not everyone’s this weird, we’re actually pretty normal. We don’t usually start conversations in front of nightclubs…with total strangers. A total stranger who’s obviously meeting people, and I’m just making you late, so…I’m going to stop talking. Right now.”

“ _No_ , I mean —” He seemed hugely worried about the possibility that she might think she was weird because _he_ was acting weird, which was…new. “I start conversations with myself all the time. Makes a nice change to have someone else around. And I’m not meeting anyone — _clearly,_ I mean, I’m in a sweater — I’m just…hanging out. Testing a theory, actually.”

“Oh.” There was a pause, and Felicity had a face-palm moment. “ _Oh_ , god — I’m so sorry — do you want to — umbrella? Share it, I mean. _Not_ using it as a verb for something weird. In case you were wondering.”

“Oh, I didn’t — are you sure? For real?”

Felicity’s umbrella-waving arm shot straight up like she was about to salute someone, and she waved for Sidewalk Sneakers to join her. “Yeah, I mean — I babble, and you’re polite, so this could go on forever, and there’s no point in you getting soaking wet. Unless that’s your theory, in which case —”

During the runtime of her sentence, Sidewalk Sneakers had ducked under the umbrella to get out of the rain, and he dropped the waterlogged magazine with a dog-like shake of his head, emerging with a broad grin like the rain didn’t bother him in the slightest. Now she could fill in the gaps, and there was a _lot_ to take in. Brown hair spiky from the impromptu street shower, a crazy straight nose, and one of those dents in his chin that looked like someone had pressed their finger there to _boop_ him or something.

In other words, _cute_.

“—hi,” she concluded, staring at his smile.

It seemed like a long time before he moved, blinking rapidly as though realizing he’d been staring too. Maybe at her hair, which had the tendency to frizz during humidity season. “Oh — me — I — hello.”

Felicity laughed, her free hand jumping up to cover her mouth. “Out of town and testing a theory?” she said, just noticing the shoulder bag he’d been hauling around with him. It was almost box-like in shape, heavy and waterproofed — unlike its owner. Obviously work-related. “You chose the right place to do it. Did you mean to hit Verdant? Or was it a cab-driver-knows-better kind of scenario, because mine thought he did.”

He rocked back on his heels a little, chuckling. “Uh — weirdly — _both_ , actually. I told him I wanted the nightclub and he thought I was kidding. I guess there’s a pretty set crowd around here, huh?”

Very much not thinking of the basement, Felicity nodded. “Mm-hm. You need a lycra miniskirt or a face tattoo to get in.”

“Aw no, really?” He patted his bag down. “I only brought my leather toga.”

She laughed again, and a broad grin spread over his face again. “Fair’s fair,” he said. “You don’t look like you have a lycra miniskirt, and I don’t see a face tattoo. What are _you_ doing here?”

“Um…a friend of mine bartends here,” she said hastily. “I work in computer sciences, and he just did a _really_ bad thing to his server — Dark Ages, asteroid-hits-Earth kind of bad. So I hopped in a cab, got caught in the rain, and…yeah. That’s my story.”

“Oh, cool. I’m a CSI — well, training to be, so — ” he turned so she could see his carry-on “—my bag of tricks follows me everywhere.”

 _Two_ nerds on a sidewalk. That wasn’t original at all.

“Solving a crime for homework?” she teased. “Or just a boy scout?”

“Well, the official standpoint of the CC _and_ SCPD is that vigilantism _is_ a crime, but I don’t think I’m the guy to solve it. Kind of a long story — I have this program that keeps track of the vigilante, you know, Starling City’s —”

“— I do,” Felicity said, a little bit faint. _Oh frack_.

“— it pulls in data from police scanners about where he’s been sighted, and triangulates possible locations based on when the crimes he stopped were first called in, and the time witnesses first mention seeing him at the scene. I mean, I figure he finds out about them so quickly because he’s patched into police frequencies, and it makes sense for him to have a base of operations in the part of the city with the most criminal activity —”

“—um,” Felicity said, having mild flashes of Oliver choking Sidewalk Sneakers from behind.

“—anyway, one of the locations was right here,” he said, eyes alight with enthusiasm. “I just thought I’d come check it out, see for myself. But it’s way too busy — a guy like him probably has a hideout somewhere high up, maybe a tower? He’s an archer, so the vantage point might be pretty important.”

“Right,” she said, heaving a mental sigh of relief. “That makes sense. Sorry, what did you say your name was again?”

“Oh — I didn’t — Barry,” he said, pumping her hand. “Allen.”

“Felicity,” she said, shaking back, “Smoak.”

Neither of them let go, until they did, because socially acceptable behavior. Barry was looking down at her, his mouth slightly open (she had a feeling he forgot to close it a lot, which only made him cuter) like he was about to ask something.

“So you’re a fan of the vigilante,” she said. “But why go on a theory crawl tonight?”

Barry’s shoulders did a twitch that suggested it was a slight understatement. “Central City’s not far by the high-speed express, and today’s kind of a…special anniversary.”

“Oh,” she said, as the word _girlfriend_ floated up to the surface, like a plastic bag on murky water. What the vigilante had to do with his significant other was anyone’s guess, but to each their own.

“I know it’s not my beeswax, but you’re not…staking out places to propose to your girlfriend based on where the vigilante might be hiding, right?” she said, wincing. “Because I feel like I have a duty to female-kind to tell you: _don’t_.”

Barry’s face went adorably pink. “No — I don’t have a girlfriend, I just have a lot of theories and I like to back them up with evidence. That’s kinda what I do. Evidence, lots of it.” He turned to Verdant again, beaming up at the lights. “Maybe one day I’ll tell them that I was right about the vigilante.”

Felicity smiled in spite of herself, because there was something incredibly…optimistic about the way he looked at the world. A guy working in hard science, geeking out about the mystery of the hooded archer.

The rain had eased up to a tiny drizzle, droplets just barely stirring the puddles around their feet. Her phone started buzzing in her coat pocket, probably Diggle — or Oliver — wanting to know where she was.

“Well, I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she said.

Barry smiled at her. “I hope you save your friend’s computer.”

They both seemed to know it was something of a goodbye, a surprisingly tidy exit for a conversation neither of them had intended to start. Felicity lingered, unsure of what else to say, except —

“ _Bye_ ,” she burst out, and it sounded more like a laugh. “Barry.”

Barry laughed too. “Bye — Felicity.”

She had a feeling he was watching her while she made her way through the crowd outside Verdant, but she’d pulled her phone out to answer the waiting call.

“Hey,” she said, over the thumping music spilling out from the club entrance. “I know, I’m right outside.”

“What happened?” Oliver asked, in his usual brusque way.

Felicity looked over her shoulder, but the crowd had shifted — most of them drunk and dancing, if swaying counted as actual dancing — to block her view of the sidewalk, and the CSI from Central City, who had no idea how close he’d gotten to the mystery of the hooded vigilante.

Maybe for the best. Oliver didn’t sound like he was in a particularly good mood.

“Nothing,” she said, because it probably was. But the thought made her smile. “I’m on the way.”

* * *

**_Present Day_**

“One, two,” Diggle said, boxing mitts held in front of him while Felicity swung. “Two, three, _four_ —”

He swiped without warning at her head and she ducked, shooting back up with a knockout punch that made contact with a deafening _thwack_. The sound echoed across the Foundry, and she grinned at him over the boxing mitts, still on her toes in case he pulled another surprise move.

“Better,” he said. “You’re not dropping your hands as much.”

Felicity snorted, reverting back to the _one-two_ rhythm of sparring. Their height disparity (nearly a head _sans_ heels) meant that Diggle had to be in a constant knee-bend to keep the mitts at eye-level, a fact that amused (and touched) her to no end. “After you almost gave me a black eye before that board meeting? I’m not taking my eyes off you, mister.”

Diggle chuckled. “You should have seen that cut Oliver opened up on my arm when we were training with knives. I’d take the black eye.”

“Yeah, well, moot point,” she grunted, still punching. “Oliver never goes anywhere near me when it’s training time. Probably — thinks — I’m not — _good_ enough — _gah_!” She threw in an extra jab for good measure, nearly catching Diggle by surprise ( _yes_ ).

“In his defence, I don’t think it has anything to do with proficiency,” he said evenly, not out of breath in the slightest while her chest was heaving.

There was something almost amused in the way he said it, but Diggle didn’t volunteer any further information, which cut down its crypticness by exactly _zero_ percent.

“He trains you. He spars with Sara. He’ll train Tommy — they’re over there talking about archery — or arrowheads — or bows —”

Felicity made the mistake of throwing a semi-glare towards the far corner of the Foundry where the boys were, which gave Diggle an opening to push his mitt out. It slipped past her guard and she caught it head-on, stumbling back. “That was dignified,” she muttered, the tip of her nose stinging. “But my point exactly. I suck.”

“Not true,” Diggle said chivalrously. “You have faster reflexes than Tommy. Boxing’s not really his thing — not that I’m surprised, his dad was pulling some serious jujitsu the last time I saw him. Might be better in the long run if he got some training from Oliver, maybe Sara. Martial arts aren’t exactly my specialty.”

Felicity blew out her breath, gloved hands on her hips. “But not me,” she said.

Diggle used the mitt to nudge her in the middle of the forehead. “Why, you want to put us out of a job?” he teased. “Oliver’ll come around. Until then, pretend the mitts have his face on them, and —”

Felicity lunged, and he caught her punch with a laugh. “That bad, huh?” he said. “Wanna talk about it? You never really told me what happened — after Oliver took down the Count.”

Once again, Diggle being at his charitable best. “He killed Vertigo,” she corrected, and resisted the urge to flinch. Blood on her face, blood on her hands. “He saved my life, and he’s one of my closest friends, not talking to him like I used to…it made me miss him.”

“So Moscow…”

“He’s a dummy,” she declared. “But I’m going to be friends with the dummy, and deal with the rest of the stuff when it happens. It’s not going to be right _now_ — or tomorrow. Oliver’s not there yet, and I don’t want to rush him into doing something he’s not ready to. Besides, it’s the holidays. Lots of wild oats to sow.”

She couldn’t keep a straight face at the last part, and even Diggle seemed to find the thought of her serial-dating like Oliver irrepressibly funny. “Even I don’t think Santa hands out manuals for teaching people how to be happy, saving a city or not.”

“Exactly.” She threw in a few more punches, aware that Diggle was watching her, more intently than sparring usually warranted. “What?”

“You know where I stand on you and Oliver. I think he’d be lucky to get a shot at someone who makes him happier than he’s ever been, once he pulls his head out of his ass. But since there’s time on both sides — have you thought about whether he’s the right one for you?”

Felicity frowned, because it was more than a valid question, and very much in the vein of what she’d told Diggle after Moscow. She’d made the mistake of getting swept up. Now that she wasn’t exactly distancing herself anymore — maybe it was time to do a bit of hard thinking.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’d actually have to _meet_ someone else though, and who has time for that?”

* * *

"Protests continue on the issue of the particle accelerator, which is due to be turned on next week in Central City," said the news anchor. "We bring you now to our on-site correspondent —"

The TV switched abruptly to mute.

“ _Back to normal?_ ” Tommy said, while Oliver inspected the edge of a newly sharpened arrowhead. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

Oliver shrugged and slipped the arrow into the waiting quiver. “Normal,” he said, reaching for another.

Tommy’s eye-roll was so heavy with sarcasm that he could barely get through it. “Gee, do you think I could get that explanation in installments? I mean — just in case my brain gets _so_ overwhelmed by the specificity of it.”

“ _Specificity_?” Oliver didn’t bother concealing the grin. An odd side-effect of Tommy being agitated was a surprising sense of calm, and with it — the rare vantage point of being able to inflict some hits in retribution for the day-to-day teasing.

Tommy waved him away, oblivious to the mockery. “You know what I mean. So that’s what she told you — _back to normal_. Her exact words?”

They were in the corner of the Foundry, where Oliver kept the heavy machinery for welding and sharpening, and given what Diggle and Felicity were doing on the other side of the basement, the chance of them being overheard was close to nil.

Still, he glanced over to make sure that she was still sparring with Diggle, her back to them and out of earshot.

“Yeah, exact words,” he said, which sounded incredibly juvenile, even when judged by the usual standard of his conversations with his best friend. “Does it matter? It means business as usual.”

Tommy sighed, watching him angle the dulled arrowhead to the wheel. “ _Yes_ , little lovestruck boy, it matters. And in case it slipped your concussed brain, _business as usual_ didn’t exactly get you any further than…how far did you get before Moscow?”

Oliver cleared his throat and stepped on the switch, pressing the arrowhead against the whirring machinery so that it screeched loudly enough — white sparks showering the galvanized tabletop — to drown out whatever Tommy said next. Judging by the gesticulating and the throat-slashing, it didn’t look very positive.

“— not even a _hug_?”

Oliver gave him a look. “Do I look like a hugger— _get off me_ ,” he said irritably, shoving Tommy away, who’d taken the last part of the sentence as a challenge to prove his point.

“Like I was saying,” Tommy continued, “you can’t be yourself when it comes to this, or the world has a bigger chance of getting eaten by dinosaurs than you having Queen-Smoak babies and family Christmases back at the mansion.”

All this gave Oliver the distinct feeling that Tommy had spent a considerable amount of time thinking about the possibilities, much more than he had, anyway. Still, pleasant _what-ifs_ aside, something had been nagging at him since the Vertigo incident, and Oliver set down the arrowhead in his hand.

“I killed Vertigo,” he said, looking Tommy in the eye. “I broke the rule.”

Tommy waited. “Did you want to?”

Oliver thought about it, even though it was as clear in his mind as if it had happened the day before. “I didn’t _want_ to, but it wasn’t…a choice. He had her, he would have killed her, and I —”

“— saved her life,” Tommy finished. “Look, am I happy that you killed the psychopath? No, of course not. You’re my best friend, and if I had a billion wishes, I’d use all of them to make sure you didn’t lose a wink of sleep for someone like Vertigo. But there’s a difference between the kind of killing you did as the Hood, and putting those arrows in an insane drug dealer because he was going to kill someone you love. It was a bad situation — an impossible situation — and I think you made the right call, for what it’s worth.”

Oliver didn’t smile, because he'd meant what he said, completely. “It’s worth everything, you know that."

Tommy clapped him on the shoulder. “Buddy, I don’t tell you this enough, but you’ve been a hero for a long time now,” he said. “So do me a solid for the holidays — get your head out of your ass and get in the game, before I make you regret it.”

Oliver snorted, and went back to sharpening his arrows. “You don’t mean that.”

“Watch me.”

* * *

 

“Coming through,” Tommy said, behind a loaded cardboard box. “Christmas delivery, ‘scuse — _whoa_ —”

He swerved just in time to avoid a bunch of maintenance guys wheeling speakers across the floor. “Watch it, dickhead!” one of them said menacingly.

“And a _very_ happy Hanukkah to you too, sir!” Tommy called over his shoulder.

If _that_ wasn’t enough of a holiday spirit, Felicity’s assistant was already too used to Tommy showing up wherever and whenever (but mostly whenever) to bother stopping him with the appointment book, and went back to playing Tetris on his tablet, earbuds in.

“Hey gorgeous,” he said, hip-checking his way through the door. “I think I got everything you asked for — might have squashed a couple of menorah cookies by accident though, my bad.”

Felicity, partially obscured by a truly _heinous_ pile of files, looked up in relief. “Thanks for helping out,” she said, apparently oblivious to the red pen behind her ear, given the one already in her hand. “Work’s been —”

She proceeded to make the kind of noise that epitomized frustration, albeit in a language that bore a decent resemblance to Orc.

“Lemme guess,” Tommy said, while she shifted documents on a side table to make room for the stuff he’d brought, “the White Witch sent you an early Christmas present?”

“Ha, and I haven’t even gotten my year-end bonus yet,” she said. “Pretty sure she’s hoping I croak before the holiday party tonight.”

“Well, I hope she gets a lump of coal,” Tommy said, secretly meaning something else, along the lines of a kick to the —

“Did you put the spare key back?” she asked, setting the foil tray of Jewish-themed cookies at the corner of her desk. “I mean, it’s fine if you didn’t, I was planning to get something else for the front door. Fake rock’s a little obvious. Maybe a _fern_.”

Tommy was too busy chewing on a coconut-stuffed dreidel cookie to answer, and held up one finger for silence. Cue a huge swallow (ha). “Yup. By the way, the _Robin Hood_ poster over the TV. Nice touch.”

She shrugged, surprisingly okay with the idea that he’d snooped around her house (nothing weird, just a little research into the general decor). It was a nice house, red brick and big windows, apart from the messy hedges. “It was already there. Y’know, before the other thing. The — uh — green thing.”

Tommy tapped his nose conspiratorially, now starting on a mint-frosted Star of David. A thought — a not-very-nice one — occurred to him, and he slammed on the brakes mid-chew. “You didn’t make these, did you?”

She slapped the back of his hand before he could grab another one. “No, they’re from a Jewish bakery down the street. I always get discounts on their rugelach. Why?”

He made a _nothing at all_ face, secretly remembering the salmonella brownies she’d brought into the Foundry that one (and only) time. “No reason. Not that I’m complaining, but why am I playing Santa’s elf — or the Jewish equivalent, whatever that is — and bringing Hannukah decorations for the office?”

“Glad you asked.” Felicity had a dreidel around her finger, a look of unmistakable pride on her face. “Oliver handled the party-planning stuff this year, and he suggested that instead of just having a Christmas tree, people should bring in decorations from their religions — except cults, strictly no cults — and, uh, _poof_.” She gestured at the box. “Representing the Jewish faith.”

For the love of god.

Of all the things Tommy expected Oliver to have emailed Felicity about, office party decorations and menorahs were not part of that list. “How romantic,” he said sarcastically. “You know, if Oliver ever found out you gave me the spare key to your _casa_ — well, instructions about how to find it — his head just might explode.”

Felicity gave him a look. “Why would I want to do that?” she asked, innocent to the last (dyed) blonde hair on her head.

Tommy sighed. “Has anyone told you that you’re too pure for this world?”

She checked her watch. “Well, it’s been twelve hours since I last saw you, so — no.”

Shaking his head, Tommy contented himself with sticking a garland of menorahs to the Italian coffeemaker in a semi-artistic way. “Sounds like a _real_ rager,” he said, privately wondering if Oliver was going to repeat the tradition of office parties, which was losing some article of clothing to unspecified (but very non-platonic) circumstances. “BTW, you are _welcome_ to stop by the Verdant holiday blowout. Employees only, and it’s on New Year’s Eve, but between me and Thea, we’re gonna see how much tequila it’ll take for Harper to get up behind the karaoke mic and whip his shirt off.”

“Is that your fantasy or hers?” Felicity inquired.

“TBD,” Tommy said, rummaging around in the box for the candles. “I like to see what I’m buying first. The kid had better have an eight-pack, or no dice.”

He could see Felicity’s reflection in the coffeemaker’s shiny chrome surface, and it wore the same look she had in response to top-of-the-line computer chips and quantum whatchamacallits, which was to say _inwardly drooling_.

Didn’t take a genius to figure out whose eight-pack she was picturing. Was tonight salmon ladder, or plain pull-ups? Tommy was a little fuzzy on the viewing schedule.

“Are you checking out my ass?” he asked.

Felicity blinked. “Hm?” she said blankly. “Oh, god no. I mean, I’m sure it’s a nice ass, and McKenna’s a very lucky girl — not that I’m saying she’s doing anything on, or _with_ your ass — but I have a type. _Not_ that _tall, dark and handsome_ isn’t a good type, it’s just a different type, y’know?” She scratched at her ear, just then realizing that there was a spare pen tucked behind it. “How did you get there?”

Tommy watched her with pure amusement. “So are you bringing a date tonight?” he asked, pulling up a spare chair to hear the dirty gossip (better than network TV around Queen Consolidated). “Did you call James?”

The questions seemed to have given her a vaguely deer-in-headlights look. “Um, no about James — I think the person I spoke to said he was in Shanghai for the rest of the year — and also no, I don’t have a date for the party. Why, should I have a date?”

Tommy poked his forehead with the end of a dreidel, trying to decide what was the most innocent-friendly way to explain himself. “Short answer, _yes_ , and you’re just going to have to trust me on the ‘why’ part of it,” he said, with air quotes.

Felicity eyed him suspiciously. “Well, do _you_ want to be my date?” she asked.

“Aw, are you asking me out?”

She gave him a playful slap on the leg. “I’m serious — I can’t believe I didn’t ask you before. Come to the office party! It’ll be fun. It’s open bar, there’s going to be a prize draw thing, and _singing_ — nothing embarrassing, and you _have_ to keep your clothes on —”

“—oh, well, then there’s really no point —”

Another whack on the knee. “Come on!” she laughed. “Don’t leave me alone on Christmas.”

“It’s mid-December.”

Felicity twisted the dial up on the pleading eyes, down to the adorable pout. As a matter of experience and theory, Tommy ranked office parties somewhere lower than bar mitzvahs and baby showers. At least in the latter there was the reasonable expectation of family drama — work parties was just a lot of awkwardly standing around buffet tables and flirting with the boss.

_Oh hey._

If a lightbulb moment was a thing, one had just sparked inside his head. Given how well the carrot method had been working (not), maybe the stick part would get a better response.

“ _Fine_ , but I’m breaking out my good suit, and you’re going to drop your jaw when you see me, deal?” he said, holding out his pinky.

“I swear on my life,” she said solemnly, swinging his hand by the pinky. “ _Yay_. See you in two hours.”

Tommy pointed. “One more thing — you’re not wearing that, right?”

* * *

“Please don’t take this as anything less than pride in your achievements,” Moira said, watching the numbers on the display panel climb from the lobby to the top floor, “but I don’t believe this to be one of your better ideas.”

Oliver wondered what that _would_ sound like without pride. “It’s always been your company, mom, and now that you’re back with us, I don’t see why you shouldn’t get reacquainted with everyone here.”

“Because like it or not, I’m still the woman who went on trial for mass murder,” she said bluntly. “I’m sure Miss Rochev and the board won’t be too pleased to see me at their Christmas party. I’ll be the ghost of Christmas past.”

“Holiday party,” he corrected, and shrugged in response to her raised eyebrow. “We’re trying to be more inclusive…this year.”

“Are we now?” she said, sounding vaguely amused. “There, you see. I’m so out of touch with everything in Queen Consolidated. I’ll just show my face around the office, and then I’ll be leaving. I’m sure you can enjoy yourself without me, maybe with one of those stunning models you used to sneak out through the kitchen —”

“— _mother_ ,” Oliver said, trying not to sound indignant. “You’ll like the party. I promise. I was very involved with organizing it.”

Moira laughed softly behind her hand. “I’m sorry, but if you’d said that to me a year ago, I’d have found an oversized cake and strippers waiting for me in my office.”

He made a face and pressed the buttons like it would make the elevator go any faster. “Trust me, you’ll have fun.”

Moira gave an exaggerated shudder. “Sometimes it _appalls_ me that I raised such an optimist,” she said, looping her arm through his as the doors opened. “ _Do_ try to restrain yourself with the champagne. We wouldn’t want a repeat of what happened with your father’s last office party.”

Diggle was waiting for them in the vestibule. “Mrs Queen,” he said, inclining his head. “Mr Queen. Good to have you back.”

“Mr Diggle,” Moira said, with a warm smile. “How are you? Oliver mentioned that you were feeling under the weather recently.”

Knowing Diggle’s dislike of being anything other than in peak physical condition, Oliver gave an apologetic shrug in response to his small look of betrayal.

“Much better now, Mrs Queen,” he said courteously. “Thank you for asking.”

“Thank _you_ for taking care of my son,” she replied. “I understand he’s stopped trying to escape.”

“It’s still early.” Oliver kissed the side of her head and gently steered her towards the general party area, Diggle’s glare fixed on the back of his skull.

Despite the party nearly ready to start, Isabel was — by the looks of it — just finishing up a meeting with the finance department, her expression grim. It didn’t change when she caught sight of who Oliver had with him.

The speed with which their colleagues dispersed didn’t escape his notice in the slightest.

“I didn’t realize you’d be joining us for the holiday party, Moira,” she said, approaching them with a smile that looked like it had been hammered on. “Oliver, you should have told me.”

“What’s there to tell?” he said nonchalantly. “My mother still owns the company — part of it, anyway — and I thought she might like to join in on the celebrations. We’ve done well for the year.”

“A fiscal year that isn’t quite over yet,” she reminded him, through gritted teeth, but turned to Moira with a smile. “Moira, it’s been too long. How are you?”

There was an unusual glaze to the look Moira used with Isabel, not quite contempt, but like the latter was being observed from afar, and putting on a mildly entertaining performance to boot. “Very well, thank you. Fascinated by the changes that occurred during my absence.”

“Nothing too earth-shattering, I hope,” Isabel said.

Her sensitive choice of phrase turned the look flinty, but Moira smiled, managing to look like she meant it. “Nothing meant to last, I should think.”

The two women stared at each other with fixed expressions of varying pleasantry, neither of them showing any sign of backing down, until Isabel glanced his way, her smile still brittle with tension. “Oliver, I’d like a word, please.”

Even to his supposed sense of optimism, Oliver didn’t need a fortuneteller to know that the following conversation was going to be far from enjoyable. But he smiled at his mother and stepped into Isabel’s office, letting the door close behind him like nothing was the matter.

“Oliver, we’ve had this discussion before,” she said warningly. “We’re already in a recession, and the investment community won’t be throwing their money at us in any sense of the word if they find out we reinstated a woman tried for mass murder.”

“And found not guilty.”

“By twelve citizens of one city. Not by anyone with a TV and the ability to read the news.” Isabel softened slightly, and she sounded almost sympathetic. “You’re a good son, but you have a responsibility to the shareholders — so do I, and only one of those roles can be slapped with a lawsuit for breach of fiduciary duty.”

He made a skeptical noise. “That’s a little dramatic,” he said. “It’s just a party. I think my mother wants to enjoy her freedom for a while, not dive straight into boardroom politics.”

Isabel seemed to be studying him. “Good,” she said, and managed something close to a real smile. “I was just getting used to having you on the diving board with me.”

Oliver would have taken advantage of the unforeseen uptick in Isabel’s mood, but something outside the office had caught his eye. “I have to go,” he said absently, wondering what Tommy was doing exiting the elevator with an obscenely large bouquet of flowers. “Excuse me.”

* * *

 

Felicity was trying to decide on the phrasing of a firewall analysis abstract when she heard someone whistle. “W-ow,” Tommy said, managing to make it sound like two syllables.

Maybe it was his intimidatingly good taste, but that struck her as a bad thing. “What?” Her head dropped, and she gave herself a hasty once-over.

As far as office party outfits went, she thought she’d put together a pretty killer one on short notice. Maybe black tights was a little nerdy, but she was wearing matching high heels, her favorite dark red skirt (short and just the right amount of _poof_ to be twirly) and a cream sweater with enough scoop to the neck to fight the unimpressive state of her chest.

“What’s wrong with it?” she asked, checking by the label if she’d worn the sweater inside out.

Tommy put down the beribboned bouquet of Christmas roses and holly, an explosion of red and white and dark green that was extremely _him_. “You look like a candy cane.”

“Is that bad?”

He plucked a sprig of holly and held it out to her. “Only ‘cuz it makes me want you in my mouth,” he said, with complete offhandedness.

As far as inappropriate flirting from Tommy Merlyn was concerned, it easily was _not_ the worst thing he’d ever said. “Do you talk like that to everyone?” she asked, accepting the holly and wondering how to attach it to her ponytail.

“I flirt with everybody,” he said. “It just happens. I can’t control the animal magnetism.”

She almost inhaled the holly from laughing so hard. “So I look okay?”

Tommy did a little gesture with his hand that meant twirl, and she did, making sure her skirt wasn’t sticking to anything. “I think _okay_ is definitely one of the understatement words you might be hearing tonight.”

There was a tap on the door. “Hey,” Oliver said.

“Oh, speak of the devil.” Tommy draped himself across Felicity’s desk like he’d lost the use of his spine, and winked. Navy blue was _definitely_ his color, and the sharp cut of the suit didn’t hurt either. “Hello, sailor.”

Oliver eyed his best friend like he was something unpleasant he’d found on his front porch. “What are you doing here?” he said suspiciously.

Tommy wagged a finger. “Felicity invited me, because she’s not a backstabbing little f—”

“—I thought he’d make a great party date,” she finished, still playing with the mistletoe. “Did you need something?”

Oliver still looked like he was having trouble with Tommy’s posture. “We’re starting,” he said slowly. “Upstairs.”

Felicity just then caught sight of Diggle outside the doors, holding his sides like he was trying not to crack a rib. She cocked her head at him, curious. “Why do I feel like I’m missing something?”

“That’s because you operate at a higher level of brainpower than us lower primates,” Tommy answered, reactivating his spine and offering her his arm. “Shall we?”

* * *

 

In Felicity Smoak’s somewhat limited experience, there were office parties, office _holiday_ parties, and parties that just happened to take place at the office around the holiday season. She’d slipped out of the previous year’s bash after thirty minutes (in favor of Netflix and pajamas), but then again, last year’s party had been under Moira Queen’s management, resembling a black-tie networking event more than an actual party.

She should have known what the words _planned by Oliver Queen_ meant when plastered across a party, because _frack_.

In a minor modification of company tradition, the top floor hadn’t just been decorated with some streamers and a drinks table, but had been expanded to include the rooftop terrace beneath the blazing Queen Consolidated logo. Frost-white couches had been arranged around the railings for a view of the city, a dance floor left open between the backlit open bar and standing tables, overlooked by the white stage at the front of the party.

The inside of the building was another story. It had been intentionally dimmed to match the night sky, and strung up with hundreds of tiny ice blue lights that glowed like stars, with the central skylight hung with a mass of golden lights shaped around wire spheres, so they looked like fireworks exploding over the party.

Felicity could hear the karaoke going strong on the outside — along with laughter and the very giggly group of single office females clustered around Tommy Merlyn — but she needed a break from CTO party-duty. A part of her missed being so insignificantly tiny that showing up to functions wasn’t an obligation, and even when she did, she was free to leave whenever, without making someone higher up look bad. In this case, Oliver, who’d actually done a really good job with the holiday party.

“Those were the days,” she muttered, currently taking refuge in front of the inside bar.

“Miss Smoak, is it?” said a voice, politely inquiring.

The lighting was so dim that Felicity didn’t immediately notice who was beside her — until she did.

“Mrs Queen,” she breathed. “Oh —”

“I’m afraid Tommy can be a tad too enthusiastic when it comes to parties,” she said, as affectionate as a mother apologizing for her son’s mischief. “Will you join me for a drink?”

Moira already had a flute of champagne in her hands, and she only needed to turn — palm gracefully open — for the bartender to produce another one, seemingly from nowhere. A demonstration of the particular brand of magic Moira Queen and her son could perform, with the intimidating confidence of people who’d been born into a world Felicity couldn’t even imagine.

As if she needed another reason to feel inadequate.

Felicity took the champagne to be polite, but she didn’t touch a drop. Times like these were when she preferred having Tommy around. _Born with a silver spoon_ described him just as well as the people in Moira’s class, but he had a way of pretending like none of that existed. Easy and unassuming — it wasn’t hard to see why McKenna Hall liked him as much as she did.

If Isabel Rochev’s reaction to her promotion was anything to go by, she had a feeling Moira was about to make some kind of point, and there wasn’t enough alcohol in the world to make it a pleasant one to hear.

“I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced,” Moira said, after a moment passed without Felicity taking a sip. She still had a smile on her face, the kind she always wore to effortless perfection, from paparazzi photos to glossy formal interviews. “I’m Moira Queen.”

“Felicity Smoak,” she answered, shaking the offered hand. Moira’s grip was cool and dry, heavy from the rings on her fingers that scraped at Felicity’s bare ones. “I know we’re not supposed to mention the trial, but I’m really glad that you —”

“— got away with murder?” she suggested, with a gleam of amusement. “Yes, most people seem to believe that, don’t they?”

Unlike conversations with Oliver, Felicity couldn’t tell whether she was being teased, but the look in Moira’s eye was vaguely conspiratorial.

“I’m glad that you’re home,” she finished, and looked down at her champagne, for lack of anything else to say.

Moira watched her for a long moment, before raising her glass for a sip. “I remember you from my trial. I’ve been meaning to thank you for supporting my son, and it seems I must also apologize for being especially blunt tonight. I’ve been absent from Queen Consolidated for so long, and apart from a few old friends, I’m afraid that these days I seem to be something of a pariah.”

Felicity scanned the darkened room for signs of Moira's son. “Oliver didn’t leave you by yourself, right?” she said, because _rude_. “I’m sure he’s —”

“Oh, not intentionally,” Moira said, gesturing towards the rooftop entrance to their left. “He was accosted by Miss Rochev. She seems to have invited several important individuals, and I thought it best if I stayed away.”

The warmth in her voice at the mention of Oliver almost instantly evaporated when she got to Isabel, a sharply honed edge that struck Felicity as remarkably similar to her son whenever he talked about Lian Yu (under duress, mostly). Oliver disliked the island because of the people he’d lost and the scars on his body, but it was hard to imagine Moira having anything against Isabel that was extreme enough to fall into a similar category.

Then again, after the trial and everything that had been exposed in the process, nothing about Moira Queen should have surprised Felicity anymore.

Felicity managed to spot the back of Oliver’s head. He was with Isabel — herself in a sparkling black sheath — the both of them holding drinks and talking easily with a couple of smooth youngish suits, probably from some private equity firm, another prospective conquest in the latter’s never-ending competition.

Her grip tightened around the glass, because she’d never make the mistake of underestimating Isabel Rochev, not after Moscow.

“You don’t like her either,” Moira guessed.

Felicity blinked in surprise. “Isabel? I…”

Moira gave her an understanding look that stopped her short. “You’re very much like my son,” she said. “The both of you need some extensive work on your poker faces.”

Cover blown, Felicity swallowed a mouthful of champagne like it was liquid courage. “Why don’t you like Isabel?” she asked.

Moira raised an eyebrow. “I don’t dislike her as much as I distrust her,” she said. “Dislike makes it easy to underestimate someone, and Isabel has remained just as untrustworthy since her days as an intern here at Queen Consolidated. I’m afraid old patterns have a way of repeating themselves, and now that Oliver’s by himself running the company…”

After Moscow, Felicity couldn’t exactly pretend to reassure Moira that Oliver was above making mistakes when it came to his fellow CEO. But through some truly terrible deception, office gossip, or maybe just superhuman intuition, Moira didn’t seem to be fooled in the least, and another one of her looks swept Felicity from head to toe, like she was being X-rayed.

“I like you, Miss Smoak,” she said, finally. “I admit to being somewhat dubious at my son’s choice to promote you from the IT department, but after the trial, and given how quickly Tommy seems to have taken a shine to you, I am forced to conclude that you must have Oliver’s best interests at heart. Might I ask you for a favor?”

“Um,” Felicity said, well aware of the nature and extent of Queen ‘favors’, not to mention the fact that she was still in the middle of the last one.

Moira smiled, and slid her empty glass back onto the bar, like she was about to leave. “Take care of him,” she said simply. “He’s not the best judge of character, and I should hate for him to have to learn that the hard way with Isabel.”

“Of course,” Felicity said. “But — you’re not staying? Oliver’s going to —”

Moira laughed quietly. “I’ve overstayed my welcome. He threw a lovely party, but I think it’s time I resigned myself to a quiet evening. Tell him for me, would you?”

She nodded, and Moira pressed firmly on her arm in thanks before melting away into the crowd, leaving Felicity staring after her in nothing short of confusion.

* * *

The company holiday party was in full swing, and Oliver considered it a mild success that nothing had exploded the windows, whether from hostile gunfire or otherwise. What he _hadn’t_ banked on was the presence of his best friend, who was visibly up to something, even though he had absolutely no clue what brought it on.

Though he had other concerns. Only Isabel was capable of turning a perfectly well-thrown party into something of a chore, Oliver thought to himself, while nursing a gin and tonic instead of one of Tommy’s more lurid Christmas suggestions.

She’d invited several of her business school associates — now at a profitable hedge fund — because apparently something like a holiday party couldn’t progress without some kind of work-related endeavor.

“—we’re a dynamic, driven company,” she was saying, “and very much committed to the vision of success upheld by the Queen tradition…”

Oliver was only half-listening, because he was relatively sure that the bulk of the enjoyment was being had by the younger Queen Consolidated employees, who were singing Christmas songs to their hearts’ content — with varying degrees of success and sobriety — up on the lit stage.

He turned his head slightly, trying to catch a glimpse of Diggle or Felicity, but neither of them were anywhere to be seen (he had a hunch that present company had something to do with it). Silently, he hoped that they were preventing Tommy from getting into too much trouble, because parties had a longstanding tradition of getting derailed whenever the last names Queen and Merlyn got involved.

The stage mic gave a whine of feedback, making him wince. It also meant that he happened to be tuned in and listening when someone new took the stage.

“ _All right_ ,” said a very familiar voice. “So I’m gonna need a little help for my number — where’s Felicity Smoak?”

Oliver shot a dangerous look towards the stage, but Tommy — very much at home under the gold stage lights and tipsy clapping — didn’t seem to notice, a hand over his eyes while he scanned the crowd for Felicity. “C’mon, guys, help me find her. _Fe-li-ci-ty, Fe-li-ci-ty, Fe-li-ci-ty_ — there she is!”

The chanting erupted into scattered applause and laughter, and Felicity appeared on the edge of the stairs, looking very much like she’d been pushed up there. Oliver could see her mouthing something to Tommy, along with frantic under-throat slashing, but he grabbed her by the hand and pulled her onto the main stage anyway.

“Maestro,” he said, pointing to the DJ. “If you would.”

Felicity — in a sentiment Oliver sympathized with on a very personal level — looked like she wanted to kill Tommy Merlyn. The music was somewhat drowned out by the clapping and hooting, but Tommy turned the mic stand so that he was facing Felicity, who looked mortified at the prospect of being serenaded.

“ _Santa baby_ ,” he began, to a chorus of cheering.

Oliver chose an extremely bad moment to drink and choked, an instance rare enough to draw Isabel’s attention.

“Oliver?” she said. “Is everything —”

He held up one finger. “Excuse me,” he coughed, his throat and nose burning from the alcohol. “I need to find my bodyguard.”

* * *

Was _Santa Baby_ a little obvious? Sure. Effective? Hell yes.

Tommy sneaked a glance into the audience, and was pleased to find Oliver no longer dawdling with the Boring Crowd (otherwise known as Isabel Rochev and the Blahs). Though his specific location was a little hard to gauge, given all the people near the stage.

On the upside, Felicity no longer looked like she wanted to kill him slowly (and painfully) for dragging her onstage for an impromptu serenade. She was still pink around the cheeks, but she’d started laughing around the second verse of the song, partly because the lyrics on the screen didn’t have a gender-bent version (forcing him to improvise on the fly), and partly because Tommy made sure to do all the hand gestures and hip-swaying to make his rendition downright hilarious.

Felicity hated any kind of attention, but he’d seen her looking slightly glum and by herself at the edge of the party, and fine, maybe he had _some_ vodka in him. Still, didn’t negate the fact that the best way to annoy-slash-get-his-best-friend-jealous was to sing a sexy-ish song to his lady love in front of everyone.

Tommy Merlyn was going to hell — what else was new?

“Is this your idea of being a good party date?” she whispered.

Tommy gave an innocent shrug, circling the stage. “ _Think of all the fun I’ve missed_ ,” he sang from behind her shoulder, “ _Think of all the ladies that I haven’t kissed…_ ”

He kissed her on one rosy cheek and a great whoop went up from their audience, making her blush even more. Tommy was otherwise spoken for, but objectively speaking, even he knew that a smile was the only accessory Felicity Smoak ever needed to look beautiful, and even half-hiding her face and clapping along with the music, there was little to no chance of her walking away without at least _some_ phone numbers, if not the collective attention of single males under thirty-five.

Incidentally, in the process of periscoping for Diggle, Tommy spotted him at the outdoor bar with Oliver. His eyesight might have been slightly compromised by the stage lights, but it looked like he had a very big glass of vodka with him.

“ _Come and trim my Christmas tree_ ,” Tommy continued, ironically beckoning for Oliver to get up on stage. For what, he hadn’t really figured out yet — maybe a rescue?

The only response he got was a stony shake of the head, very much in the vein of _I’m going to murder you, Merlyn_. Diggle, on the other hand, looked like Christmas had come early, and mouthed something that looked like: _give him hell_.

 _Yes, sir_.

Tommy reached for Felicity’s hand and twirled her slowly, still singing the whole time. “ _Santa baby, forgot to mention one little thing,_ ” he bent low over her outstretched fingers, “ _a ring_.”

He kissed the back of her hand and the crowd went wild.

Unfortunately, it was a trick that might have worked a _little_ too well, because just as he was about to ask for another song — _All I Want For Christmas Is You_ , another classic — he felt a fist close around the back of his suit jacket.

“That’s enough singing for one night,” Oliver said, in a voice that came precariously close to being a growl.

“What?” Tommy said innocently, pointing the mic towards the clapping. “But I’m just getting started — _whoa_ —”

Felicity looked as surprised as everyone else was amused (Oliver Queen escorting his drunk friend offstage), but Tommy threw her an extremely sober wink before being marched away by a pissed-off vigilante.

Santa really needed to give him something good this year.

* * *

It was actually funny — if it wasn’t also tragic — how often Felicity ended up hiding near the bar. Any kind of attention had the tendency to make her anxious (not to mention excessively talky), and getting hauled center-stage while her semi-inebriated and very good-looking (though strictly platonic) friend pulled a Christmas Sinatra was…equal parts hilarious and embarrassing.

Embarrassing for obvious reasons that turned her cheeks cherry red, and hilarious because after the very public display of (platonic) devotion, she was pretty sure that everybody in the office (whatever they’d assumed about him showing up at random times during office hours) now thought she was dating Tommy Merlyn. Which was a highly amusing backfire to his continuing attempts to set her up with people who weren’t Oliver, though simultaneously a touching show of loyalty that made it very hard to stay mad at him for going _completely_ off-piste on the _Make Him See What He’s Missing_ shebang.

It was the kind of mental dilemma that required serious alcohol, though preferably not vodka. Felicity looked around for any signs of a bartender, but it looked like the busy outside party had diverted some of the staff from the indoor one, which left the potential alcohols nice and unattended. Now, if only she’d paid more attention during Tommy’s mixology spiel…

Felicity was contemplating the label on a bottle of Vermouth — half-leaning over the bar — when someone spoke.

“Of all the gin joints in all the world —”

“— the _Casablanca_ reference doesn’t count, because you don’t technically own the building, just half of it,” she finished, having realized mid-sentence who she was talking to.

Oliver leaned his elbow on the bar, unfazed. “Wasn’t expecting to find you by yourself.”

Felicity blushed at the song-related implications, but passed it off as scratching an itch on her cheek (bless his party-decorating instinct for dim lighting). “What, after that _thrilling_ performance?” she said modestly, accidentally yanking a bottle of absinthe from the rack when she pulled with excessive force. “You’re one to talk — I wasn’t expecting to see you for a while. Where’d you leave Tommy?”

Oliver eyed the bottle of fairy liquid with extreme doubt and ducked around the bar instead, emerging on the other side and looking around the assembled ingredients like a chef in the kitchen. “Handcuffed to a urinal,” he deadpanned, setting two glasses in front of him.

Felicity laughed over the jar of maraschino cherries before it occurred to her that he might have been serious. “Wait, actually?”

Oliver gave her a look over the drinks-in-progress. “He’s with Diggle. Suffice it to say they’re both…very amused.”

Felicity was perfectly okay with leaving it at that, and apparently so was Oliver, visibly discomfited at the last part. She put both elbows on the bar (manners out the window) to watch what he was doing with their drinks. It was an easy kind of silence, helped by the relative anonymity of the party venue. She felt like they’d been incidentally skirting each other since the start of the party because of two entirely separate trajectories, and it just… _happened_.

She hoped, anyway.

“Didn’t know you could bartend,” she remarked, as he sliced limes the way professional chefs julienned peppers. “Makes me wonder if you’ve been holding back on me, Queen.”

Oliver’s gaze flickered up to her face, and he smiled over what he was doing. “I wouldn’t dare.”

Felicity narrowed her eyes at him in mock-suspicion anyway. “Your mother enjoyed the party,” she said, not quite sure why she’d sidestepped a direct compliment in favor of bringing up Moira Queen. “I forgot to tell you she left, well actually, no — I’m just seeing you now, so technically I haven’t forgotten anything — _anyway_ — she really enjoyed herself.”

A tiny crease developed between his eyebrows. “You talked to my mother?”

“I didn’t tell her about your after-work hobbies,” she said immediately, in case he was worried. “I was hiding — I hide at parties sometimes — and she was just…there. We talked, about nothing. It was a polite nothing, so no worries.”

_She also told me to make sure you don’t get your soul sucked out by the succubus in the top floor office._

That part didn’t quite roll off the tongue, not that the rest of it had.

From the look on Oliver’s face, that wasn’t what he’d been concerned about. “Oh,” he said. “I shouldn’t have left her alone, but —”

“Work,” Felicity finished for him, in a silent but categorical refusal to ever bring up Isabel in front of Oliver. “I saw.”

The pause stretched, and she looked down at her hands, wondering if he’d say something — waiting for him to. After everything she knew about him being ready (or not), she wasn’t exactly surprised that he didn’t, and after her talk with Diggle about doing some serious thinking, she wasn’t exactly sure she wanted him to.

“So…on the upside, most of the office thinks I’m going out with Tommy,” she said lightly. “Not sure whether that was the whole point of _Santa Baby_ , or maybe he was just drunk, but that should get human resources off my back, right?”

Oliver seemed to have recovered from the awkward moment, and he set their drinks — something pale green and lime-garnished — onto the gleaming bar top. “Really,” he answered. “Because _I_ could have sworn he was going out with a certain detective.”

“I know,” she agreed. “People can be _so_ dense sometimes.”

Oliver smiled, and she tapped her glass against his. “Happy holidays,” he said.

Felicity made sure she got a taste of his efforts (sounded _way_ better inside her head) and was pleasantly surprised. “Hey, that’s really nice,” she said, and snapped her fingers like she’d had the _greatest_ idea. “You should open a _bar_.”

Oliver laughed into his drink. “Very funny,” he said. “I think…that might be one of my favorite things about you.”

She looked up, taken aback to say the least, because it sounded like Oliver was getting precariously close to discussing his feelings.

And they all knew he never did _that_.

Maybe it was something in the drink.

“Bartending, joking around, complimenting work associates?” she teased. “If you start getting emotional, I think I might cry _Invasion of the Bodysnatchers_.”

“Well, maybe I’m trying something different,” he said, leaning forward a little. “Someone keeps telling me it’s better late than never.”

Felicity had a hunch who that _someone_ might be (hint: zip-tied to a urinal) and she felt a little flutter in her stomach, along with the inconvenient urge to be very shy. Whether she would have successfully tamped it down was a whole other story, because suddenly their phones were buzzing.

_Frack._

The same alert had popped up on their screens, but Oliver read his first. “A break-in,” he said, and Felicity sighed.

_Of course._

* * *

 

Oliver didn’t exactly think it boded well in the general scheme of things, that whenever some kind of progress seemed just the slightest bit likely, something work-related would come crashing in with the unapologetic ferocity of a stampeding animal.

In this case, an alarm triggered at the Queen Consolidated warehouse complex, and two security guards dead under mysterious circumstances.

Very much within the tradition of unexpected events.

The police had only released the scene in the early hours of the morning, which meant that they all arrived at a little past eight at the main gate, greeted by a freezing shower of rain and the occasional low rumble of distant thunder.

“Gah, that’s not fair,” Tommy muttered, hidden behind a pair of sunglasses despite the sunless weather. “Do you have to be so _loud_?”

The last part, he’d directed at the sky, which had just decided to dislodge another clap of thunder. Smirking in spite of his friend’s discomfort, Oliver slammed the car door after Felicity and walked quickly to the awning to escape the downpour, his breath steaming in the cold air.

“Too much vodka,” he said unsympathetically.

Diggle closed the umbrella once he and Felicity had made it to shelter and shook the droplets off the canvas. “C’mon, tiger — nothing like some fresh air to get rid of hangover. My CO used to make us jog around base camp if we overdid it on the bourbon. Interested?”

“ _Demon_ ,” Tommy hissed, making a rude gesture with his fingers.

Felicity, her lips pressed tightly together like she was trying hard not to smile, offered him a travel mug of hot coffee. “Everyone at the office loved you,” she said, as though it was supposed to help. “You’re a _really_ funny singer.”

Oliver personally thought she might have fudged some of the adjectives, but the police officers were waiting to escort them to the scene, and he turned to follow them.

“Do you have any idea how they got past security?” he asked, while Felicity hurried to keep pace with them, as invested in the answer as he was.

Neither of them needed reminding that Isabel was an expert at twisting blame.

“No sir,” said the officer. “Sergeant Lance will explain the rest, he’s waiting for you inside.”

They were approaching the doors at this point, and the rain was thick enough to act as a curtain, obscuring what there was to see until they got close.

“My god,” said Diggle, staring at the entryway.

Oliver agreed. The twelve-foot tall entrance was a gaping misshapen hole, bolts and hinges bent at impossible angles and loose panels left discarded around the door, like they’d been dropped there by hand. He exchanged a glance with Felicity, who looked as deeply worried by the breach as he was. Due to the nature of its inventory and QC’s record with misplaced technology, apart from the usual safeguards, they’d taken out a special order for reinforced titanium around the doors and wall paneling, which meant —

“Whoever did this must have _really_ wanted something in here,” she said, gingerly inspecting one of the warped edges.

“Why is it when something happens, it’s always the three of you?” Quentin said, eyeing Oliver, Diggle, and Felicity with something that resembled fatigue.

Oliver tried to look innocently bewildered. It wasn’t difficult. “Sergeant,” he said politely. “Thanks for coordinating the investigation down here.”

Quentin grunted, upon which he noticed Tommy, blinking blearily out from under his sunglasses. “Oh, how’d you get here, kid?”

“In a casket, obviously,” he answered.

“Hm.” Quentin seemed to be inoculated for Tommy’s sarcasm. “Slap some ginger ale on it. Anyway, the coroner’s just sent over the autopsy reports for the two security guards, and our guys went over the doors, but there’s —”

“—no sign of explosives,” Felicity said, pointing at the floor around the entrance. “There’s no blast radius or charring. Did you check the heavy lifting equipment around the complex? We use forklifts to move crates. Maybe whoever did this used the mechanical leverage to rip the door off its hinges.”

Quentin cocked one eyebrow. “Maybe I should fire my CSIs and hire you instead,” he commented, but with a gleam of familiar liking. “We checked all the machines — no luck. None of ‘em were taken out of the lot since the last worker clocked out. Got any more bright ideas?”

“Only have the crazy ones left, but don’t worry, I’ll keep working,” she said, making him smile just a little.

The smile slid straight off his face like slime when he turned back to Oliver, who knew the only thing he’d ever needed to annoy Sergeant Lance was his existence. “Someone went through a lot of trouble to get in and out of your warehouse,” he said pointedly, drumming his fingers on the back of his notebook. “Whatever they took, they wanted it badly enough to kill two guys for it.”

Tommy snorted. “That’s new.”

Oliver intercepted a significant look from Diggle, who was using the time to examine points of interest within the warehouse. Finding what they took in a closed space full of potentially dangerous technology would be like sifting for needles in a time-sensitive haystack, especially with the board and the police breathing down their necks.

In the meantime, Quentin was still eyeing Oliver with beady suspicion, even though Felicity had since replaced him in the discussion.

“We’ll need a full list of inventory from your side,” he said. “Unless you can tell us what they were looking for.”

Another hard look at Oliver’s back.

Felicity was better at looking innocent than he was. “Everyone at Queen Consolidated wants to cooperate, but most of the technology in here is proprietary,” she explained. “We have to clear it with legal before we can release anything to the police, even for an investigation.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“Security cameras,” Diggle said, indicating the corners where they’d been placed with practiced ease. “Did you manage to pull anything off them? Looks like that one was hit pretty good. Might mean they tried to cover their tracks.”

Oliver looked in the direction he was pointing. Sure enough, one of the cameras placed above the stacks looked like it had been smashed with something heavy, though it was hard to imagine how the sabotage could have been done from ground level.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Felicity wander off to speak to one of the CSIs, probably about the security footage. Good.

Quentin still wore a grumpy look on his face from being informed of the legal roadblocks, but he didn’t look surprised by the damage. “Yeah, we recorded that. One of the guys might have used the lift as a platform to get up there while his friends carted off whatever it was they t—”

“—actually, it was just the one guy,” said a voice. “Robber, I mean. Perpetrator.”

“ _Trespasser_ ,” Quentin interrupted. "How the hell did you get past the perimeter?"

“This is private property," Diggle said, straightening his shoulders for intimidating effect. "Mind telling us who you are?”

“And whether you need a signed consent form to leave the country?” Oliver said, with an edge he couldn’t quite explain beyond pure instinct.

The last part wasn’t strictly speaking malicious, because the new arrival looked like he wasn’t even fresh out of college, from his jeans and scuffed sneakers right down to the small puddle he was leaving from getting caught in the rain.

“Oh,” he said, and fumbled in his pocket as though for a badge. “I’m —”

The leather wallet slipped straight from his fingers mid-sentence, and landed on the floor with a muffled _plop_ , ID facing up, because he was staring at something past Oliver’s shoulder, his mouth slightly open.

There was a rustle of movement at his side, and Felicity straightened up with the badge in hand.

“Barry,” she breathed, as though she couldn't believe it. “Barry Allen.”

Her face broke into a wide smile that Oliver already knew he did not like in the least, not just because it was instantaneously picked up by her sunny counterpart with the dripping shoes. “Felicity Smoak,” he answered. “You were outside Verdant.”

In response to this new development, Tommy pushed his shades back, eyebrows almost disappeared into his hair, and Oliver swore he heard him mutter: “Oh shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- As you can see from the beginning flashback, I definitely did a bit of fiddling with this chapter. In this version, Barry and Felicity met before the warehouse break-in. It just felt a little easier to explain their chemistry, if that makes sense.  
> \- I KNOW THE DANCING AROUND IS GETTING TIRING. Maybe it's just me, but I'm like "urrrrrr get together already".  
> \- Thanks to @imusuallyobsessed for encouraging the Santa Baby idea. Here's to the last time I ever start a sentence to you with "hey, wouldn't it be funny if --" You evil genius you.  
> \- All hail jealous Oliver, he's going to have SUCH a hard time in the next few chapters.  
> \- Oh, and in case anyone's wondering (though I have no idea why you would be), Felicity lives in a house. I know she's supposed to be in an apartment by S3, but in 2x16 she seems to be in a house. ANYWAY. Irrelevant information. (Which may turn out to be significant :D)


	13. The Scientist, the Genius, and the Vigilante (Barry Allen, Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As promised, I give you BARRY ALLEN.

Felicity felt like she’d stepped straight into an alternate reality, where nice things actually happened, instead of Moscow mess-ups and general bad-guys-popping-up-of-nowhere-to-kill-you. Because she’d run into a nice guy she’d met outside a nightclub, completely by accident, and a year later…there he was.

She also seemed to remember that they may or may not have hit it off.

She may or may not have done a little flirting.

He may or may not have flirted back.

 _Barry Allen_.

The smile on her face was so indecently wide that even she wondered if she needed to pat herself back to a more acceptable expression, given the circumstances. But it was hard to do, given how broadly Barry was beaming back.

 _Like Christmas_ , she thought.

“What are you doing here?” she said, ignoring what may or may not have been a _don’t-do-it_ hiss from Tommy and walking up to Barry. “You said you were —”

“—in training, yeah,” he said brightly, patting the same square bag he’d been wearing when they met, now a little more scuffed, and upgraded with an additional wheeled suitcase at his side. “Bag of tricks got bigger. What about you? I mean, the last time I saw you, you were on your way to fix a friend’s computer, but now you’re — what — getting calls about break-ins at tech warehouses? Spill.”

She laughed, though it was quickly smothered in respect of the general atmosphere. “Well, I _was_ in IT, but I got promoted. I’m the Chief Technology Officer at Queen Consolidated, and R &D kinda falls under my purview,” she explained, and turned around to point vaguely in Oliver’s direction. “I’m actually here with my boss.”

Oliver’s eyebrows contracted so fast at the word _boss_ that it might as well have been a slap to the face.

“I mean, my friend,” she said, backpedaling hastily. “Boss-friend. Friend who happens to be my boss. Or is it the other way round? Anyway, Oliver Queen. That’s his bodyguard John Diggle, and…”

When push came to shove, she wasn’t all that sure how to explain Tommy Merlyn.

“…Tommy Merlyn, he — uh — owns Verdant, actually, you know, where we…”

“Right,” Barry said, another smile line appearing in his cheek as he waved to everyone. “That’s really cool.”

No one waved back. “Sorry, where you…what?” Tommy said, cupping a hand over his ear. “Didn’t quite catch that last indecency.”

There was a muffled thump, like someone had hit him, and Felicity turned back to Barry. “So you’re a CSI now? Is that —”

“Why I’m here? Yeah — yeah — oh, thanks.” He took back the badge she held out and showed it to the others, who Felicity now realized all wore expressions of varying stoniness. “I’m with the Central City Police Department, and there’s a case we’ve been working with some — similar — elements. My captain sent me over to see if we could help each other out.”

Quentin squinted at the ID. “So…Barny,” he said. “Getting back to the point, your fantastic new theory is that one guy bashed his way through those reinforced whatsit-doors —”

“—titanium reinforced expanded polytetra…fluoroethylene —” Barry added, quailing mid-sentence under Oliver’s unflinching stare.

“— yeah, that,” Quentin said thanklessly. “So one guy — this robber, in the dead of night — cannonballed straight through a solid metal entrance, killed two guys armed with guns singlehandedly, and just — what — walked out with the loot on his shoulder? Are you serious?”

“Very,” Barry said, completely missing the sarcasm. “This guy was _strong_. The autopsy reports should verify that, based on the preliminary cause of death.”

“And there should be CCTV footage from the cameras, right?” Felicity suggested. “That could verify Barry’s theory.”

Quentin wore a grumpy look on his face like Barry had just cussed him out, and Tommy patted the former sympathetically on the back (wincing the whole time from the jarring effect on his hangover) while the sergeant beckoned to one of the CSIs.

“Matter of fact, we hit a snag with the company firewall,” he said, taking the laptop he was handed. “The thing’s locked until Queen Consolidated security releases it. I figure one of you could probably get on phone and call somebody.”

“Well —” Barry said.

Felicity immediately reached into her bag. “You should have said so,” she said, retrieving her tablet computer. “Two seconds.”

There was a beep of recognition. “And we’re in,” she announced, tapping away on the screen and ignoring the scandalized look on the CSI’s face (it was his laptop she’d completely disregarded). “Pulling footage from the damaged camera. Let’s see…looks like there was a system irregularity at 11PM…”

Quentin cleared his throat loudly, apparently finding her a little transparent. “Looking a little too at home with the —”

“— _ackhaying_ ,” Tommy coughed. “Sorry, I think I’m dying. Of suspense.”

“It’s not hacking if I’m authorized to use the system,” Felicity pointed out. “ _Not_ — that I have any experience in the computer hacking area.”

“Wow, you weren’t kidding when you said you worked in computer sciences,” Barry said, from over her shoulder. “That’s amazing.”

“Thank you,” Felicity said, and someone hacked a very loud cough.

“Whoa,” Diggle said, watching the screen. “Did you see that?”

Oliver shook his head in silence. They all clustered around to watch the playback again, and almost all of them jerked back instinctively at the end, because the single shadowy figure stalked across the floor, one-handedly picked up a butane tank and — if that didn’t already spell _ominous_ — hurled it towards the broken camera.

“Um,” Tommy said. “I’m hungover, but that’s not possible.”

“You’re hungover?” Barry said kindly. “I know a _great_ cure for that, just take one spoon of —”

“Yeah, cool it, Dimples. Wasn’t an invitation to fix me,” he said irritably, and Felicity gave him a look for being rude.

“Can’t be right,” Quentin concurred, taking over the tablet with a deep frown in his forehead. “One guy couldn’t have done that. The cameras must have missed the rest of the crew — three or four guys at least —”

“—which is why the autopsy report…” Barry fumbled with his bag, and Felicity held the flap out of the way so he could get his computer out “…is so important.”

The pictures were already waiting. Tommy made a face at the corpse lying on the slab and turned back around, but Oliver and Diggle looked stoically at the photo Barry held out. “See the lividity around his throat?” Barry said, indicating the deep purple bruise patterns around the marble-white neck, in the unmistakable impression of four fingers and a thumb. “Cause of death was a fractured spine. Whoever broke in here also killed this guy by snapping his neck with only one hand.”

“Oh god,” Felicity said.

“My thoughts exactly,” Quentin interjected. “We’ll need that inventory from Queen Consolidated, ASAP. We won’t be able to tell what he took if the CCTV footage went down.” He gave her a significant look, as though reminding her non-verbally that she wasn’t usually such a stickler for the black and white rules.

“Actually,” Barry said, and someone groaned.

“You know what got stolen,” Diggle guessed, with something of a smirk on his face. “Somehow.”

Being impervious to sarcasm was actually a highly useful skill-set, a fact becoming increasingly apparent from the whole situation. It made presenting the improbable a lot easier on the self-consciousness scale, which — in all honesty — was something Felicity felt she could use for R&D reports in front of the board. Barry was already striding towards the back of the warehouse, and she followed him, trailed more reluctantly by the rest of the group.

“A concrete platform,” said Quentin, unimpressed. “Did it come to life and help this… _superman_ rob the warehouse?”

“No, though that sounds super cool — I mean, _awful_ ,” he corrected, in response to yet another withering stare from the CEO who owned the warehouse. “Anyway, what got my attention was the bolts.”

Barry tapped the twisted metal cords sticking out of the concrete. “Heavy machinery are usually secured using carbon steel bolts, so an empty spot like this could mean it was moved, but these aren’t neat severance points, they’re jagged from the force used to tear the machine free — ripped, straight out of the ground. You can see footsteps from where the robber walked in, and where he walked out. The only thing that would fit on a platform like this — and be secured with three bolts, in _this_ pattern — is an industrial centrifuge, the Kord Industries model, to be more specific. They patented the shape last fall.”

“Why would someone need a centrifuge?” Oliver asked, his question directed at Felicity. She had a feeling that he was disregarding Barry as something of an unknown quantity, leaving him for later analysis.

“It separates liquids based on density,” she said. “The high-speed acceleration pushes the lighter substances to the top, and since it’s an industrial model, we’re thinking about potentially three hundred kilograms in capacity. Basically, if you had a lot of liquid you wanted to separate into its component parts — cellular homogenate, chemical extracts, blood…that kind of thing.”

Felicity could tell she’d hit on precisely the wrong — or right — keyword, because Oliver’s expression instantly went from curious to guarded, but Barry blinked at her like he’d just gotten a pleasant surprise. Which was a little distracting, to say the least. “You’re good at science too,” he said. “That’s _great_.”

“Is it, though?” Tommy muttered.

* * *

“A break-in,” Isabel said, as her fingernails, long and sharp, drummed out a staccato on the surface of Oliver’s desk.

“Right,” he said. “We think an industrial centrifuge might have been the target.”

“How could this happen?” she snapped, though he had a feeling the frustration was only incidentally aimed at him. “We stepped up security measures after the Undertaking. How could we end up with a piece of very _expensive_ stolen property, and two potential wrongful death suits on our hands?”

The only answer Oliver could think of was: _it’s Starling City._ Unfortunately, it was more likely than not to turn Isabel’s face a delicate shade of crimson rather than anything else, so he refrained.

At that precise moment, Felicity tapped on the door to announce herself. “Sorry to interrupt,” she said. “I just went through inventory with R&D, and Barry’s right. It looks like the only thing we’re missing is the centrifuge.”

“Barry?” Isabel looked between them. “Who’s _Barry_?”

“Ah.” Felicity pointed to the waiting room beyond Oliver’s office, where — sure enough — the CSI from Central City stood with his ridiculous suitcase. It made him feel slightly better that Tommy and Diggle were both in something of a staring contest with the new arrival, except the latter looked more amused than anything else.

“He’s here to help us with the investigation,” she explained. “The CCPD has a similar case — things might move faster with him here to help us.”

Isabel didn’t seem to think much of Barry, a fact that made Oliver feel a stab of gratefulness towards her. “A detective?” she said, eyeing him with an abject lack of confidence.

“CSI, actually,” Felicity answered, unfazed by the chill. “They don’t carry guns — just plastic baggies and rubber gloves.”

Something in her tone made Isabel cock her head, as though she’d heard a noise only for her ears. Oliver endeavored to keep his expression as neutral as possible when Isabel’s gaze flicked over to him, but he could tell she was doing another one of her calculations. Which never boded well.

“Fine,” she said, with surprising civility. “Keep it in-house. I want the report on my desk _as soon as possible_. No one breathes a word of this to the investors, and maybe we’ll be intact by the New Year. Is that clear?”

One of Felicity’s eyebrows was at an angle from being talked down to, but she managed a small smile. “Crystal.”

Isabel swept out of the room as swiftly as she’d entered, completely ignoring the three out in the waiting room. As the sound of her heels vanished around the corner, Oliver realized that a part of him sincerely wished she’d refused the help.

Too late for that now.

Felicity gave a little huff in relief. “Well, glad _that’s_ taken care of,” she said. “Barry needs a couple of things from the lab downstairs — scanners, particle analysis stuff, you know — and I signed off on it, but I just thought I’d let you know. I’m gonna head back down to the warehouse with him, try to help as much as I…everything okay?”

Oliver blinked. She was staring at him, looking a little concerned. He wanted to say that the theft had unsettled him, especially if what he suspected about the centrifuge’s purpose was accurate, but he knew that wasn’t quite the _whole_ truth of the matter.

“Hm? Everything’s fine,” he answered.

“Really?” Felicity made no move towards the door, but stepped a little closer to his desk. “Because you’ve had that — _thing_ —” she poked a red pen in the general direction of his forehead “—between your eyebrows since you heard the centrifuge might have been stolen. You’ve barely said a word to anyone since we got back — which, I know, is kinda your usual setting — but I just thought…you might be a little more okay with sharing. Y’know, since things went _back to normal_.”

He wondered if she was thinking about the drink they’d shared in the Foundry, after the incident with Vertigo. Just them.

“What’s got you so freaked out?” she asked, softer this time.

_Shado. Lian Yu. Ivo._

_Slade._

_The Miracle._

Too many names, too many places. A suspicion too dense and twisted to explain to anyone who hadn’t been there, who hadn’t seen the impossible happen — and then fall apart — with their own eyes.

Not Felicity. Not her.

Oliver’s fingers curled themselves into a fist, hard enough to feel his fingernails digging into the skin, and he forced another non-committal noise through his teeth. “Just…Isabel. You know what she’s like.”

For a split second, he saw something like disappointment cross her face, but then it was gone, in favor of her usual bright expression. “Right. So like I was saying — I’ll be down at the warehouse with Barry, help him out as much as I can. Forensic science isn’t exactly my forte, but I got extra credit in college for being a lab assistant one semester, so I figure I can’t be _terrible_.”

It was Oliver’s turn to fake a smile. “And how…how do you know him?” he asked, trying not to dwell on how stupid the question sounded, in his head and out. “Back at the warehouse — it looked like you’d met before. At Verdant.”

A flush of pale pink crept into her cheeks. “It’s not like that. We met on the sidewalk,” she said, as though she could tell he was wondering if they’d met inside the club. Doing everything people in clubs did — a scenario he had plenty of experience with, during his less illustrious days.

Felicity scratched behind her ear, another nervous tic. “It was probably a year ago or something. I was on my way to the basement, and it was raining, and he was…there. I had no idea I’d see him again, but…” She trailed off, and he saw her smile at Barry in a way that gave his insides a twist of discomfort. “Who knew,” she said softly.

Oliver remembered seeing a girl with glasses two — three — years ago in Starling City, while sneaking into the office that used to belong to his mother. It was a complete coincidence that they were both standing in the same place now — him and Felicity — but then again, so was walking into her office with a damaged computer in his hand.

It made him acutely uncomfortable to think that something similar had happened with Barry Allen, like it cheapened the notion of _chance_ and _fate_ , as ludicrous as they were to begin with. He knew that he could never tell her now, not without seeming like he was doing it in some bizarre competition with the kid from Central City.

So he didn’t say a word, and Felicity gave a little shake of her head, like she was being silly. “Anyway,” she said. “I’ll leave you to it. Let you know what comes up.”

Oliver nodded. “All right.”

Felicity smiled at him and drifted out of the room, her expression brightening when she spoke to Barry. The kid almost tripped over his suitcase in his haste to follow her, and just like that — they were both laughing again. Oliver watched them disappear into one of the elevators, and Tommy gave him an indignant _what happened_ look through the wall, but he pretended not to see, staring out the window instead. Rain washed down the glass, punctuated by another distant thunderclap.

Work mattered more, and finding who wanted the centrifuge badly enough to kill for it.

 _It couldn’t be_ , he thought to himself, and his fingers clenched around an arrow shaft that wasn’t really there.

He was dead. They all were.

* * *

“I’m guessing blue skies isn’t a Starling City _thing_ , huh?” Barry said, as the shelves behind them rattled from the nearby storm, making the glass containers clink noisily against each other.

Felicity eyed the tiny window near the ceiling, murky gray and pelted with the occasional spray of rain. “What gave you that idea?” she asked, and they grinned at each other across the maze of forensic equipment.

Her muscles already felt achy from all the smiling, but in a _good_ way. Not exercise burn, that was bad. Something that used muscles but felt _amazing_ at the end — and during — and beginning.

Oh god, was she actually making the mental comparison between smiling like an idiot and good sex?

Thank _frack_ for ballistics — not that the small pile of empty shell casings she was meant to be swabbing counted as a good thing — and the fact that Barry was too absorbed with gathering trace evidence from the footprints to notice her blushing, what with being crouched on the floor, surrounded by a circle of blazing floodlights.

“So…do you bring ultraviolet light sources to all your work trips?” she asked casually.

“Well, the spectrometers and centrifuges wouldn’t fit in my carry-on,” he answered. “Hey, at least I brought my own microscope.”

“Because that’s just good manners,” she laughed.

Barry smiled back, but his focus went to something in one of the shoe prints. “Aha,” he muttered. “Got something.”

Felicity was ready with the spectrometer, as he switched from _bent over_ to upright with surprising agility, depositing the specimen into the scanner with steady hands. The machine whirred to life, and Barry looked like he genuinely wanted to give it a fond pat on the head for existing. “Sorry,” he said, noticing that she was looking. “I practically live in my lab, so having all these machines here…it’s like seeing all my friends again. God, did that sound nerdy? It did, didn’t it? I promise I actually _have_ friends, like _flesh and blood_ friends — I don’t just hang around my lab talking to myself and my coffee — though I really like coffee — which isn’t the point, but I’ve lost…my train of thought.”

He looked incredibly cute, scratching the back of his head while he tried to pinpoint precisely where the mental detour started.

“The analysis,” Felicity suggested, because _god_ did she sympathize.

“Right! Shouldn’t take too long,” he said gratefully.

Felicity went back to turning over shell casings, comparing them with the make and model of the guns the security guards had been carrying under a hi-fluorescence lamp. “The casings all came from the guards,” she said, frowning. “But the police didn’t find blood spatter. I’m assuming their aim couldn’t have been _terrible_ , so some of these bullets must have hit our guy.”

Barry nodded, following her logic. “No blood, though. Body armor?”

“So he walked right out with — what — fifteen bullets stuck to him?” Felicity said. “He moved fast, that’s close range. Face, arms, legs…even with kevlar, it’s still a stretch that he didn’t get at least some kind of flesh wound.”

“Right, but that’s assuming he’s one average guy,” Barry returned, reaching for the autopsy report. “Breaking someone’s neck requires at least twelve hundred and fifty foot pounds of torque, and he managed to do it with _one_ hand. That’s some serious muscle density. Enough to get shot and not break a sweat. Add that to the adrenaline rush of a fight, and —”

“—he could have walked back out bleeding but not injured,” she finished, glancing towards the front of the warehouse and the police-taped entryway. “The bloodstains would be small, but…”

Barry was rummaging in his bag again, and she narrowly caught the small object he tossed in her direction. It was a small rectangular flashlight, about the size of a tape recorder. He had another one in his hand, and it glowed as purple as the floodlights when he turned it on.

“Always prepared for anything,” she commented, a little taken aback.

He smiled at the surprise on her face and shrugged. “It’s a long shot, but why not?”

* * *

“What are you doing?” Tommy said, as Oliver reached for another brief in the waiting pile. “Oh my god, _what_ are you doing?”

“It’s called _work_ ,” he answered, flipping it open in perfect obliviousness to Tommy’s look of incredulity. “You should try it sometime — instead of letting my underage sister run a nightclub and bringing flowers to an office building you don’t even work in.”

“Low blow.” Tommy was pacing, watched dispassionately by Diggle at the windows. “More importantly, you _cannot_ leave them alone in the warehouse — all that science-y stuff, crime-fighting, doohickey machines I can’t pronounce — you realize that’s like… _viagra_ for Felicity, right? They could be making science genius babies right now, you beautiful, college dropout —”

“I don’t see what my not having a college degree has to do with anything,” Oliver said, adding his notes in the margin without looking up.

“Plus, I’m pretty sure Felicity knows how to work responsible birth control, if she and the Allen kid ever get to that bridge,” Diggle said, turning a page on a security report. “Which is — number one — none of our business, and number two — a little early, seeing as they literally just met this morning.”

Tommy flapped his hands at Diggle like it was an irrelevant point. “Okay, clearly you weren’t listening. They’ve _met_. One year ago. That’s three hundred and sixty-five days of nerd advantage. Who knows what they did on the sidewalk? I can’t tell you all the things I’ve had to send Harper out to clean up — sometimes he needs a hose. A _hose_. Think about that.”

Oliver really didn’t want to. “I asked her about it, and it sounds like they just talked. End of story.”

“No, no. _Not_ end of story. Did you hear them?” Tommy held up his finger (not the rude one). “He knows what a _centrifuge_ does. They remember each other after meeting _once_. He’s a CSI. He smiles, like _all the time_. He looks like a Tommy Hilfiger model — I literally don’t know who else wears jeans and a sport coat unironically, but he does, and I hate to say that it works. He _clearly_ likes her, which is mutual, just by the way. He complimented her on the hacking. Oh, and he…”

Oliver and Diggle were both watching Tommy now, obviously interested in what would happen once he ran out of fingers.

“…has _dimples_. If you don’t get your ass out of that chair and down to that warehouse with — I don’t know — a string quartet and some champagne, you are screwed, buddy. We will be attending a Jewish- _whatever-religion-he-is_ hybrid wedding in six months, and guess what you’ll be doing?”

“I don’t want to g—”

“— you’ll be _six feet underground in an unmarked grave_ because I will literally strangle the life out of you for letting Felicity Smoak out of your sight,” Tommy finished. A tad dramatically, in his opinion.

Oliver held up his pen. “May I respond?”

Tommy flopped onto the leather couch, a hand over his eyes. “If you must.”

“We need to know who took the centrifuge, and why,” he said. “Or the Arrow does, anyway. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but any situation involving misplaced technology from my family’s company rarely ends well.”

“I think there’s an argument to be made that _any_ situation we get involved in rarely ends well,” Diggle added. “Now without some kind of pyrotechnics or property damage, I mean.”

Oliver shot him a _not now_ look. “If Felicity’s helping the Allen kid with the investigation, it means we’ll know what happens before the police does. The faster we resolve this, the better.”

_And the faster he goes back to Central City._

Diggle nodded in approval. “I agree. I don’t necessarily believe in super-strong thieves capable of walking out with industrial centrifuges over one shoulder, but if that’s where the evidence points, then we have our work cut out for us. Besides, that CSI may have a few crazy theories, but it means he thinks out of the box. Useful habit, in our line of work.”

“And what if said out-of-the-box CSI ends up with Oliver Queen’s lady love?” Tommy asked, acidly.

“Well, at the risk of jumping the gun, we all want Felicity to be happy, don’t we?” Diggle said. “She’s our friend.”

Oliver shifted uncomfortably under Diggle’s piercing look, but was saved the trouble of answering because Tommy let loose an explosive sigh. “Unfortunately, _friend_ seems to be an overarching label for everyone in the room,” he agreed, and sat up. “Though not for lack of trying. I have to ask — do you have a magnet in your butt or something that keeps you in the friendzone? Because I swear to god, it’s not normal how you keep ending up back there.”

Oliver was unamused by the mental image. “Funny. Anyway…” he groped for something to say in response to Tommy’s list of reasons, “I have…dimples. That’s barely a reason for two people to get together.”

Diggle squinted at him like he wished he’d heard wrong, while Tommy snorted. “What, you mean that thing under all the scruff you keep forgetting to shave off?” he said. “Buddy, that’s practically a reverse zit. Besides, you don’t smile at her enough for it to be obvious, you jumped up little —”

“—all right,” Diggle interrupted, obviously sensing profanity. “Getting back to the point, Oliver, is there something you want to tell us about that centrifuge? Because it seems like you know more about it than the kid from Central City.”

Oliver only looked at him. “I’d rather be wrong,” he said simply. “For a lot of reasons.”

“Ah.” Diggle straightened up, buttoning his jacket like he already knew what Oliver was about to suggest — dropping by the warehouse to check on their progress. “You know, maybe one of the reasons Felicity seems to be hitting it off with the Allen kid is because he doesn’t hold anything back, have you thought about that?”

Tommy whistled. “Now _that’s_ a low blow,” he said. “By the way, just so I’m clear on the _Love and War_ thing, whose side are you on?”

Diggle shrugged. “Just calling ‘em like I see ‘em. God knows we don’t have enough of that around here,” he said bluntly. “You coming, Tommy?”

He shook his head, still sprawled on the couch. “I think I’ve seen enough train wrecks for one day. I need a pretzel and a nap.”

“All right. Then I’ll bring the car around, Mr Queen.”

Oliver nodded, but he’d already walked out of the room. The formality hadn’t escaped his notice, because _Mr Queen_ was for the few times when Oliver had deeply disappointed Diggle, and the latter wanted him to know it.

He sighed inwardly, because disappointment was rapidly becoming the theme of the day, especially when it came to the three people whose opinions mattered most to him.

* * *

“So you’ve seen him, right?” Barry asked. “In person, I mean.”

Felicity was on her knees near a mound of overturned plastic drums, trying to get the UV rays onto their undersides without having to shift them herself. “You might have to be more specific,” she said, as thunder sounded off in the distance, yet again. “I see a lot of _him_ s in person. That came out wrong.”

Barry’s head shot up from behind a half-collapsed crate. “The vigilante,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “I have a Google Alert on him, and I read that he saved you from the Vertigo guy last month. So you’ve seen him in person, right? I mean — what was that like? What was _he_ like? Did you see his partners? Because I’m pretty sure he has people helping him.”

A part of Felicity sincerely wished that Barry Allen — in all his geeky enthusiasm and cute, bright-eyed wonder — had moved onto another topic of interest during the last year, strictly for his own personal safety. Even if Oliver had a no-killing rule, she really didn’t want to think about what he might do — given his current state of unexplained agitation and non-shareitis — to someone sniffing around the vigilante. Plus, she had a spidey sense that Barry Allen annoyed him, on a chemical level. Maybe it was all the smiling.

“Um,” she said, pretending to fiddle with the light settings on the scanner to avoid his eye. “No partners, just…green. I think. It was dark — didn’t really see much. He — the Arrow, I mean — doesn’t kill people these days, but y’know, it’s probably smart not to ask too many questions. Just in case… _thwap_.”

The implicit warning went straight over Barry’s head, because he scooted over and shifted the barrel she was trying to get under (albeit with some grunting under the not-insignificant weight). “See, green —” one of the barrels had rolled onto his toe, and he hopped to get it off “—is _really_ interesting. Army green might mean that he has a military background, which is what some people say on the forums, but personally, I think it’s not just camouflage. I think it’s because of where he trained — definitely some kind of rough environment, thick vegetation, survival-heavy. Like a forest — or a _jungle_. And why a bow? Why _arrows_? He goes up against guys like the Mayor — arms dealers, drug lords — why stick to a precision weapon that predates recorded history?”

Felicity forced a chuckle, even though the inside of her head was full of _ding-ding_ slot machine noises, because holy frack, had Barry hit the jackpot. “Maybe he’s a time traveler?” she said. “Robin Hood in the 21st Century?”

Unfortunately, Barry genuinely seemed to have discounted that theory. “ _Definitely_ not a time traveler,” he said, straight-faced. “I mean, I’ve looked at the police reports. Grappling arrows, lightweight high-tensile polymer steel wire…he definitely knows the technology to give himself the advantage. Definitely from the 21st Century.”

“ _O-kay_ ,” Felicity said, to no one in particular. “Nothing under here.”

She looked wildly around for something in the general area to scrutinize, and alighted on a series of dented shelves that looked the way they did because something had crash-landed right in the middle. _Great_. Barry seemed unfazed by the change of pace, even helping her look for a chair in a cluster of creaky metal numbers that might as well have been from IKEA.

“I think that it’s the same reason he wears green,” he said, helping her move a table over to stand on. “Not stealth. He _survived_ with a bow and arrow, he _survived_ in the green environment. Everything about him suggests some kind of trauma, some kind of incident he’s using as motivation — driving him forward.”

Something in his tone made Felicity pause, and take a harder look at Barry. She’d heard it before when Oliver glanced away from something innocuous, because it meant more, more than he wanted to share.

The curiosity about the Arrow ran deeply personal for Barry Allen.

“You seem really interested in him,” she said. “I mean, it’s not exactly something you ask a stranger after meeting them on a sidewalk, but you practically went on a scavenger hunt last year to look for his hideout. Is there — something — about him that you really want to know?”

“Why, did he give you a hotline number for emergencies?” Barry asked, making her smile — as worried as she was. “Actually…it’s not really something I _want_ to know…it’s more of a _what if_.”

Felicity tilted her head. “What about?”

Barry looked down at his shoes, his jaw working like he was trying to figure out what to say, and she had a brief mental image of Oliver doing more or less the same thing — a classic gesture that preceded an evasion.

Suffice it to say what she heard next turned out to be a surprise.

“My mom was murdered when I was I eleven,” he said, frankly. “The CCPD never caught the guy who did it. Everything I hear about the vigilante suggests he’s a pretty good detective, all the bad guys he’s tracked down, put away…it just made me wonder whether he might have caught one more. Or at least tried, a lot longer than the police ever did.”

“Barry.” Felicity lowered the hand covering her mouth. “I’m so sorry — I shouldn't have asked. I’m sorry.”

He shook his head, even managing a little smile. “It was a long time ago, and it’s stupid — why would the Arrow reopen a cold case from another city? But I guess I just thought — if I ever found him — he’d see that I was serious, and maybe he’d say yes to helping me get justice for my mother.”

Felicity didn’t know what to say, not even in the realm of inappropriate truths. Had Oliver ever taken requests? Would he even consider it? First step would be making sure he didn’t put an arrow through Barry, which would _suck_. Step _numero dos_ would be getting the actual case file, but —

“It’s okay,” Barry said, sensing her mental gears turning noisily beneath the surface. “Felicity, it’s fine. Chasing the vigilante’s important to me, but I’m here to help you with the robbery. Don’t even think about it.”

Felicity felt like she’d been working with Oliver and the others for so long that the straightforward truth from someone she barely knew came as a downright surprise. Which was a little worrying, if she was being honest with herself.

“You know what you said, about survival, and using it as motivation?” she said, hesitating, in case she gave too much away. As much as she liked Barry (not _like-like_ , just normal like), it was Oliver’s secret to tell, not hers. “I don’t think it’s just him. Everything with your mom — I think it’s driving you forward too. And that’s pretty amazing.”

True to form, it sounded about as stupid as it was when she first thought up the sentence, and she flushed. But Barry didn’t look annoyed — not at all. He actually looked like she’d given him a huge compliment, which was…surprisingly great.

Except the two of them seemed to have reverted back to awkward-shy, and in the absence of anything else to say, he held out his hand, and Felicity grasped it without hesitation, only belatedly realizing that he meant to help her stand up on the makeshift stool. One of the legs was a little uneven, and she was in heels, which meant the occasional totter to keep her balance.

“Sorry,” Barry blurted out, when his knee-jerk reaction to her stumble was to grab her by the ankle. “Sorry — didn’t want you to fall.”

“It’s okay. Seriously, me plus _any_ distance off solid ground usually means trouble. Just don’t look up my skirt,” she said, without thinking. “ _Not_ that I’m saying you’d look up my skirt. I don’t think you’re a pervert, I swear. Just — it might be instinct to look up, especially since you’re interested in the evidence too, not what’s up my skirt — which is _completely_ normal, by the way, no gnomes or anything — anyway, I trust you…is what I’m saying. I’m gonna go back to shining my flashlight now. Not a euphemism. Okay. All good here.”

Felicity resisted the urge to knock her own head against the shelf and indulge in a drawn-out sigh of pure frustration. _Why_ , in the name of all that was pure and holy (i.e. not her, based on where her mind went), did having a cute male make her brain go even more inappropriate than usual?

She was so distracted that she almost missed the gleam of fluorescence in one of the corners — _blood_.

“Did you find something?” Barry asked, craning his neck to try and see.

“Maybe,” she answered, bending as close as she dared. The table wobbled a little, and Barry’s grip tightened fractionally around her leg. There was nothing weird about it — totally a platonic gesture to prevent a nasty accident — but it would be a total flaming lie to say she wasn’t just the teensiest bit distracted by the physical contact. His fingers were long enough to curl easily around her ankle, and she was surprised at the absence of calluses — as though having them was the standard for males over twenty-five.

She’d _really_ been hanging around Oliver for too long.

A swab poked the inside of her wrist, courtesy of Barry in full CSI mode. Which was normal. Of course. Shaking her head a little (mostly at herself), Felicity took it and carefully swiped at the corner of the dime-sized patch, a nondescript brown under normal light.

“The blood might have gotten there when he threw something,” she said, handing it back down to Barry, who was waiting with the kit.

“Probably. I don't think the guy noticed the injury,” he said, dripping something onto the tip that turned it bright pink. “Yup, that’s blood.”

Felicity bent slightly to get another swab from him. “I think there might be enough for a blood test,” she said. “Should we switch? I don’t want to ruin the sample.”

“No, you can do it,” Barry said, though he was still trying to get a look at the shelf, more from curiosity than anything else. “I trust you.”

The unquestioning sincerity of the statement made Felicity smile. “You barely know me.”

Barry shrugged at her obvious amusement. “What can I say? You shared your umbrella with me, the _least_ I could do is trust you to get a blood sample of the guy who robbed your friend.”

Felicity shook her head and rubbed gently at the bloodstain. “You’re really not from around here, Allen,” she said, in a sagely voice.

“How else am I supposed to stand out from the competition?” he answered, grinning again. “ _Smoak_.”

Someone cleared their throat. “Don’t mean to interrupt,” Diggle said, with Oliver in tow. “Just thought we’d check on things down here.”

“Oliver — _hi_.” Felicity had the brief impression that he was staring hard at her leg, which made her remember, suddenly, that Barry’s hand was on her calf. “Things are going great, actually. We just found a bloodstain, we should be able to figure out if our guy was using some kind of juice to get himself — you know — super strong. Imagine I said that less enthusiastically.”

“And is there a particular reason you’re holding onto my CTO’s leg, Mr Allen?” Oliver inquired, which made Diggle nudge him (subtly) and Barry let go like he’d just been shocked (not so subtle).

It may have been her imagination, but it sounded like Oliver had intentionally stressed the word _my_.

“Uh, no sir, I mean — Mr Queen — or is it Oliver? Anyway, I was just supporting Miss Smoak’s — I mean Felicity’s — leg. We couldn’t find a ladder, and we were talking — about the case, not taking advantage of your, I mean, _her_ time. We’re working, I promise. _Not_ that being with you is work,” Barry said hastily, turning to look at Felicity and almost instantly looking back the other way, because it was in the vicinity of her skirt hem. “Not that I’m _with_ you, I mean. That’s…not the point. Sir.”

Diggle’s eyes narrowed slightly, and Felicity could sense him thinking: _wow, you’re not good under pressure, are you, kid?_

“Right,” Oliver said, and Felicity felt a twinge of annoyance as she got down from the table unaided, because Barry touching her anywhere seemed to be something of a sore spot with certain third parties in CEO positions. “And Mr Queen’s fine for the duration of the investigation, Mr Allen.”

“CSI Allen, actually,” Barry corrected, before reconsidering (the look on Oliver’s face might have been a powerful factor). “But Mr Allen’s fine, totally fine. Now — evidence, over there?”

With that, he was off, towards the temporary lab area like someone had actually lit a fire underneath him. Felicity made sure he was out of earshot before she turned to Oliver. “What is the _matter_ with you?” she said, in a furious whisper. “Barry’s here to help.”

True to frustrating _Oliver Queen_ form, he didn’t have a ready answer, and she turned on her heel before he could say anything else. It took two to clap, and now _she_ was in a less than ideal mood too.

Deep down, she had a feeling she knew why.

* * *

Oliver seemed to have earned himself something of an embargo on eye contact, as far as Felicity was concerned, anyway. She kept finding reasons to work on the computer and look elsewhere, even while explaining what she and Barry managed to find during the investigation.

It was distracting, not just because he had to think of them as a single, exclusionary unit, but because Felicity being angry with him usually meant that he’d done something wrong.

“Wait — wait,” Diggle said, clearly having less trouble focusing than he was, “you found _what_ in the thief’s blood sample?”

“Trace amounts of ketamine,” Barry said. “It’s small, but extrapolating the proportion of the drug versus how much blood we found, it’s possible that there was a pretty high concentration in his system at the time of the robbery.”

“Doesn’t ketamine slow you down?” Diggle asked. “It’s a sedative, people get high off it, but they don’t go berserk — that’s for stuff like ecstasy.”

“Exactly, which doesn’t make a lot of sense, I know,” Felicity answered. “Add that to the sugar we found in his footprint, and it’s a weird case.”

 _Even for us_ , seemed to be the unsaid conclusion to her sentence.

Diggle grunted, because the strange and inexplicable vexed him like nothing else could. “What, his hideout’s in a candy store?”

“Not necessarily. Footprints tell us where the thief’s been over the past couple of days,” said Barry. “It was raining the night he broke in, which means that most of the sugar had to have been washed away or dissolved when he walked outside, but the traces that didn’t must have been there for a while. Is there a place in Starling —”

“— where the guy would pick up enough sugar on his boots to leave trace evidence during heavy rainfall?” Felicity finished, already working on her laptop. “Yet another sentence I never thought I’d say. Give me a second.”

“A sugar refinery,” Barry said, reading over her shoulder. “Two miles — that’s not far.”

Oliver experienced another unreasonable prickle of irritation at their easy closeness, not helped in the slightest by the sidelong glance Diggle gave him, as though checking to see how he was coping.

Like there was anything to _cope_ with.

“Two miles, and the land around it is covered with waste sugar,” she said, turning to Barry with a gleam of appreciation. “Get this — they had a truck stolen from them three days ago.”

Diggle frowned. “That seems like a while ago.”

“They’ve been busy,” Oliver said, finally. Diggle looked approving at the contribution, Barry cautious, Felicity like she hadn’t even heard. “Run a search for robberies in Starling City. They stole a truck for a reason — they need the capacity for what they’re carrying.”

“Anything in particular I should be scanning for?” she asked, as though she didn’t expect him to answer.

Oliver shut his eyes briefly, wanting to be wrong. “Blood,” he said, and she looked up, surprised. “Just do it, please.”

Barry actually raised his hand. “How do you k—?”

“I asked some of my…contacts,” he answered, carefully avoiding Diggle and Felicity’s stares. “They told me what to look for.”

“Oh.” Barry went back to the screen. “Useful contacts, I guess.”

“Okay, I see _weird_ and I raise you _bizarre_ ,” Felicity said, visibly confused. “The plates from the stolen truck were caught by a traffic camera about two minutes after a blood bank in the vicinity got robbed. 3000ccs of type-O.”

“A centrifuge, a super-strong thief high on ketamine, now blood?” Diggle said, like the combination counted as severely out of the ordinary, even in the scheme of their nocturnal activities.

They had no idea.

Oliver noticed that Barry was being unusually silent, rather than volunteering what he knew from his work in Central City. Which struck him as suspicious, contrasted against his eagerness at the start of the investigation. “Allen — you said there was a similar case in Central City?” he said. “What did they take?”

His instincts weren’t wrong. Oliver knew a bad liar when he saw one, and Barry Allen was one in spades.

“Right. Similar,” he said, scratching his head. “Kinda similar. On certain points. Not all the same.”

But Felicity gave Oliver a look, like it was his fault for flustering Barry.

“Track the plates,” he said to her. “Let me know where it is, as soon as you can.”

Without waiting for her answer, he drew Diggle aside, leaving Felicity and Barry at the worktables. “He’s lying,” Oliver said quietly. “Whatever reason he’s here, it’s not because of police business. I’m willing to bet his captain doesn’t even know he’s in Starling. Look into him — find out what he’s hiding.”

“Is that the only reason you want me to run a background check?” Diggle said, with a flicker of amusement. “Because I’m not gonna do it for every guy who shows an interest in our Miss Smoak.”

Oliver looked him in the eye, determined not to think about the sight of them together, heads bent, talking in low voices and finishing each other’s sentences. “He’s lying to her — and you, and me,” he said slowly.

Diggle uncrossed his arms. “You know, an omission can be as bad as a lie, and you’ve been holding something back about this robbery since minute one. How’s that any better?”

“Please,” Oliver said, quietly.

A moment passed, and Diggle seemed to decide that it wasn’t worth the argument.

“Copy that,” he sighed. “Just — don’t get too carried away, all right? She’s still your friend, no matter what else happens. You don’t want to burn that bridge too.”

Sometimes Oliver wished Diggle didn’t know him so well, especially at times like these.

* * *

Tommy had been lying on the couch in the drawing room, a wet towel over his face, for the better part of two hours, and the only thing he’d managed to do was nap, not come up with a plan to reverse the effects of attraction on a certain bombshell with the last name _Smoak_.

Well, not reverse. The effect he wanted was more of a refocusing. Reminding. Retrieving.

All that vocab made his head twinge, and he shifted slightly to get out of a patch of daylight.

A door slammed upstairs — the not-so-distant sound rattling inside his head like a bag of hammers — and he slouched deeper into the cushions, willing himself to be invisible from whoever it was…

He forgot that six-foot-something on a short couch didn’t bode well for those wanting to go unnoticed. “Well look what the cat dragged in,” Thea said, somehow not unpleasantly. “You look handsome.”

Tommy made a finger-gun in the vague direction of the stairs. “Thanks, but I feel like the cat that dragged itself inside to die.”

“At least you’re doing it on the puke couch,” Thea said, shifting his legs so that she could sit on the other end of the sofa. But she obligingly let him use her lap as an elevated footstool (such a sweet kid). “Was it you or Ollie who left that stain? I forgot.”

“Who can tell?” he grunted, and peeled part of the towel away from his eyes, wincing at the excessive whiteness of everything. “Where’s your other half?”

“Running the streets again, I think,” she said. “He might have a fetish for playing detective.”

“Charming.” Though Tommy had a more-than-good idea that Roy Harper was doing mini-Arrow business in the Glades, chasing down leads that Oliver was too busy to follow himself. “As long as the moneymaker stays intact. New Year's coming up, and I need to break the bank.”

“Mm. So what’s this I hear about _Santa Baby_?” Thea asked. “And before you fib your way out of telling me, someone from the office mentioned it to mom.”

Just hearing the two words was enough to set off a contagious replay inside Tommy’s cranium, and he groaned. “It was a _favor_ — your brother has a serious case of the _Wuss-Outs_ around the holiday season.”

“Who’s it this time?” Thea asked, too quick on the uptake. “Not his secretary, right?”

“His secretary’s a _he_ ,” Tommy said. “And that’s _not_ an invitation for you to keep guessing.”

She slapped him on the legs, and he winced again. “Someone’s a little touchy. Why? Did something happen?”

He shushed her. “Need sleep. Talk later. Monster go bye-bye.”

“Well, good morning, you two,” said a gentle voice. “Tommy, I wasn’t expecting to see you home after the party last night.”

Tommy didn’t need to peel back the towel to know it was Moira. “In recovery,” he said feebly. “If anything louder than a pin-drop comes knocking, send it to my voicemail, please.”

Thea snorted.

“Even if it’s a charming detective from the local precinct?” Moira asked, and he could tell from the slight rustle that she’d seated herself in an armchair. “Or maybe a bright young lady by the name of Miss Smoak?”

“Smoak?” Thea said, curious. “The one who works for Ollie?”

Tommy groaned. “One problem at a time, please.”

“I see.” There was a faint — but approaching — jingle, and he cracked one eye at the mildly threatening sound, ignoring Thea prodding at his legs because she wanted to know more about her brother's nonexistent love life.

“That’s fine, Raisa, thank you,” Moira said. “Just leave the boxes there.”

Tommy gingerly peeled the towel from his face, to see Moira sorting through cardboard boxes of Christmas decorations like it was the most normal thing to do. “What’s happening?” he said.

“Well, not to disturb your — ah — delicate recovery, but since the tree is due this afternoon, I thought I might sort through some of the decorations. We’ll need some for the party too, after all.”

Tommy’s stomach turned over at the idea of another party, and the various kinds of booze it entailed. “I forgot,” he muttered. “How many people this year?”

Moira smiled, in the middle of contemplating an ugly baby angel and a set of gold-and-blue baubles. Thea made a face at it, not just because it was a Christmas tradition for her to stage the fat angel’s mysterious disappearance until it was time to take down the tree.

“Around twenty-five, actually,” she answered, oblivious to Thea’s glare of pure loathing at the angel. “After the office holiday party, I thought it might be more pleasant for us to keep things to friends and family, and their guests, of course. But you, and Oliver, and Thea are free to invite anyone else. That sounds like a neat compromise between the tradition of Queen blowouts and a new decade of…keeping with the times, as it were.”

Tommy had a feeling he knew what she meant. “Is this about the Jewish table at the holiday party?” he asked.

“Something like that.” She stroked his cheek, before going back to decoration-sorting. “I want my children to be happy. Now, should we keep the antique angel, or throw it out?”

“Uh,” Tommy said, as the copious amount of age-old glitter flaked off onto his jeans, and a pair of uneven glass eyes goggled at him from a china head. God, Dollmaker, Dollmaker Demon Baby. “Throw. Far, _far_ away.”

Moira laughed and dropped it into one of the smaller boxes (Thea beamed in response). “Ah, the antique trumpets. Robert’s aunt gave them to us on our first Christmas as a married couple.”

“Keep,” Tommy said, deciding to save a golden wreath.

Thea pulled out a coil of silver tinsel and slung it around herself like a feather boa. “You know,” she said, with a significant look in his direction. “The Queens haven't had a problem that couldn’t be solved by a throwing a party.”

Tommy unearthed a bizarrely misshapen Santa’s beard from the box. Credit to Robert, probably, or maybe even Oliver, back when he still had a normal sense of humor. “Unless that party also includes throwing a certain CSI back to Central City, I think we might still have a problem,” he said darkly.

Moira couldn’t possibly have known about all the hot gossip — much less the annoyingly chipper Labrador puppy fresh off the Intercity Express — but she gently brushed the top of his head, as though to get rid of some residual glitter. “Tommy, sweetheart, I love Oliver as much as you do, but there comes a certain point where you can’t do all the fighting for him.”

Tommy felt like he was being sat down for pulling pranks, which made it about ten times sadder, because he hadn’t actually done any pranking yet. He was also about to appeal to her probable desire to see her grandchildren before the end of the world, but his phone cut him off pre-speech.

“You’ve reached Tommy the Extremely Well-Behaved,” he said, with a wink at Moira.

Eye-roll.

“ _Right_ ,” Diggle said dubiously, clearly deciding the sudden change in tone wasn’t worth the breath wastage. “Listen, I found something on the CSI.”

Tommy listened to Diggle for what felt like a full five minutes, though it probably was less. “Did you tell Oliver?” he asked, feeling — in spite of himself — slightly sorry for the little nerd.

“Unfortunately, yes. Something’s got him on edge, and I think he might be powering towards an overreaction. I was hoping you could rein him in before he drops the equivalent of a nuke on the whole situation. Can I trust you to do that?”

Tommy’s gaze went shiftily to Moira, who sighed softly. “Well, if you _must_ interfere, try to avoid any permanent damage,” she said.

He was off the couch and on his way out the door. “Easier said than done.”

* * *

As if Felicity’s day couldn’t get any weirder, she was in the middle of a call from Moira Queen. How did she even get the number?

“Yes, Mrs Queen,” she said. “I remember the invitation — it was very generous, I mean, black tie —”

“I just thought I’d make sure you were attending. Tommy and Oliver will be so pleased to see you,” was the firm answer. “I insist. I do hope our meeting last night wasn’t too unpleasant.”

“Of course not,” she said, facing her office window. “You’re very kind, Mrs Queen.”

“Excellent. Looking forward to it, then.”

She stared at her office phone even after Moira had hung up, in a tiny bit of a shock spiral.

“Everything okay?” Barry said. He’d been watching the news on her desk monitor, leaning on the wall with his long legs stretched out in front of him. “You look like you just saw a ghost. Though there _is_ actually conflicting science on whether people can see ghosts, or whether they’re just the result of inhaling fungal spores from old plaster-work. Not that I’m saying you inhale mushrooms — sorry — did something happen?”

Felicity still had the receiver in her hands, twirling the cord around one finger. “It’s kind of a long story, actually. My boss’s mom invited me to a party at their house. Well — mansion,” she corrected, and froze, mildly horror-struck at the realization. “Oh god, they live in a mansion, don’t they? What am I talking about — I’ve _been_ there.”

“Oh.” Barry looked suddenly awkward. “I didn’t know you and Oliver…were — you know. I mean, that explains a _lot_ — that guy can _glare_ , but —”

It took her a second to get what he meant, and it was like a baseball bat to the gonads (she guessed). “No, god no, no — Oliver, _me_ — no,” she said, waving the phone around like a baton. “I’ve just been there for a couple of work functions, that’s all.”

 _Including one where we both changed inside the same closet, at the same time_.

“I am _not_ with Oliver,” she declared, firmly tamping down the brief mental recollection of him in a white T-shirt. “We’re just friends.”

“Oh.” Barry’s smile was like a quiet compliment of its own. “Not gonna lie, I’m a little happy about not having to compete with a billionaire CEO.”

Felicity didn’t have a lot of experience with asking people out, but she had a feeling that was a pretty good segue by itself. The only problem being — she wasn't totally clear on the etiquette for black tie parties at mansions belonging to one’s boss, but she _was_ pretty sure that plus ones would be specified, and the last thing she wanted to do was make Barry crash anyone’s party.

It didn’t mean she couldn’t slip out a little early.

“Hey,” she said, her heart thumping a frantic drumbeat of its own against her ribs. “If you’re interested — only if you’re interested — there’s a really great taco place downtown. I have to go to this party, but…dinner? Eight-thirty?”

Barry actually looked around to see if she’d been talking to someone else. “Me?” he said, a hand on his chest. “For real?”

“I mean…yeah. How often am I gonna meet a guy outside a club, and then run into him because of a break-in a year later?” she answered, and they laughed.

“Tacos sounds amazing, but just forewarning you,” he said seriously, “I am _disgusting_ when it comes to guacamole. Can you handle that?”

 _Cuter, and cuter_. “I’ll do my best,” she said.

Judging by the look on Barry’s face, it was Christmas all over again. “So…it’s a date,” he said, looking adorably shy at the last word.

 _I have a date_.

“I —”

She trailed off, because Oliver was striding out of the elevators with a perfectly blank expression that could only spell trouble, as far as Mr _Emotionally Constipated_ was concerned.

“Oliver —” she said, but he cut across her.

“Last chance, CSI Allen,” he said. “Why exactly are you here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> DUN DUN DUUUUUN.  
> (PSA: This is a two-part update, there is a part III, please keep reading if you want to!!!)  
> (You'd think I wouldn't have to specify, you'd be surprised :P)


	14. Jealousy, Thy Name is Oliver Queen (Barry Allen, Part III)

All the color drained out of Barry’s face, and Felicity had to stop herself from physically getting between him and Oliver, who — while of a similar height, give or take an inch — had enough shoulder width to make Barry look like a high school swimmer. And that wasn’t even taking into account muscle mass or past homicidal tendencies.

“Oliver,” she said. “What’s going on?”

This went ignored.

“Why are you here?” Oliver repeated. “It’s not for police business, because your captain has no idea that you’re in Starling. It’s not for the crime lab, there’s no such thing as a similar case in Central City. Which means you came all the way here to work a case you have _no_ remote connection to — personally, or professionally. Talk, _now_.”

“ _Hey_ ,” Felicity said, taking serious issue with the tone — she’d heard it over the comms, when he was questioning a suspect at the point of a razor-sharp arrow.

Which meant Barry was the enemy in Oliver’s scenario, and Felicity was starting to see why, even if it was the last thing she wanted to believe.

Oliver glanced briefly at her, but it was a glance that warned her to stay out of it. “Well?” he said coolly, his attention back on Barry.

“Okay,” he said. “I was telling the truth about being with the CCPD crime lab, but I lied about a similar case. I came because of my own reasons.”

“Is this about your mother?” Felicity said.

Barry nodded, but she’d barely had the chance to turn to Oliver before he was rushing in for the kill. He threw a folder down onto Felicity’s desk, and the pages spilled across the glass.

There were too many of them to read at once, but one repeated word — six letters — jumped out at Felicity. _MURDER._ They were news articles, digitized copies of old papers from Central City, all about the murder of someone called Nora Allen.

_Allen._

She didn’t think it was humanly possible, but Barry had gone even paler.

“Mr Diggle ran a background check on you,” Oliver said, his tone unchanged. “Your mother was murdered — but I’m betting you didn’t tell Miss Smoak that your father’s in prison, because he was found guilty of killing her.”

“It wasn’t him!” Barry snapped, the first time she’d ever heard him raise his voice. “My dad didn’t do it — the police just assumed he did.”

“He was the only one in the house —”

“— that’s _not_ what happened,” he insisted, practically nose to nose with Oliver. “What the police think and what actually happened aren’t always the same thing. After your mother went on trial for the Undertaking, I thought you’d be the last person I’d have to explain that to, Mr Queen.”

Oliver looked like he very much wanted to punch Barry. “Excuse me?” he said, dangerously quiet.

“Oliver — _easy_ ,” Felicity said sharply, and both men looked around at her. “Barry, you told me your mother was murdered, so why did your dad —?”

Barry was the first one to step back, as though acknowledging that he owed her the explanation. He paced towards the windows, his hands shaking at his sides, like he didn’t know what to do with them.

Finally, he faced them again, but Felicity was the one he spoke to. “I know it sounds crazy, and that’s why my dad went to prison, because what I saw that night — in my house — was the definition of _impossible_. I was eleven when I woke up in the middle of the night, in my bed. I heard something, someone crying, so I went downstairs to see. My mom was in the living room, in the middle of a storm — a _lightning_ storm, red, and gold — but just for a second, I swore I saw something in the lightning. A man. My dad came downstairs too, and he tried to fight back. I remember she screamed for me to _run_. I couldn’t move a muscle, but suddenly I was twenty blocks away, in the middle of the street, in my pajamas, barefoot. By the time I ran home — she’d been stabbed through the chest, and the police thought my dad did it. I know you won’t believe me —” He turned to Oliver, and there was no malice in his voice “— but I know what I saw.”

“Barry…” she whispered.

He cleared his throat, like an apology wasn’t the point. “Felicity, the night we met, I told you that I was looking for the vigilante, and I still am. I wasn’t lying about getting justice for my mother, but the reason why I thought he might believe me — even if the cops wouldn’t — was _because_ of the impossible. That’s who he is. He saved a city no one thought was worth a damn, and he’s still doing it, night after night. I just thought…if there’s anyone out there who could do it — find out who, or _what_ really killed my mom — it’s the Arrow.”

Silently, Felicity turned her gaze on Oliver, and their eyes locked, with enough going unsaid — yet understood — to send a shiver up her spine. “That sounds like him,” she agreed, flatly.

He had the good grace to look away first, like he knew he’d done something wrong.

Barry’s eyes were unusually bright, and he blinked hard, scrubbing the base of his palm across one cheek. “It was wrong of me to mislead you. I’m sorry, Felicity, Mr Queen.” He took his jacket from the back of Felicity’s chair, ignoring her murmur of protest. “It was really nice seeing you again, but I think it might be better if I went home to Central City tonight.”

Felicity reached for him, and he hesitated. She managed to slide her palm along the underside of his arm, but it was as still as a stone under her touch, rigid with guilt, maybe something else. “You don’t have to go,” she said.

Barry’s smile was small, but determined. “I’m sorry about dinner,” he said, softer this time.

There was a brief press of his fingers against her pulse, and then he was gone, walking past Oliver with his head held high. Past Tommy as well, just then emerging from the elevators. He looked over his shoulder — taking in Barry’s expression — and hesitated in front of her office like he could sense the crackling tension inside the room.

“ _Please_ tell me I got here before anyone did anything stupid,” he said.

It was Felicity’s turn to ignore Tommy. She didn’t need to rack her brain to figure out who had come out better during the confrontation, but she bit her tongue, waiting for Oliver to say something.

This _one_ time, she needed to hear him try to justify himself.

“My instincts weren’t wrong,” he said dully, like even he knew it was a thin excuse. “He was lying. With everything going on — the robbery, the centrifuge — I thought he wasn’t what he seemed.”

“You _attacked_ him,” she whispered, because the alternative was yelling. “You used his mom’s death like it was another one of your arrows. What’s the excuse for that?”

Oliver looked at her, a flash of bright blue, and Felicity glared back. There was something bothering him about the theft, something he wasn’t sharing, but she’d seen him react under pressure before, and never like this. Taking his anger out on training dummies was one thing, and _destroying_ someone with information about his past was something else entirely. It wasn’t Oliver, the Oliver who sacrificed time and himself to save a city, the Oliver that Barry unknowingly believed in.

The Oliver who’d always been something more to her, the same person who — for several, blindingly short-lived seconds — managed to make her believe she might be something more to him too.

Suffice it to say that she was having an excruciatingly hard time not making a fist and punching the lookalike standing in front of her until he brought the real one back.

Felicity gathered up the folder of news articles and slammed the cover shut because she couldn’t bear to look at them. Oliver didn’t say a word when she slapped them back into his hands, and looked up into his face with anger blazing on hers. “For the record, _jealous asshole_ doesn’t suit you, especially since the last time I checked, there was nothing between you and me to be jealous about. But just in case I read the situation wrong — which I don’t think I have — we are the _last_ two people in the world who can pretend to have any moral high ground in honesty, much less judge someone else because of it. You haven’t been telling the truth since the robbery, and I am tired of making excuses for you because you have…some _terminal_ inability to be honest with me and John. I can’t help you unless I know what’s going on, and after what just happened, I’m not sure I want to.”

Without waiting for his answer (not that she had reason to expect one), she stalked out of the room to try and catch Barry.

Tommy tried to explain. “Felicity,” he began.

“Not now, Tommy,” she muttered, and left him to deal with the idiot standing in her office, who — as usual — had completely, and utterly missed the point.

* * *

“So when I awarded myself the prize for _Best Overreaction_ , I guess I jumped the gun, huh?” Tommy said, trying to get a stubborn string of Christmas lights looped around one of the ceiling pipes.

Oliver threw a tennis ball into the air and shot in the same breath, pinning it to the wall mid-bounce. Two more went the same way, until the plaster practice wall looked like it had a dozen fluffy chicks shish-kabobed in a bizarre (not to mention undecipherable) message. Lovely. Tommy vastly preferred the shirtless salmon-laddering or the violent dummy pummeling in terms of the sanity scale, but those were shirtless activities by habit, and Oliver only paraded himself around like a show pony whenever a certain someone was around. Which left the somewhat disturbing exercise not unlike something a serial killer might do in his basement.

Note to self: smart people would steer depressed BFFs away from sharp objects of any kind (projectiles, kitchen utensils, or otherwise).

Then again, smart people would also have made sure that said BFFs hadn’t blown up at his paramour. Well, to be accurate, his paramour’s paramour.

He sighed, and climbed down from the ladder, the knotted lights slung over one shoulder. “Buddy, just say you’re sorry.”

A tennis ball went crashing into a glass case. “For what?” Oliver snapped, whirling around with an expression so fierce that Tommy had the brief impulse to drop what he was doing and fear for his life.

Instead — because it was Oliver — Tommy gave him a look, ignoring the fact that he had a dangerous weapon and was about as friendly as a bristled porcupine. “Oh good, blow up again — going two for two, are we?”

Oliver ignored him, and went back to skewering tennis balls for archery practice.

“Oh brother,” Tommy muttered. “Well, _I’m_ sorry. Clearly, I forgot that you’re in a…uh…fragile emotional state, and my freakout freaked _you_ out, and then _you_ went and freaked out all over Mr Skinny Jeans from Central City. I should have sat you down and explained what I meant by ‘get off your ass and get the girl’. With diagrams. Detailed examples. Visual aids — wait, no — that’s porn. I am _not_ suggesting that I should have showed you porn.”

Oliver snorted rudely, and three more balls joined their friends on the plasterwork.

“Anyway, it was a tiny oopsie. A third-act complication. Definitely not worse than Moscow,” he promised, and stuck out a handful of Christmas lights. “Hey, you have fingernails, right? Gimme a hand with these.”

The look Oliver gave him had nothing to do with the lights. Tommy inhaled — sharply — steeling himself not to slap his best friend around the head, not in his quote- _fragile emotional state_ -unquote (his own words). “Okay, you screwed up. Epically bad. Still not as bad as Moscow, and you _can_ fix this. Felicity’s furious with you, but from what I hear, she’s also mad that you’re not spilling the beans about what has you on DEFCON 4, and to be honest — I’m kinda tired of not knowing either.”

Oliver didn’t look at him, continuing to study the tennis balls like there was something written in the yellow fuzz.

“Oliver,” Tommy said, in a very different voice. “Rip the band-aid off. What’s going on?”

“It’s the island,” he said, heavily.

Tommy waited, but it was like the emergency brakes had been turned on for Oliver’s truth-sharing mechanism. “ _Ollie_ , talk. Share. So all this has something to do with the island, and…?”

It was as excruciatingly slow as watching someone try to pass a kidney stone (he guessed), and Tommy was seriously considering pelting him with tennis balls until he got the whole story. Whether Oliver realized this or not, he started up again.

“The thief who broke into the warehouse — superhuman strength, enhanced reflexes, merciless killing instinct — I’ve seen men like that before. It was because of a formula, they’d been injected with it on the island, and it _made_ them that way.”

Oliver was nice enough to pause, as though allowing Tommy the time to digest what he was saying. Strangely, imagining Diggle’s reaction to super-strong, murderous muscle men made him feel calmer, but it still wasn’t great.

“A formula?” he said. “So…the blood, the stuff they’re stealing, it’s…to do it again?”

“A serum,” Oliver confirmed. “I think someone wants to recreate it, and they don’t care who gets hurt in the process.”

“Why didn’t you tell us?” Tommy said. “You thought we wouldn’t believe you? After — and I can’t believe I’m saying this — a guy ripped a crap-ton heavy machine out of the floor and walked away with it?”

Oliver shook his head. “Because I want to be wrong. The people injected with the formula are all dead, I made sure of that, and I burned the last of the serum. The fact that someone wants to make it again — the fact that they _have_ — it shouldn't be possible.”

“So what are we waiting for, then?”

“Felicity’s supposed to be tracking the plates from the truck they stole. If I’m right, they need one more thing besides the blood, and the centrifuge. A very strong sedative.” He glanced at her usual workstation — now empty — and his frown deepened.

“Digg said there was ketamine in the guy’s blood.”

Oliver nodded. “They’ll be after that next.”

“So correct me if I’m wrong, but until we know where the truck is, your plan is to just…brood until your personal life fixes itself — or self-destructs. Whichever comes first.”

“My personal life isn’t as important as this.”

“ _Bullshit_ ,” Tommy said, relishing the word. “Unless putting on that hood zaps the part of your brain that deals with feeling things, if you go out there to face _Big and Bad_ with half your head still on your nuclear waste heap of a personal life, worst-case scenario — you’re going to get yourself killed and I’ll have to dig out my best funeral suit. Now, I have no clue what to do in the field, but I _do_ know what’s eating Oliver Queen. You need to deal with what’s bothering you about Felicity.”

“Felicity and Barry seem very…compatible,” Oliver said, through his teeth. “I’m sure they don’t need my help.”

“No, they don’t,” Tommy said. “But right now, I’m pretty sure Felicity thinks you were being a douche to Barry because you’re jealous, which is problematic.”

“What, you’re not going to tell me that being jealous is a good way to show _how I feel about her_?” Oliver asked, managing to sound impressively sarcastic without the use of air-quotes.

For a guy who lagged behind on just about every pop culture reference ever, Oliver had a way of soaking up all the wrong parts of the zeitgeist. Like instead of sweeping declarations of love, he’d clam up and retreat into his man-cave. Like instead of cooking for a first date, he’d rustle up a bouquet of human skulls and a capuchin monkey in a cage.

Basically, not just _wrong_ , but _oh god kill it with fire_.

“Uh, _no_. She’s right, ‘jealous asshole’ is not a good look on that jawline. Here’s why: you had just about every minute since you met Felicity Smoak to make a move. You haven’t, because simply put — you got issues. So here comes Mr Dimples from Sunny Town Midwest, who has _no_ trouble whatsoever in looking at her like she’s the best thing since roasted coffee beans, and _shows_ it. And now that someone’s playing with Felicity — that came out _very_ wrong, but powering through — the _last_ thing you want to do is get mad, or dredge up his mom’s murder case _and_ his dad’s life sentence, because that doesn’t just make you a green-eyed asshat. It also makes you an incredibly good-looking, jealous asshat who can’t make up his mind.”

Tommy pretended to be holding one option in each hand like the most depressing weighing scale in the history of ever. “Chances are, and I think I have some pretty decent field evidence here, Felicity’s not gonna appreciate you kicking Barry’s ass into next Wednesday. Now if you’d — for instance — used a _hilarious_ Christmas song-related incident as a segue into how much you like her, and would rather not see her being serenaded on stage by some random male model —”

Oliver opened his mouth, showing every sign of wanting to autocorrect his wording, but Tommy waved him off.

“— things might have gone your way. I’m talking a kiss under the mistletoe. But that didn’t happen, and now you have to play this very carefully. Like, _green-wire, yellow-wire and a ticking time bomb_ -careful.”

“And how is telling her going to change that?” he asked, his tone making it perfectly clear that he thought it was a stupid suggestion (ouch). “You said it yourself — she’s met someone else. Whatever I do, it doesn’t matter.”

Oliver showed every sign of wanting to go back to shooting tennis balls, but Tommy hauled the basket out of the way. “Not my point — I’m here to help. Shenanigans, light booby traps, _et cetera_. How are you so okay with letting her go?”

For a moment, he wondered if Oliver was going to stick him somewhere with an arrow, but he dropped the bow in a surprising show of temper. “You saw the look on her face today,” he said furiously. “She smiles with Barry, she _laughs_ with him — with me, it’s like all we do is drive each other crazy. I want her to be happy, and after today, I don’t think anyone can pretend that I’m the person to make that happen.”

“Okay, you drive each other crazy,” Tommy admitted. “That’s a relationship. That’s yin and yang. That’s fireworks. Sameness is boring, and you don’t need sameness to finish each other’s sentences. You just need…” He snapped his fingers, looking for the word. “ _Chemistry_. Granted, I don’t know Skinny Jeans that well, but I do know my friends — and I don’t think I’ve ever seen two incredibly different people as perfect for each other as you and Felicity. You’re just chickening out because…a _temporary complication_ happened to get in the way.”

Tommy stared him down, until Oliver ran through his list of responses and came up short. “Really?” he said, reluctantly. “You believe that?”

_Insert profanity here._

Honestly, it was like he thought Tommy had been running around for the last two-ish months, breaking his back trying to get two oblivious adults together and exhausting any sort of credit he had with the Big Guy upstairs (and all his angels), all because there happened to be nothing good on TV.

Tommy pinched the bridge of his nose to keep from backhanding the beautiful SOB. “I mean…I could go into all the times she saved your life, or all the times you saved hers, or the _longing_ stares when the other one’s not looking, not to mention the fact that you become like _ten_ times more huggable when she’s in the picture, but that’s more time than we have. You have a party to get to, and you need an apology ready when she shows up, looking her usual kind of gorgeous. And _yes_ , dipstick, before you say anything, you’re apologizing.”

Oliver picked up his bow again, and Tommy held up both arms in a vague karate defense posture, wondering if he’d finally snapped. But his best friend just looked thoughtful.

“I think…” he said, slowly. “I think I have an idea.”

* * *

“This is the dumbest plan I’ve ever heard,” Tommy said, in a furious mutter. “I can’t believe I wasted a motivational rom-com speech on this horsesh—”

“Mr Queen,” Diggle interrupted. “The Delaneys were just looking for you.”

“Thank you, Digg. Great to see you again,” Oliver said, greeting the silver-haired couple with a smile. They were longtime friends of the family (before and after the trial), and Moira’s guests to the holiday party. “Grace, do you remember Tommy Merlyn? He was _just_ saying how much he wanted to show you and your husband the decorations in the garden.”

And that was how Tommy Merlyn ended up being marched away by a middle-aged couple, for a walk in a garden he was pretty sure still counted as muddy, if not an outright dripping wetland. _This isn’t over_ , he mouthed over one shoulder, and Oliver waved.

“You know he’s gonna get you for that, right?” Diggle said.

Oliver wasn’t in the mood to linger and chat, because he was on the lookout for someone. “I think we both know I owe him one.”

Diggle chuckled. By Queen standards, a party for any number less than fifty counted as small and intimate, but Oliver could still see and hear the promising sounds of music in the drawing room, cleared temporarily to act as a small ballroom. It was easily the least crowded party that had ever been thrown at the mansion, but the atmosphere was better, warmer. People were only there because they wanted to be, not for a scandal waiting to unfold (the murder trial had already beaten them to the punch), but to — in part — welcome his mother home. Thea was on the dance floor with Roy, a flash of bright blue between a handful of dancing couples. His mother, in warm Christmas red, was speaking to a few old friends over crystal flutes of champagne.

But he wasn’t looking for family.

“There she is,” Diggle said, a second after Oliver found her.

Felicity standing with Walter Steele, her shoulders bare in a pink dress that struck him as defiantly bright, starkly contrasted against the more subdued color schemes from his family’s older friends. Her hair fell in curls around her shoulders, and she was smiling at something Walter said, every inch the perfect guest, but he could tell from the way the folds of the ankle-length skirt twitched that she was fidgeting underneath it, still unaccustomed to parties with mostly strangers.

It was supposed to be his job to calm her nerves — unspoken, anyway — but if the color of her dress was an accurate reflection of her current temperament, he’d probably been fired, a fact he was guaranteed to discover if he cared to get too close.

Unfortunately, that was more or less the plan.

Oliver reached for a glass of champagne from a passing waiter and downed it hastily, ready to make his apology.

“Nervous?” Diggle said, always too understanding.

Oliver fixed the front of his tux. “What gave me away?”

“For what it’s worth,” he said warmly, “I think you’re doing the right thing.”

Oliver sincerely hoped that it would turn out to be true. “I really hope she doesn’t step on me,” he muttered.

* * *

Felicity was in the middle of regretting her neckline. Why did she keep going for dresses that went low? It being pink helped, because she was unashamedly proud of how good she looked in any shade south on the fuchsia scale (Barbie stereotypes notwithstanding), but still. In the vein of regrets, there was a half-decent argument to be made for her _yes_ reflex, which made her RSVP on the assumption that any party involving the combination of Merlyn and Queen couldn’t be half bad.

She hadn’t taken into account the rare — but aggravating — possibility that the Queen half could have vexed her to the point of homicidal wishful thinking.

In the scheme of things, having tacos with Barry at a restaurant downtown was something she _hugely_ preferred, over polite smalltalk with twenty-ish people she barely knew.

“Two parties in one week, Smoak?” she said to herself. “You need to work on your excuses.”

“I find a well-timed work emergency has the best effect,” said a familiar voice. “Urgent and unavoidable.”

Felicity only knew one person — non-fictional — with a clipped British accent, and she spun around with something like relief. “Mr Steele,” she said, laughing a little from the nerves. He was alone with a drink, something she deeply sympathized with, having the occasional party jitters of her own. “How are you?”

“Given the circumstances, I think it might be acceptable if you called me Walter,” he said kindly. “And I’ve been very well, thank you for asking.”

“ _Walter_ ,” Felicity said, trying (and failing) to resist the temptation to imitate his accent. She felt like a teacher had just asked her to use his first name ( _stop giggling, no giggling_ ). “I wasn’t expecting to see you here — after…”

She trailed off, realizing mid-sentence that bringing up his divorce to the party hostess was probably a bad idea.

“… _November_ ,” she recovered. “I heard it was a — um — British thing. God save the Queen and all that, home for Christmas.”

“Well, I can’t pretend I don’t miss London, after the weather we’ve been having,” he said, with a gleam of good-natured humor. “Though I have missed your refreshing honesty — there’s not nearly enough of that in the world of banking.”

Felicity smiled nervously. “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to parties like this.”

“Where’s Oliver?” Walter said, a neat little frown on his face. “I was under the impression the two of you were friends. Surely he hasn’t left you to fend for yourself in a party full of strangers?”

“Well…” she began, wondering if there was a socially acceptable euphemism for having had an epic-ish spat with the boss’s son.

But Walter spoke to someone over her shoulder. “Ah, there you are,” he said, and Oliver stepped into the conversation like he’d just ducked out for a second. “I was just telling Felicity that you wouldn’t have left a lovely young lady such as herself alone during a soiree.”

“Of course not,” Oliver said smoothly. “I just let her out of my sight for a second.”

Felicity’s first impulse was to turn the color of a tomato, because her last furious rant had brought up the words _jealous_ and _asshole_ in close proximity, but she shot him a withering glare while Walter signaled to a waiter for champagne. Oliver, annoyingly in his home element (metaphorically and literally, given the party venue), just gave her the facial expression equivalent of a lukewarm towel.

“It’s such a relief to see Moira home with you and Thea,” Walter said, as Oliver accepted some champagne (ah, what she wouldn’t give to rub his nose in it). “I was so pleased at the result.”

“So are we,” Oliver answered. “But it’s going to be a quiet Christmas without you this year, Walter.”

“Well.” He looked down at his glass. “A fact of life, I’m afraid. Certain things were destined to be short-lived.”

 _You have no idea_ , Felicity thought to herself, and wondered if it was time to make an excuse (or do a _Walter_ ) and slouch home alone for an evening of Netflix and rage-eating microwave popcorn, but weirdly enough — Oliver beat her to it.

“I’m so sorry, Walter, but I was wondering if I might steal Felicity for a dance.”

Felicity almost inhaled an ill-timed sip of fancy champagne. She patted her chest as discreetly as burning sinuses allowed, simultaneously careful not to cause a wardrobe malfunction in front of the _last_ two people she wanted as witnesses. “I’m…not so hot on the dance floor,” she said, her voice sandpapery from the choking “No, thank you, Oliver.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’s not true,” Walter said. “I heard you were quite the dancer at the Queen Consolidated holiday party last night.”

Felicity blushed up to her ears at the thought of _Santa Baby_. “I swear I was standing still the whole time — Tommy was —”

“Nonsense, Oliver asking anyone to dance might as well be a cosmic event. Comets pass by more often than that — I insist.”

To her complete and internal-screaming horror, Walter was already waving them off, and Oliver’s hand was open, waiting for her to take it. Felicity’s reluctance converted her smiling acquiescence into a muted _slap_ of her palm into his, a show of force completely disregarded as he steered her neatly towards the dance floor.

“I don’t think you want me dancing with you right now,” she said through her teeth. “I get stompy when I’m annoyed, and I think you need your feet to jump off rooftops, don't you?"

_Or run away from ever having to confront the truth._

Oliver chuckled like she’d said something funny. “I think I’ll live.”

His mouth was near her ear, and she’d have swatted at him like a fly, but he had her swatting hand politely restrained in a firm archery-honed grip. At a certain invisible point that went completely over her head (along with twenty-four years of nonexistent dance classes), Oliver seemed to decide that they’d crossed over onto the dance floor, and turned around to assume the appropriate position.

With practiced ease, his free hand slid to the middle of her back, the other still firm around hers, and just like that, they were dancing. The music was as slow as molasses, something string quartet-ed beyond recognition and zero help for the uncoordinated in dance, which made her primary concern not stumbling on anyone or anything. Felicity avoided looking anywhere near Oliver’s face, but kept her face on smile-autopilot, because they were the focus of some attention from the other guests. Oliver Queen, famous playboy and paparazzi-puncher, only somewhat reformed.

Which would make her the flavor of the evening.

Yet another tick in the _Reasons to Be Annoyed With Oliver_ column.

“You look very nice tonight,” he said, after about a stretched minute of slow-dancing silence.

Felicity wasn’t interested in fishing for compliments. At the risk of sounding somewhat obvious, when she’d imagined her first dance with Oliver, the burning urge to stomp on his toes had _not_ factored into that mini-fantasy. “I meant what I said, Oliver,” she answered, trying not to slip into another angry whisper. “You —”

“I know.” His breath tickled her ear. “And I’m sorry. I overreacted, and you were right — about everything.”

She turned her head so quickly that her cheek almost caught against his jacket, because _everything_ implied that she’d been right about the jealousy too.

Somehow, she couldn’t quite bring herself to ask, in case she was wrong.

“You reminded me that I haven’t been telling you the truth either," he continued.

Felicity finally leaned back, so that their eyes met. “And are you going to?” she asked. “The truth?”

“Not here, but I will. Any luck with the plates?”

The abrupt change in tone didn’t even surprise her anymore; she was getting so used to having one eye on Foundry business, even if she was in a pair of high heels and a floor-length dress.

“Algorithm’s scanning every traffic camera in the city. As soon as they make a move, we’ll know.”

“Good.” Oliver smiled a little, like he’d thought of something amusing. “We’re quite the pair, aren’t we, Miss Smoak?”

“Because we never disagree, Mr Queen?” she said sarcastically.

There was something a little different in his voice, something almost wistful. “Because we always wind up on the same team, in the end,” he told her, without any trace of irony. “Anyway, I know I’m not the person you want to be dancing with.”

Felicity stared laconically at the Christmas decorations. “That’s nice, but I’m sure he’s on a train back to Central City as we speak.” _You practically bought him the ticket._

“No, he isn’t,” Oliver corrected. “He’s right over there.”

Forgetting they were mid-dance, Felicity turned without thinking, and sure enough, Barry Allen was at the open door, nervous in a suit and tie. But _there_. Smiling at her. “You —”

“I called and invited him to the party. As an apology.” Oliver gave her a gentle nudge around the waist. “We're lucky he has a habit of missing trains. I think he deserves to cut in, don’t you?”

She shook her head at Oliver, wondering how someone could be so exasperating, and so impossible to hate, all at once. “Is it too hard to skip the flaming disagreements and the shouting?” she asked, a little lost for speech.

“Where’s the fun in that?” he said, in her ear this time. “Just so you know, I’m pretty sure Tommy told all the waiters and bartenders that he’s underage, so he’d better have some ID in that ridiculous CSI kit of his.”

Felicity laughed, this time for real, and squeezed Oliver’s hand. “Thank you.”

“You never have to thank me.” He nodded to Barry, who’d stepped up to take his place. “Glad you could make it, Barry.”

“Merry Christmas, Oliver,” Barry answered, infallibly bright as ever. “May I?”

Felicity’s last glimpse of Oliver was him retreating to the side of the room, a smile on his face, and Barry was taking her hand. “So, I kinda forgot to warn you that I’m a horrible dancer,” he said, looking nervously at his shoes. “Mexican food and being on my feet are my two greatest weaknesses.”

She beamed. “I’m willing to risk it.”

* * *

Oliver slipped out into the garden. The air was cool and damp from a full day’s rain, but he breathed in deep, relishing the taste of the fresh air. He could still smell Felicity’s perfume, her soap, how she was so close that she'd only needed to whisper for him to hear her, and the way her body had inadvertently pressed against his while they were dancing. It was enough to cause a dull ache at the thought of her and Barry Allen, but fair was fair. He'd screwed up, and this was what it cost to make things right.

“So, you did it,” Tommy said. “Stupid decision, but Devil’s Advocate here gives it one moral upvote, so I guess it’s a draw.”

Diggle chuckled, and withdrew a bottle of whisky from the inside of his suit jacket. Tommy had three glasses waiting, and Oliver watched as his infallible system of support cooperated to raise his blood alcohol beyond normal social drinking standards.

“Cheers,” Diggle said, tapping the rim of his glass against Oliver’s. “Very proud of you.”

Tommy took a sip and winced, his expelled breath a puff of white mist in the cold. “I still think we should have gone with Plan A,” he said. “I lure _High School Musical_ out into the garden, Diggle hits him on the head with the shovel, and Oliver goes and sweeps Felicity off her feet.”

“Oh yeah, because a first-degree murder charge is _just_ what any first date needs,” Diggle answered. “Why am I the one with the shovel?”

Tommy made a _psh_ sound under his breath. “Please, like you could lure a red-blooded man out into a garden. When I flirt, it’s sexy come-hither — when you do it, it’s premeditated conspiracy.”

Oliver started to laugh, feeling like he hadn’t done it in ages.

“You…okay?” Tommy asked, warily. “Gone a little cuckoo from the fire in your pants?”

Oliver shook his head. “Nothing,” he said, because it probably was. “This is terrible whisky, by the way.”

“It’s the fire in your pants, Oliver,” Diggle answered, straight-faced. “It’s killing your taste buds.”

He chuckled at the teasing, but that was okay. Felicity liked Barry, and she was probably going to end up dating him. Which would be terrible — for many reasons — but a part of Oliver, a very small part he’d still not quite accustomed himself to, was holding out hope. That one day, maybe in a month, six months, or even a year, Felicity Smoak was going to wake up and realize that she wanted something different.

_Someone different._

Besides, Diggle had said it best. They all wanted her to be happy, and Oliver did — he did want that for her.

“Sucks, doesn’t it?” Tommy said, filling his glass again.

“Little bit,” he agreed. “But I’m not giving up.”

Diggle clapped him on the shoulder. “That’s the spirit.”

* * *

Barry peered around the corner to get a better look at the Queen mansion, all dark wooded panels and chandeliers and imposing staircases, and mouthed _wow_. “So this is what working for a billionaire feels like,” he said. “Does it still count as a house party if it’s a million-dollar mansion?”

“No idea,” Felicity answered, pulling the heels off her aching feet. “My experience in college-age partying kinda hit a wall after an accidental pot brownie and a trip to the emergency room for my nut allergy.”

Barry _mm_ -ed in sympathy. “Got stuck up a tree because the guy had a Doberman who decided he wanted to eat my shoes. Not a lot of partying up there, just a lot of spiders.”

Felicity laughed, resting her head against the wall. They were sitting on the floor of a tiny alcove off the mansion foyer, mostly hidden by a sliding wood panel and the noise-cancelling antique carpeting. She’d taken off her shoes, Barry had loosened his tie, the two of them hiding out in a closet like kids at a grownup party. “Oliver showed me this spot,” she said, in answer to his wordless question. “He knows I get nervous at parties, and Queen Consolidated has a _lot_ of those.”

Barry looked down at his hands with a little smile. “You and Oliver sound like really good friends. He really takes care of you — I mean, the parties, mysterious strangers from out of town who ask you out on dates…”

Felicity realized that he was watching her, and she shook her head, laughing a little. “For the record, _I_ asked _you_ , and Oliver’s overreaction — _protective_. Not…the other thing.”

“Jealous,” Barry said, like it was the conclusion of a careful investigation. “I honestly can’t blame him for that.”

“Trust me, I’m not the type of girl guys get jealous over. I promise you that I am just a panda-sweater-wearing, Netflix-binger, technology-loving IT enthusiast on the inside. Nothing sexy to see here.”

Felicity hoped she hadn’t sold the geekiness a little too hard, but Barry was still smiling, like the combination of herself and panda sweaters hadn’t already cancelled out the possibility of dinner in his mind. “I guess…we’ll just have to agree to disagree,” he said, making her face get warm all over again.

But something was still bugging her, and she wanted to make it right — even if she wasn’t quite sure how.

“I’m sorry about today,” she said, honestly. “I mean, the stuff with your mom and dad — I didn’t know.”

He shook his head, serious now. “It’s important to me. It’s what pushed me to become a CSI, it’s what makes me go after the weird and unsolvable cases, so why shouldn’t people know? Oliver wasn’t wrong to be suspicious.”

“But he was wrong to bring it up like that,” she said.

Barry was too nice to agree with anything other than silence. He also started vibrating, which made the both of them jump. “Phone — phone —” he said, fumbling to get it out. “Oh god, it’s my captain. Be-professional-be-cool-be-professional-be—”

There was something seriously the matter with her if she thought a twenty-something-year-old-guy clutching his cell to his chest (while muttering a positive hype-up incantation) was incredibly cute.

“Captain Singh,” he said. “I — yes, I _am_ out of Central City, y—no, I don’t have really bad diarrhea, yes — I know you’ve seen me eat my way through five street tacos and still be fine. I do — I do value my job in the CSI department, very, _very_ much, sir.”

It was Felicity’s turn to look down at her hands, because she knew what was coming next. Barry still looked at her anyway, his shoulders deflating like a balloon letting out air. “I’ll be on the next train home,” he said, making it sound like an apology to her. “Tonight — yes, sir. Absolutely.”

He hung up, looking the way she did after a conversation with Isabel.

“You gotta go,” she guessed.

“I keep missing out on dinner,” he answered.

“Some other time,” she said. “Maybe over the phone.”

Barry’s eyes lit up. “I could eat street tacos over Skype,” he said. “If you keep Emergency Services on speed-dial.”

Felicity laughed, and smoothed her skirt flat over her bent knees, trying not to look too disappointed. “Thank you for the dance, Barry.”

They both knew what the other wouldn't say. It wasn't practical. He had a job in Central City, she had _two_ in Starling. He probably had family, she had friends and complicated baggage, and it was just...a lot to expect from something as basic as having chemistry. So she wasn't expecting him to ask, and she wasn't expecting to answer.

Instead, Barry leaned forward, but not for what she’d expected. He took one of her hands, holding it palm up in his own as though there was something he wanted to study. His fingertips brushed the back of her knuckles first, then the rest of her palm, cautiously slow, like it was something meant to be handled with special care. There was something earnest about the way he studied their hands — the small instance of physical contact — and she felt her fingers stretch in response, like a flower starved of sunlight, making him smile.

“I’m just thinking…” he began, his thumb tracing one of the lines in her palm, “I mean, one year ago, when I met a pretty girl outside the club — I _wish_ I’d been brave enough to ask her out.”

“Then maybe we wouldn’t be sitting in a closet,” Felicity prompted.

He laughed quietly, following the train of thought. “At someone else’s party.”

“And you wouldn’t have to go,” she whispered.

“Because you’d be coming with me,” he whispered back.

 _One year ago_ , one year today. No one could say what _might have_ , _could have_ , but it made Felicity a little bit happier to think that Barry wished he’d said something too.

“Maybe we’ll get the timing right one day,” he said, and just like the last time they’d crossed paths, she could tell it was meant to be a goodbye.

“You have a train to catch,” she answered, and they smiled the same smile, because maybe — just maybe — this meant they had a track record of meeting again.

Eventually.

* * *

Felicity heard talking as she made her way down the Foundry steps, thoroughly dressed down for work in pants and a sensible coat, heels looped around her wrist, swishy evening dress slung over one arm. She lingered on the staircase, taking in the reassuring low murmur, three voices belonging to the three people she knew would be on her team, like Oliver said, no matter what.

“Hey,” Tommy said, when she finally reached the basement. “Where’s the Sunny Cupcake man? Tuckered out from the dancing?”

The guys were all in various states of formal dress-down, sleeves partially rolled up and suit jackets discarded — which helped, like chicken soup during a bad cold. “Ha ha,” she answered, stopping by for a scratchy cheeky kiss from Tommy (difficult habit to shake, probably because of the scruff). “His boss found out he didn’t have inconvenient stomach trouble, so he has to be on the next train home.”

“Sorry,” Diggle said, sounding very much like he meant it. “Are you guys meeting up soon?”

She shrugged, catching Oliver’s eye without meaning to. “Prior evidence points to another accidental face-to-face, probably sometime next year,” she sighed.

“He can always count on the impossible happening in Starling City,” Oliver said, quietly.

There was something a little different in his voice, except she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. But as far as he was concerned, Felicity took it as a sign that Barry wouldn’t get dropped by a mysterious arrow the next time he showed up within city limits, and she appreciated the effort. Smiling a little, she draped the garment bag over her open chair and sat down, her place in the circle made up of her three boys. “So,” she said. “What’d I miss?”

It didn’t escape her that their first response was one of those three-part _man_ looks, like they thought she wouldn’t notice.

“Oh,” Tommy said, his voice shaking a little from something that might have been laughter. “Nothing much. Oliver? Something to share with the class?”

Sparing a hard glare for his best friend, Oliver straightened up from where he’d been leaning on the table, and moved closer to the center of the informal circle.

“I haven’t exactly honest with everyone,” he said. “Especially you —” this was directed at Diggle “— and you.”

That was just for her.

“Well,” Felicity said, slowly, “better late than never, right?”

Oliver looked down at his shoes with a half-hidden smile, like he was remembering their conversation at the highly eventful holiday party, one best described with the word _almost_ , just floating around in the inconvenient subtext of it all.

“The truth is,” he began, “I’ve seen men with abilities like the thief who stole the centrifuge. It was my second year on the island, and I stumbled across the remains of a Japanese military experiment from the 1940s.”

“World War II,” Diggle said.

“Right. The end goal was to make human soldiers and use them against the Allies, but the project never made it in time. There was a doctor — a man called Ivo — who’d heard the rumors, and he came looking for it. Human experimentation, he wanted to see the results with his own eyes.”

“Did he?” Felicity asked.

“He’s dead,” Oliver answered, as though he knew what she’d meant. “But the serum — they called it the _Mirakuru_ , the Miracle — it worked. And the people injected with it all turned out like the thief, only worse.”

“By _worse_ , I’m assuming you mean better at killing than just breaking someone’s neck with one hand,” Diggle said.

Oliver inclined his head, and it dawned on them — well, Felicity, at least — that they were legitimately talking about human weapons, science fiction turned real life, all from the island. Yet another story Oliver had been reticent about sharing, and she couldn’t exactly blame him for that.

But the impossible functioning against the confines of reality was pretty much a regular Wednesday for them, and Felicity had bigger concerns. Namely how to beat the superhuman killing machine with some serious drug enhancements.

“So how are you going to stop him?” she asked, because no one else seemed to want to.

Oliver’s fingers clenched at his sides, like he was imagining an arrow shaft in his hand. “The same way I stopped them on the island,” he said. “An arrow through the eye.”

Which didn’t quite answer her question, but her follow-up was interrupted by the tracking alert she’d set on the truck plates. Felicity swiveled in her chair, and everyone converged on the screens to see what she was looking at. “Traffic camera on Fifth and Nelson spotted the plates. They’re heading out of town.”

“No,” Oliver shook his head. “They have the centrifuge. Their base of operations has to be somewhere in the city.”

“Then they’re after something,” Diggle said.

“Ketamine, right?” Tommy suggested. “You said the serum thingy needed a sedative.”

“Doesn’t exactly narrow things down. You can get anything off the streets these days,” Diggle said darkly.

Felicity was opening a new search. “True, but ketamine’s a schedule III controlled substance under national drug administration. They use it legitimately in hospitals, and I’m betting the friendly neighborhood drug dealer can’t stock up on illegal surgical anesthesia in bulk, not in the quantities they need to match how much blood they stole.”

“You have an idea,” Oliver said.

“Ju-st a few,” she answered, without taking her attention from the scan. “There’s only a few reasons anyone would stockpile that much ketamine in one place — emergency shipments for hospital shortages, disaster relief supplies — but since we helped fix the first thing by putting away China White, that leaves disaster relief. After the Undertaking, I’m not surprised that a couple of government bigwigs thought it was a good idea to shore up emergency supplies just in case.”

“What’s _that_?” Tommy said, staring at search results.

“I cross-referenced disaster relief supply sites with the route the truck’s taking, and that’s the only one matching the current direction of travel,” she explained.

“Doesn’t look like much,” Diggle remarked.

Felicity agreed. “The best secret weapons are the ones that don’t look like it, and I’m guessing the same logic applies to secret supply storage. ARGUS-run emergency bunker, on the outskirts of the Glades. It has enough ketamine to knock out an army of elephants, and still leave some spare change. That help?”

“Good work,” Oliver said shortly, already on the move.

“Oliver —” Diggle got up, followed by Tommy “—where the hell are you going?”

“The ARGUS bunker,” he replied. “We don’t have a lot of time.”

“Yeah, and neither will you — if you head in there without a plan to stop the rampaging killing machine with super-strength,” Tommy added. “You can’t be serious.”

While the two of them attempted to talk sense into the team’s resident hothead, Felicity had gotten out of her chair, and now stepped between the Arrow suit and its owner. Oliver stopped, even though his bow and arrows were within easy reach. “What?” he said, softly.

Diggle and Tommy both stayed at a distance, as though they trusted her to be the last-ditch effort in convincing Oliver to stay.

“They both care about you, Oliver,” she said, her voice dropped to match his. “This guy managed to sustain close-range gunfire from two Queen Consolidated security guards, and all he left was a couple of blood drops. You may have stopped men like him before, but I don’t like the idea of you going out there with a couple of arrows, against someone with the muscle density of a concrete wall.”

It unnerved her that Oliver wasn’t voicing any kind of disagreement. Instead, his eyes moved slowly over her face, taking it in.

“Do you trust me?” he asked, like it was that simple.

Felicity was suddenly aware of how close he was, and the fact that she _wanted_ to believe he could, heart against head, the impossible against everything she knew.

And that she couldn’t hate him, still.

“Yes,” she answered.

He nodded, as though it was a _thank you_ , and reached past her to get his gear. “Good,” he said, but it was an earpiece he came away with — the kind everyone used for field comms — instead of his bow. Like it was the first thing that mattered. “And I won’t be alone — I have you.”

* * *

The bunker was disproportionately in shadow, the overhead swing lights beating down on consecutive circles of blazing white concrete. Every step seemed to echo, and Oliver's senses prickled as he walked through the perpendicular aisles, the shelves forming a towering maze on all sides.

“I don’t know if Lyla takes suggestions, but ARGUS really needs to work on making itself more accessible,” Felicity grumbled over the comms. “As if hacking their security wasn’t hard, there’s some kind of shielding in the bunker walls that’s blocking thermal imaging.”

“I’ll be sure to bring that up the next time we go out on a date,” Diggle deadpanned. “I’ll just tell her it makes my illegal night job so much easier if her boss takes down a few firewalls.”

“Their encryption actually uses a polymorphic encryption algorithm that makes it — oh, you were being sarcastic.” Felicity continued to type. “Any chance you’ll reconsider the _risking your neck_ part of the mission, Oliver?”

“I’m one row down from the medical supplies,” he reported.

“I think that means _no, baby_ , _we’re all good here,_ ” Tommy translated.

Neither Oliver nor Felicity commented to correct him.

 _I won’t be alone — I have you_.

Oliver felt stupid just thinking about it, and twisted his neck uncomfortably at the reminder of what he’d said, pretending his suit chafed. Felicity always looked surprised whenever he let slip what she meant to him — maybe Tommy wasn’t too far off the mark when he’d pointed out the difference between himself and Barry.

Not now. Not here.

They’d have time for that later, always later.

Right now —

“Felicity, I’m here,” he said. “I don’t see —”

It was like something in the shadows reacted to his presence, a snake rearing out of the tall grass to strike. Oliver turned at the last second and dodged a barrel that sailed into the shelves and dented the metal beams like they were made of tinfoil.

“ _Oliver!_ ”

He didn’t have time to answer. The thief was moving, his shadow stretching across the floor as he strode into the light. He was tall, taller than Oliver, dressed all in stealth black, with some kind of metallic mesh covering his face like a mask, like a skull without the eyes. His arm drew back for the swing, and Oliver threw himself across the floor, and the punch passed narrowly along the top of his hood like the scrape of a knife across skin.

The momentum brought him behind the thief, and Oliver twisted, two arrows loosed rapid-fire. The wires zipped around the concrete pillar at his back, binding him at the throat and middle.

“Who do you work for?” he demanded. “Who gave you the Mirakuru?”

The questions went ignored, and the thief continued to struggle. “I can find out where he’s been if I have a shot of his face,” Felicity said, still sounding nervous.

“He has a mask.” Oliver advanced, cautiously. The mesh was secured with straps that passed behind his head, which meant he couldn’t do anything at a distance.

“Be careful, I don’t think he wants to talk.”

There was a sound like a bullet, and one of the anchor points on the restraining wire bounced off the floor with a puff of concrete dust. Oliver had a feeling the face was leering beneath the mask, and with one tug of his freed hand, the thief ripped the wire away from his throat.

Oliver swore.

“Get out of there!” Tommy yelled. “Ollie — get the hell out of there, _now!_ ”

Oliver ignored him. He could still finish this — he’d done it before. Movement against strength, he had to be fast, he had to think faster. Another barrel went flying at him, and he rolled again, firing arrows that bounced off the thief’s chest like it was made of stone.

Which meant he had to drive them in by hand.

Diggle was shouting now. “Oliver, stand down!”

Oliver jerked his head in a refusal they had no way of seeing. He could still do this. The thief was bracing to swing — he ducked, blocked a knee with his bow as a quarterstaff, an arrow in his fist…

He drove it into the thief’s leg, but it met flesh with a jolt that shot up his wrist and into his shoulder, like trying to gouge a hole in solid concrete. Blood oozed from the wound, sharpening the air with the smell of rust.

A part of Oliver hadn’t wanted to believe the Mirakuru was possible, not again, and it was a moment of disbelief — of hesitation — that allowed the thief to get past his guard. Undeterred by the arrow embedded in his thigh, his fist sank into Oliver’s stomach and he tasted blood. The next kick sent him rolling across the concrete, and he slammed into a steel post, hard enough to force the air out of his lungs.

“Oliver — _Oliver_!”

Vise-like fingers closed around Oliver's throat, and the thief hurled him bodily across the room, like he weighed absolutely nothing.

Oliver collided back-first with a row of shelves, crates breaking from the force of it, their contents raining down on his head and shoulders. The impact made his ears ring, and he struggled to get free of the debris, to keep moving.

The shadow crossed the lit floor, but it wasn’t towards him. The thief was moving — had moved — like he had more pressing concerns than the Arrow, a neutralized threat. Dimly, he could hear Diggle and Tommy shouting, but it was like his limbs had just…stopped responding. He’d lost his bow somewhere, and now his breathing was getting slower — more difficult — a weight pressing on his chest.

Something glass splintered again, he’d only managed to shift his leg, clumsily, moving like he was in drugged haze.

 _Drugged_.

Pinpricks in his skin, too far away to reach, and he could barely turn his head to see. He could hear his blood thumping in his ears, abnormally loud and slowing down, molten metal oozing through his veins.

“I — I —” Oliver croaked.

But he already knew it was too late.

What occurred to him — absurdly — as his vision turned black and hazy at the fringes, was Felicity, back in the Foundry, safe — at the very least. Her voice had been missing throughout the fight, and he could see her hands cupped over her mouth, white-faced, struggling not to make a sound in case she missed something, listening to each crash and grunt and muffled thud, waiting, waiting for him to say something, to tell her he was all right.

His hand slipped when he tried to reach out, though for what, or who, he couldn’t quite remember. It slid past his thigh and landed heavily on the floor, but he remembered what his last thought was, _who_ his last thought was, as he slipped — quietly, easily — into the dark.

* * *

Thank god the bunker wasn’t far. Felicity remembered how pale Diggle’s knuckles looked, tight around the wheel, Tommy’s low murmur of _go faster go faster_ , as constant as a prayer. Rain. Rain again.

Lightning split the sky into two jagged pieces, but she barely even flinched. She hated how _always_ sounded like a challenge to her — now, when each second of radio silence meant that Oliver could be dying, alone in a windowless room ten feet beneath the ground — like saying he'd always come back was tempting fate to prove them wrong.

 _Please, please, please_.

It was pouring by the time they tore into the front lot, where Oliver's bike lay on its side in the mud. Diggle pulled out his gun at the sight of it, advancing with a look she’d never seen before, closed off and controlled, like he was holding back on emotion until time wasn’t pressing down on them, like he was already expecting the worst.

Tommy gripped Felicity’s arm as they got out to keep her from sliding.

“He’ll be fine,” he said, over the icy rain.

Felicity nodded, shivering as the water soaked her to the skin, and he didn’t let go at the moment they all broke into a run. The bunker door had gone pretty much the same way as the warehouse door at Queen Consolidated, and Diggle went into the downward staircase first, flashlight over his gun, the narrow white beam catching corners and glints of metal that made Felicity dig her fingers into Tommy’s jacket sleeve every time she thought she saw a face in the darkness.

Water dripped from their clothes, echoing _plink-plink_ as they descended via the spiral stairway. The architecture had forced them into a bottleneck space, and Felicity breathed a sigh of relief when they finally reached the supply level. “Eyes out,” Diggle said. “This isn’t a safe zone.”

Part of the lighting had gone out, amber sparks showering from a frayed wire that still hummed with live electricity.

Tommy was the first one to ask the question on everyone’s minds. “How do we know the guy isn’t still here?”

Diggle’s gun clicked. “We don’t.”

“Oliver'll be where the surgical supplies are,” Felicity answered, her voice just barely shaking. They were running out of time. “The tracker in his suit’s still live.”

Her flashlight sliced through the darkness as she took the lead, the tablet in her hands providing an additional glow. Tommy and Diggle followed, silent except for the harshness of their breathing.

The overhead light was flickering now, as they took a turn into the next quadrant, but Felicity knew they were in the right place when her shoe sent an arrow skittering unseen into the dark.

“Oliver?” she breathed.

It was like she’d set off some kind of signal, and the others started calling for him too. She could hear Diggle sweeping past the debris, overturning heavy crates — broken and splintered like animal bones — Tommy just searching, searching for his best friend…

Glass crunched beneath her heels. In the strange, terribly-timing way that inappropriate thoughts interposed themselves during a panic, Felicity found herself trying to pin down precisely what Oliver was to her. As she frantically scanned the broken boxes and shelves for signs of life, her mind kept turning, turning, turning.

Her _what_? Friend? Almost-something?

Why did it matter? Because she knew that she was about to lose him for good?

Her breath came sharp and unsteady, and she almost missed the gleam of color towards the side. “Oliver,” she said, and again, _louder_. “ _Oliver!_ ”

He was pinned beneath something, but Diggle was already there, helping her shift it. The hood was crooked, only half-hiding his face. She tipped his head up to get a better look, but he wasn't responding, his eyes out of focus, the skin beneath and around the greasepaint shiny with perspiration.

 _Poison_.

“Ollie!” Tommy was slapping his face, trying to get him to wake up. “What happened? Oliver!”

A flashlight beam hovered on his chest, unmoving. “I don’t think he’s breathing,” Diggle said, very quietly.

“No, no, no —” Felicity shoved her hands into his suit, searching for a pulse in his neck. It was barely there, and she couldn’t be sure for how much longer. “Help me find the wound — whatever he took — there has to be something!”

Glass popped and crackled as she searched, cutting herself on sharp edges, for an entrance wound, a poisoned bullet, something that could stop Oliver from losing this fight. Her knuckles bumped against something on his leg, plastic, cylindrical… _syringes_. “I — I found it,” she said, turning the labels towards the unsteady light.

“Can you fix him?” Tommy asked, too agitated to phrase it any differently.

Her hands were shaking. “It doesn’t say what’s inside — only the ARGUS database has that information, by the time I hack it —”

_It’ll be too late._

“What the hell are you doing?” Tommy demanded, not to her.

“Ambulance. We have to call it in,” Diggle said, already dialing. “He’s _dying_.”

“ _No_ ,” Felicity snapped. “They can’t find out about him — he can’t go to the hospital like this.”

“Felicity, we don’t know what’s wrong with him. Is keeping the Arrow’s secret worth Oliver Queen’s life?” Diggle turned from her to Tommy, his face incredulous. “You’ve known him your whole life, Merlyn. Can you let him die?”

Tommy stared at his best friend, white as a sheet. “No, but there has to be another way. That’s what he would want.”

Diggle and Felicity stared at each other, fierce with the same purpose — save Oliver’s life, without damaging everything he’d worked for. People believed in the Arrow, but if they found out that Oliver Queen was under the hood, that would be all anyone would ever know. The story of a billionaire who'd snapped, five years on an island and two years of crazy vigilantism — a joke to be written off in a city that still needed saving. He wasn't done fighting, and they owed it to him not to give up.

Against the impossible.

 _Impossible_.

“No,” she said, thinking fast. “Don’t call 911.”

“Felicity!”

“Don’t!” she repeated, and her eyes widened, because she had an idea. “There’s someone else who can help him.”

Breaking all the rules didn’t matter now. She just hoped that their last-ditch option had missed his train.

"Oliver, stay with me," she said, bending close. "Stay with me. _Please_."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A few things:  
> \- I know everyone was super keen to see Jealous Oliver, but it's hard to make someone jealous and also not an asshole, so I hope I kinda found the middle ground with how he handled Barry? (With more later, of course ;))  
> \- Diggle and Tommy take two different approaches to the same Cutie Pie problem, which may surprise people, but eh, having the two of them plot Barry's death seems a bit immature.  
> \- I kinda shrunk the mystery part of the episode down a bit, because there'd be too much jumping around otherwise, and Oliver only needs to get his ass severely kicked once per update :D  
> \- ANYWAY. More fun stuff coming next week, but suggestions and requests are always super appreciated! :DDDDD


	15. Life-saving Efforts and Old Ghosts (The Mirakuru, Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Brace yourselves, it’s gonna get trippy from all the hallucinating. People may not be doing what it looks like they’re doing, including hand-holding and...stuff.

Oliver Queen was about to die. Every heartbeat felt like it was draining him, like there wasn’t enough blood in his body to keep it alive, even though he didn’t remember a wound. He was barely conscious as it was, but his body seemed to be moving, fast — faster than humanly possible — in blurred colors and jagged flashes of light.

Maybe he was being taken somewhere. He flinched at the slap of rain on his face, because it seemed to hiss upon contact with his skin like acid on metal, ice-cold to hot. He twisted in protest, but there was something holding him down, shapes moving around him. Voices, the individual sounds melting together in the fog, too hard — too hard to focus on just one.

“The — the Mirakuru,” he said, but no one seemed to hear him. Maybe he hadn’t really spoken at all.

“Oliver?” Someone was crying. A woman.

The wind tore at his hair, pushing it across his face, dried leaves swarming around his skin with razor edges. His hands were lashed behind his back, tied tight, and flashlights swept the forest clearing, flaring white in his eyes.

He staggered, the ground beneath his feet too unsteady to hold him for long.

“Ten seconds — choose!” a voice barked.

Oliver remembered what came next, like a line in a play he’d seen before. “You’re a goddamn psychopath!” He was shouting. _Him_.

“Choose one, or both will die tonight,” Ivo answered, coolly determined. “Five seconds.”

The gun moved from left to right. “ _Ollie_ ,” Sara was bent forward, tears soaking her face. She didn’t say _please_.

Shado’s head was already bowed.

“Fine.” Ivo clicked the safety, and Oliver lunged, throwing himself between the barrel of the gun and who it was pointed at, not seeing, not thinking.

It was Sara behind him, and Shado let loose a soft gasp, her chin almost touching her chest.

“You made your choice.” Swiftly, Ivo shifted his arm, and —

“ _NO!_ ” The sound tore at his throat, but the gunshot echoed through the trees, and the body spilled across the fallen leaves, blood seeping from her dark hair.

That was the part of the story he could never change, not in his dreams, not in the nightmares. She always died, and he was always there to watch it happen. Because it was his fault.

 _My fault_.

A different light bloomed in front of Oliver’s eyes, and he wasn’t seeing the dark forest anymore. Everything seemed to have steadied, the surface beneath his back something flat and metallic, like a table. His arm slipped off an edge, but someone just as quickly pushed it back on, holding him down. “His heart rate's going haywire — we need him, _now_!”

“I know, I’m trying!”

“Oliver?” A hand on his face. “Stay with us. You’re going to make it. Stay with us, okay?”

Something about the voice made him want to promise he would, but —

“ _Stay with me_ ,” Shado whispered.

He saw her, standing in the middle of an unfamiliar present, looking exactly as she had on the island. Her eyes were kind, and Oliver felt how tired he was, down to muscle, worn down to bone, like his body was an empty shell and whatever driving him forward had effervesced, escaped through the cracks.

“ _Stop fighting_ ,” she whispered, and her hand stretched silkily out for his. “ _Just give in. Stay with me_.”

Oliver felt his arm move again, his fingertips open to someone who wasn’t really there. But another hand caught his, fingers lacing tight to keep him steady, warm and solid and _there_.

“Oliver?”

“Felicity,” he answered, his head turning to try and catch her voice. The light was blinding him — it seared at his eyes — why couldn’t he see her? “Felicity.”

* * *

The day his best friend ended up on a slab of metal with an abnormally slowing heart rate and spiraling vitals after a super-unsuccessful fight with a super-strong kleptomaniac — that was the day Tommy started to question his life choices.

Which was saying a lot.

Not having much experience in anything except ending _up_ in the hospital bed, Tommy was reduced to holding down Oliver’s shaking limbs while Diggle and Felicity rushed from station to station in the Foundry, pulling everything they needed — heart monitor, the drippy stand thing, and the mobile surgery stash — towards the makeshift operating table in the center.

They evidently knew the ropes when it came to the combination of life-or-death situations and Oliver Queen, and in spite of the earlier suggestion of ambulance assistance — he trusted them.

Because clearly Oliver did too.

He just wished there was a way to listen without having it trigger the natural panic mechanism, because what he heard wasn’t the slightest bit reassuring.

“We need to stabilize his vitals,” Diggle said, ripping open the pack for the sterile IV and plastic tubes. “Tommy, _hold him_.”

“I’m trying,” he grunted, as his chin stung from a particularly well-aimed jerk of Oliver’s knee. “Stop twitching, you bastard — we’re trying to fix you!”

Felicity wasn’t having much luck either, practically using her whole upper body as a weight to pin Oliver down while she attached the EKG leads to his bared chest. “Whatever was in those syringes, it’s causing convulsions — I don’t know if he’ll go into shock next, but —”

“—it’s not good,” Tommy guessed. “So what do we do?”

“You need to wake Barry up,” she answered, multitasking between tubes and the heart monitor. “Or Oliver’s going to die.”

Tommy had heard crazy plans before, but that was about the craziest. Still, who was he to argue with the experts?

They’d left him at the periphery of the chaos and promptly forgotten about it — well, _he_ had, anyway. Barry, freshly kidnapped from Starling Central Station, was slumped in one of the desk chairs with a sleeping dart in his neck, which Tommy hastily yanked out — just in case he took it as a sign of overt hostility.

“Allen,” he said loudly, giving him a shake. “ _Allen_.”

No change, except for a shrill screech from the heart monitor that told them Oliver’s heart wasn’t doing so good.

“Okay, so _he’s_ dead,” he said, _just_ slightly panicking. “You shouldn’t have used so much of that ninja — army — sleeping _stuff_.”

Diggle shot him a scathing look over Oliver’s shaking torso. “I'm _sorry_ that dart gunning the CSI with the precise amount of sedative wasn't the priority, what with our friend _dying_ on a table.”

“Stop it — both of you!” Felicity said fiercely. “We need to wake him up, _now_.”

Tommy gave Barry’s non-responsive shoulder a push that nearly dropped him out of the chair. “What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” he demanded. “Give him a lap-dance?”

“Ammonia — get the ammonia from the kit!”

“Where the hell’s that?”

Felicity was on her knees in front of the surgery cabinet, pulling out drawers that misted when they were opened. “No time!” she said, coming away with two bags of type O. “Do something — slap him!”

Tommy paused. “Legit?”

“ _Do it!_ ”

It felt vaguely like a conflict of interest, but also an unexpected Christmas present, to be told by Felicity Smoak that he could whack Barry Allen — presumably as hard as he liked — in the face.

Why did Oliver have to be dying, now of all times? He should have been the one doing the slapping.

Wait, that didn’t make any sense.

“Don’t panic,” he said to himself, as he took aim. “Do — not — _panic_!”

The slap landed with the wildly satisfying sound of snapping rubber, and Barry lurched out of the chair, gasping like a salmon out of water. “Where am I — who — what?”

His widened eyes goggled from one thing to another in his new surroundings, starting from the case of gleaming arrows — sharpened to perfection — the compound bow resting on one of the tables, the monitors with their scrolling lines of code, and the empty mannequin where Oliver’s suit was meant to be.

In spite of a somewhat similar reaction when _he’d_ found out, Tommy snapped his fingers, because he had zero time and/or patience to deal with a kid being starstruck at finding himself in his vigilante man-crush’s lair. “We get it. Arrows, suit, man on table — dying. You help — _now_.”

It was at that point when Barry spotted Felicity, on the other side of Oliver’s heaving chest. “ _Felicity?_ ” he said, thunderstruck.

“Please save my friend,” she said, simply. “Oliver’s dying.”

“Oliver — Oliver Queen?” he croaked.

Diggle slammed his hands into the table. “Dammit, kid — can you help him or not?”

Kudos where kudos was due, for someone with a nonexistent ability to lie under pressure, Barry was quick on the uptake. He raced over to the table, narrowly skidding on a patch of rainwater dripping from Oliver’s soaked suit. “Wow, everything makes _so_ much more sense now, but I usually only do this on dead bodies — and it’s collecting evidence. I’m not — I’m not an ME,” he said, shaking his head.

“Good thing we need him alive,” Felicity answered, and they exchanged one of those annoying little non-verbal looks. “Still have your bag of tricks?”

It was apparently enough to convince Barry to save first, and ask questions later, because he went straight to work.

“Okay — okay,” he said, taking the coded syringes and holding their contents up to the light. “Convulsions and a slowing heart rate, that’s four possible diagnoses for what’s putting the stress on his system.”

“No external bleeding,” Diggle said. “Whatever it is — it’s the syringes.”

“We found it with surgical supplies,” Felicity added. “Maybe lidocaine, or some kind of antibiotic?”

“That narrows it down,” Barry said. He took a tiny flashlight from his back pocket — the kind that looked more like a pen — and parted one of Oliver’s eyelids to check his response. “It’s not epinephrine, or he wouldn’t be going into heart arrest — so that’s two diagnoses. Gimme a syr—”

Felicity already had one on the table, and Barry took a sample of Oliver’s blood straight from the vein, studying the darkened contents with a frown. “That’s _not_ normal.”

Oliver gave a particularly forceful jerk at that very second, and Tommy lost his temper _just_ a little bit. “You don’t say!” he shouted, while him and Diggle wrestled to keep Oliver lying flat. “He’s dying on a _table_. Fix him.”

Far from taking offence at the unceremonious yelling, Barry looked up, a glint in his eye like he’d found the answer. “Do you have rat poison?” he asked.

* * *

Something hot was trickling into Oliver’s arm, searing through the numbing cold that had taken over his limbs and chest.

The hand was still holding onto his, and he could just make out the outline of the person standing over him. He’d seen Diggle on his left, his hands moving carefully and quickly to save his life. Tommy’s voice, ringing with frustration as he shouted at something — someone.

But most of all, Felicity’s hands. Her voice. There was a harsh light in front of his eyes, but it softened around her blonde hair, a thin outline of white, but he couldn’t seem to focus on her features, like he was still drifting.

“ _Oliver_ ,” said another voice, echoing a little, coming from far away.

There was another girl behind Felicity, one with gentle eyes. “Shado?” he said, in disbelief. “You’re dead.”

“Shadow?” Felicity had heard him — she’d finally heard him — and her hand smoothed across his forehead, soothing cool on his feverish skin. “Where?”

Behind her, Shado just smiled at him, a warm smile reserved for a long-lost friend. Oliver shook his head, but his breath was coming short and rapid, and he couldn’t speak. There was a flicker of movement in the corner of his vision, and his eyes widened as he took it in.

Shado had vanished, and standing in her place behind Felicity was an imposing figure in heavy armor, built broad and tall, face hidden in a mask that was half coal-black, half the color of flames. A soldier.

 _Mercenary_.

Mockingly, he reached for the sword across his back, and the slim metal blade slid from its sheath with a harsh rasp. Oliver shook his head again, trying to warn Felicity. His arm pushed ineffectually against her side, and she still didn’t move.

“No,” he said, but somehow he knew that no one could hear him. “Not her. Not Felicity.”

The steel caught the light as it curved over Slade’s head, poised to swing downward.

“ _Get away_. Get away from her. Don’t — touch her — _SLADE!_ ”

Hands caught his shoulders as he tried to lunge, to put himself between her and the sword, but they pushed him back down, overpowering him with their combined strength. Restraints aside, he was shaking his head, doggedly, silently.

They didn’t understand.

All of a sudden, Felicity’s hand was slipping from his, reluctantly, and he heard Diggle’s voice, low and calm. “He’s not in his right mind,” he said, like he was trying to comfort her. “Step back — I think you’re confusing him.”

The light was blinding him again, and Oliver’s fingers stretched uselessly mid-air, trying to keep her with him, but she’d already retreated. Cold sweat rolled down his neck and he shivered from the sudden chill, like she had been the one blocking him, shielding him from the harshness of his surroundings.

“No,” he said, his head moving from side to side. “Get away from them.”

Slade was laughing — laughing at him.

_No._

* * *

“You’re not serious,” Diggle said, as Barry filled a syringe with a diluted solution comprising mainly of the box of rodent killer they kept on hand. “Felicity — if Oliver’s not dead in the next thirty seconds, that stuff’ll kill him!”

He threw a muscled arm in Barry’s path, blocking him from getting to the IV. “Digg!” Felicity said, as her friend glared at Barry like he wanted to toss him straight out of the Foundry.

If Diggle was protective before, having Oliver going into heart arrest in front of his eyes had taken it to a whole new level.

“It’s a strong-acting blood coagulant,” Barry said, holding the syringe with Oliver’s blood up for comparison. “See that? It’s his blood — it’s like… _molasses_ in his system. His heart’s going to give out unless we use something to stop the clotting. This is the _only_ way you won’t lose him. Trust me.”

“Do it,” Felicity said, white-faced.

Barry still waited, sensing the resistance, and she looked to Tommy for approval, who shook himself, like he was steeling himself for something. “She’s right. Whatever it takes. Go — _go!_ ”

Felicity caught Oliver’s arm and pinned it to the table surface, watching as Barry slid the needle into his skin. Her instincts where pointy things were concerned (vaccinations and blood tests inclusive) were to look away, but all that took second place now, even if her arm was prickling too, like she was the one being injected. It was a choice she’d made for Oliver, and she was taking responsibility for it, better or worse.

She’d broken all the rules now, bringing an outsider into their home base.

What difference did a bit of rat poison make, if it was going to save Oliver’s life?

He could be furious with her when he woke up.

 _If_ he woke up.

Oliver’s eyes flew open, and he would have lurched straight off the table — if Tommy and Diggle hadn’t rushed to pin him flat. His hands were shaking, and one of them flew out from another convulsion, so Felicity did the instinctive thing — she caught it in both of hers and held on tight.

“Oliver,” she said, low and furious, just in case he could hear her. “Stay with us. You’re going to make it. Stay with us, okay?”

His eyes were wide open, and for a second, she thought that he’d understood. A smile leapt onto her face, and she laid a hand on his face, his cheek. “You’re all right,” she whispered. “I’m here.”

But a line appeared between his eyes, like he was confused. “Shadow?” he said hoarsely.

Felicity looked behind her, and back at him, not comprehending. She felt his forehead — burning, feverish. “Shadow? Where?”

Oliver shook his head, starting to twist again. The beeping from the heart monitor had begun to slow, but now it arced into a scream, and he pushed his arm against her side, like he wanted her out of the way. “No,” he kept saying. “No.”

“He’s in distress,” Barry said, looking around from the machine. “The antidote should be working, but something’s making him freak out!”

Before Felicity had even gotten to the conclusion herself, Diggle was gently pulling her away, returning Oliver’s arms back to his sides. “Maybe you should step back,” he said, not unkindly. “He’s not in his right mind. I think you’re confusing him.”

Tommy brushed her shoulder, all he could manage as an apology, because it took two fully-grown men to hold Oliver down mid-convulsion. Helpless in the middle of the panic, Felicity reluctantly let his fingers slip through hers, and she stepped back, her hands over her mouth, willing him to be okay.

He had to be.

Diggle’s shoulder blocked her from view, and it seemed like an eternity before Oliver stopped fighting them — fighting whatever it was about her that made him lose control. Felicity’s attention went rapidly between the heart monitor and Barry’s face, as the seconds dragged on without any discernible change.

 _Pleasepleaseplease_ —

Oliver finally felt back onto the table, and the heart monitor relaxed into a steady rhythm of a beating heart. Slowly, Felicity moved to the edge of the table and put a hand in the middle of Diggle’s back, leaning her head against his shoulder. He had his elbows on the table, and ran his hands over his face before he nodded, once. Across, Tommy looked from Oliver’s unconscious face — peaceful now — to them, and finally to Barry. There was a small nod there, a silent _thank you_ , and Felicity reached out to grip Barry’s forearm.

“You saved his life,” she said, no preamble — because it was probably safe to say they were past that. “Thank you.”

Diggle echoed the sentiment. “Thank you,” he said, and stretched out a hand to shake Barry’s.

Barry let his head drop forward in visible relief. “No problem,” he breathed, sounding winded. “Happy to help.”

All of them relaxed, an audible sigh in the room from a crisis passed. There would be more questions, and a _lot_ more answers ahead, but for now, they all let themselves stay in a brief moment of peace. Oliver was alive. That was an achievement in itself, and everything else could wait.

_In, out._

_In, out._

Felicity’s vision blurred suddenly, and she passed a hand quickly across her cheek, before anyone could see her cry.

He was okay.

* * *

It was a familiar scene, a line from a play that he’d seen before, and Oliver found himself in the middle of a conversation he’d already had. But it was like being given an unfinished sentence on a white page, and as hard as he tried, he couldn’t quite remember how it was meant to end.

“They both care about you, Oliver,” said Felicity, standing in the shadow of the Arrow’s suit. Her eyes were fixed on his face, but her hands fidgeted at her sides like it was an effort to stop herself from reaching out to physically stop him. “This guy managed to sustain close-range gunfire from two Queen Consolidated security guards, and all he left was a couple of blood drops. You may have stopped men like him before, but I don’t like the idea of you going out there with a couple of arrows, against someone with the muscle density of a concrete wall.”

In the silence, Oliver looked at the suit, and Felicity waited, every line — every ounce of tension — in her small frame silently pleading with him not to go. It was like his vision had been refocused, and he was noticing — remembering — from a slightly different angle, things he’d seen the first time but pushed to the back of his mind, things he’d wanted to say but never did.

Whether she’d meant to or not, it was an implied choice that he was now being asked to make. At face value, it was about being safe or taking a risk to stop the thief, but to Oliver, it was a choice between Felicity and the Arrow. To go, or to stay.

Always implied, always implicit. Like they were speaking to each other in code, a step forward and a step back, an ever-present tightrope of uncertainty between them.

Looking at her, then, as he’d always looked at her, Oliver realized how tired he was, of never telling her — never showing her — what she meant to him.

“Okay,” he said. “Then I’ll stay.”

A smile formed, but she still looked tentative, unsure. “Really?”

In answer to her question, Oliver crossed over — it was barely a few feet of space — and took her face in his hands. As he breached the unspoken distance between them, some part of him hesitated, not expecting it to be so easy, surprised that nothing had rebuffed him — a penalty for resetting the scene, for breaking the rules. Felicity made a soft noise of surprise, and her lips were still parted when he kissed her, like he’d been wanting to for so long, longer than he’d wanted to admit. It was simpler than he’d expected, without the nervousness that had been his experience with kissing someone for the first time, but it was another surprise — a shock of heat going off inside his chest — when Felicity’s fingers curled against his hair, the other in the front of his shirt, holding him closer still.

She was soft, and warm, and there was both hunger and relief in the way she responded to him, making him press back.

They were still locked together when Oliver felt a shadow pass over his face. He opened his eyes, breaking the kiss with incredible reluctance, and looked over his shoulder.

Nothing.

Something warm pooled around his feet, and he instinctively looked down. It was his reflection in dark red — in blood — and someone else as well.

A black and orange mask.

Felicity gave a soft gasp, like she was the one waking from a dream. It was barely a second of stunned realization before her knees crumpled, and Oliver caught her as she fell. His hands grew warm from the open wound in her back, and her eyes were closed, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.

“Felicity — no —”

The shadow moved. “I swore that you would feel her blood wet against your skin,” said Slade, his bloody sword creating a ripple that spread from the edge of the pool towards the center, blurring their reflections. “I keep my promises, kid — what about you?”

Before he could answer, the blade slashed towards Oliver’s throat, and he lurched awake. His eyes had been closed for too long, and the light overhead blinded him — just like the dream — and it registered that there was an unfamiliar presence in front of him, not Felicity, or Diggle, or Tommy. His heart still hammering from the image of Slade’s sword, Oliver reacted on instinct, his arms — free now, and far from weak — responding to a strange threat in close proximity.

Oliver’s hand wrapped around someone’s neck, unseeing, and he snarled:

“Who are you?”

* * *

Felicity glanced at the wall clock, each counted second on the rotating hand almost in sync with Oliver’s monitored heartbeat, regular again, steady. But none of them — Diggle, herself, or Tommy — had moved very far from his temporary sickbed, finding excuses to sit in one of the chairs nearby, fiddle with the wires, or the leads, just in case something went wrong again.

Tommy checked his phone with another sigh. “It’s Thea,” he said, to no one in particular. “I’m late for my bartending shift. Roy didn’t report back, something about a bad fall. Huh — I thought he was like a cat, or I’d have tried tripping him more often.”

“You should go,” Felicity said, without much conviction. “Digg and I can stay with Oliver.”

For obvious reasons, leaving his best friend looking relatively dead on a table — a perception proven continuously wrong by the heart monitor — didn’t seem to appeal much to Tommy, who looked up at the ceiling, and back at them again.

“If anything changes —”

“—we’ll call,” Diggle finished for him. “Don’t worry about it.”

Tommy glanced at the glass screen on his phone, pulling at one cheek like he’d sighted a zit. “If this whole thing gave me a wrinkle, I swear to god I’m gonna kill him when he wakes up.”

No one was in the mood to laugh at jokes, but Felicity managed a smile anyway. “Line forms behind me.”

Taking his jacket from the back of Felicity’s chair, Tommy ducked to kiss the top of her head, grasped Diggle’s forearm in a roughly equivalent salute (his head was a bit too tall to reach), and managed a weird kind of finger-gun in Barry’s direction on his way out.

“I think that means _sorry I slapped you in the face_ ,” she translated, turning slightly towards Barry, similarly placed in a spare rolling chair. “How’s the neck? Sorry we — uh — grabbed you. There wasn’t a lot of time for the formalities.”

Barry rubbed the dart-gunned spot in question, his expression slightly rueful. “I missed the last train anyway, so it was either that or sleeping on a bench for eight hours.”

“Instead, you got to stick something into the Arrow,” Felicity said, before realizing how it sounded. “I mean — diluted rat poison in a needle. Into his arm. _Not_ anything else, _anywhere_ else.”

Even Diggle chuckled a little. “Can’t imagine Oliver reacting well to that,” he said. “Better make sure you stay behind me or Felicity until we straighten everything out.”

“Not Tommy?” Barry pointed at the ceiling. “I have a feeling he doesn’t like me much either.”

Felicity intercepted the knowing look Diggle threw her way. “Tommy’s known Oliver since they were eating paste in preschool — trust me, it’s nothing personal,” he said evenly. “Anyone want coffee? We might be in for a long night.”

She raised her hand at the same time as Barry. “Just promise me you won’t get it from the bar,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s some kind of sales tactic to plug their booze, but that coffee _has_ to violate some kind of industry standard.”

Diggle shook his head. “That’s because Tommy keeps the best stuff in his office,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll make sure it’s good.”

Felicity had a feeling that she was being left alone with Barry on purpose, either because Diggle didn’t feel like answering questions, or because of whatever knowingness motivated the look he’d given her at Barry’s question about Oliver not liking him.

Either way, it meant she was the one dealing with his curiosity. That being said, she was happy to let him ask the first question, and passed the time by checking on her surveillance camera hack while he wandered around the Foundry, doing exactly what anyone who’d found themselves in their personal hero’s lair would do. Which was check everything out and try to suppress the inner geeking.

Prior experience told Felicity to get a band-aid ready, and she had it in the palm of her hand when she heard the inevitable “ _ouch_ ” from Barry touching one of Oliver’s arrowheads, enticingly lined up in the glass case.

That sounded wrong.

“We should put up a sign,” she said, coming to the rescue with a cartoon dinosaur band-aid Tommy had intentionally bought to irritate his best friend (the first and last time he was on the list of people trusted to run errands). “Then again — it’s not like we get visitors down here.”

“Thanks,” Barry said, as she wrapped up the tip of his index finger. “So I guess I was right about the Arrow having partners, huh?”

Felicity looked up tentatively, crumpling the wrapper in her fist. Contrary to conventional expectations, he was smiling again, not unlike the first time she’d met him, and they’d talked about his digital calculations for possible vigilante workspaces. “I was also right about him having a hideout somewhere in the Glades,” he said, a little proudly.

“Right on the money,” she agreed. “You _literally_ got to his doorstep.”

Barry laughed, nodding his head. “And the green, and him not being a time-traveler —”

“—well, that one was just _insane_ ,” she interjected.

“— but _not_ that he was — _is_ — Oliver Queen, billionaire CEO, and _not_ that one of his partners is Felicity Smoak, computer genius and badass human being under pressure.”

She blushed a little, unnecessarily straightening one of the arrows. “I think that dart made you a little loopy,” she answered.

“I was _very_ alert,” he promised. “And you were a complete badass. That look on your face when I told you we needed rat poison, and you just said _do it_ — he’s lucky to have you around in a tight spot. You saved his life, you kept his secret…I honestly can’t think why I didn’t see it before. Of _course_ the Arrow asked Felicity Smoak to be his partner.”

Felicity stared at the suit mannequin beside Barry, avoiding his gaze. “In your — or anyone’s — defence, I don’t think I look like the kind of person who has a double life,” she said. “Which works out surprisingly well.”

“Their loss,” Barry said, earnest to a fault.

Felicity smiled, and tugged at the sleeve on his sweater, not quite playfully, but almost. “You’re…very cool about the whole thing,” she said. “I mean — if I found out that a girl I sorta liked lied to me about my hero’s secret hideout, I’d be a _little_ pissed.”

Barry didn't pull away from her, and turned slightly — his elbows on the glass surface — so that if anything — they were even closer. “Not if I understood that the girl I _really_ liked was just protecting her friend,” he answered, watching her hand on his arm. “And it would really help if I knew she didn’t think of me as an idiot, for missing _all_ the signs. Or tell anyone from the CSI academy, because I swear they’d revoke my license if they found out.”

Felicity laughed at the mental image. “I think you’re fine,” she said, as Barry lit up again, like her being cheerful was what cranked up the _Happy_ meter to two-dimple wattage. “How much trouble are you gonna be in, if you’re not back in Central City tomorrow?”

Barry's nose crinkled as he considered it. “I have someone who can cover for me with my captain. He won’t be happy, but I’ll pick up some pizza for him on the way, extra pepperoni. Me going AWOL happens pretty often, especially when the weird and wacky crops up on the radar.”

Felicity’s stomach gave an unwilling gurgle at the mention of pizza. “Urgh,” she said. “What I wouldn’t give for Big Belly.”

“Or tacos,” he said, longingly. “A mountain of tacos.”

They looked at each other at precisely the same moment and burst out laughing again. “Well,” Felicity said, leaning on the case too so that her face was much, _much_ closer to Barry’s. “I guess you’ll just have to make do.”

“I will?” Barry turned in her direction, his nose just inches from hers. She could sense how nervous he was — hell, she was jittery too, butterflies on angel dust — _not_ that she’d had the experience — what was she even thinking, now of all times?

Bearing in mind the fact that her friend-and-something was lying unconscious just a few feet away, Felicity’s intention was _not_ to start making out right there, which — ironically — struck her as something Oliver wouldn’t have hesitated to do with one of his crazier paramours (Helena, for starters).

So she kissed Barry on one cheek, her shyness making it something of a peck, instead of a kiss in _italics_ , or a cheesy, built-up movie-moment kind of thing. But he looked surprised anyway, his hand coming up to cover the spot she’d touched, a flush spreading across his cheekbones.

Believing in the impossible, and rolling with the punches once it presented itself — those were just two of the things Felicity liked about him. More than liked, if she was being honest, and it felt like she was.

“Um,” he began. “That helps. A lot.”

Luckily for them, the Foundry staircase was engineered to be loud and announcement-worthy, so Diggle returning with the coffee gave them a good twenty seconds’ notice to look like they hadn’t been doing anything except talking.

Felicity squeezed Barry’s arm anyway, to which he responded with a grin, like they had a secret.

“No change, huh?” Diggle said, handing them each a mug of coffee — though with hands as big as his, she shouldn't have been surprised that he could carry three at once.

“He might have drooled a little,” Barry said, bending over Oliver to make sure. “Whoops — sorry — got some coffee on him.”

Felicity sipped at her self-prescribed dose of caffeine, relishing the heat blooming in her empty stomach. “Not the worst thing that’s been on the leather, _believe_ you me.”

“Did you get all the explanations out of the way?” Diggle asked. “You should know that _how_ and _why_ are two of Oliver’s least favorite questions.”

“Felicity did a really good job of — um — explaining things,” Barry said, his face pink. “Lots of explaining. Just explaining. With words.”

Diggle was back in disbelieving squint mode, and Felicity gave Barry a _what even_ look behind his shoulder. That being said, his helpless shrug in response was incredibly cute, and reminded Felicity that she one-hundred-percent regretted nothing.

Apart from letting Oliver out of the Foundry to face a rampaging super-strong junkie.

“Shame the CCTV footage from the bunker won’t tell us much,” Diggle said. “Doesn’t sound like Oliver managed to get the guy’s mask off.”

“Pretty sure Crazypants took the surveillance out anyway,” Felicity agreed. “There were a _lot_ of things to throw at the cameras.”

Barry put down his mug of coffee, an intent expression on his face. “Cameras aren’t the only things that can tell a story,” he said, patting his pockets like he was looking for something.

Felicity took a wild stab and guessed it was either forceps or penlight, and gave him both. Barry went for the light with a grateful smile, and shone it along the arms of Oliver’s suit. “Trace evidence,” he said, in explanation. “Leather’s not the best surface for prints, but you never know about fibers — maybe residue from places he’s been — things he touched…”

“Like the sugar on his shoes,” Felicity volunteered. “But it might have been washed off by the rain — evidence wasn’t really our main concern when we were moving Oliver.”

“Long shot, I know,” Barry said, peering at the hood now. “But those have a record of working out — for this case, anyway.”

“I don’t understand how someone who works with dead bodies can be so positive all the time,” Diggle said, folding his arms. “Is it something in the water, or —?”

Felicity almost stepped on his foot for teasing Barry, but it genuinely looked like Diggle wanted to know what his deal was. _Opposition research_ , she thought, and just as quickly dismissed it. Oliver had invited Barry to the party, he’d backed off and watched Felicity dance with the latter — if that wasn’t him giving up on the undefined _whatever_ between them, she didn’t know what to believe.

“We had a case once where someone was murdered in a tanning salon,” Barry said, more or less oblivious to the questioning. “Strangulation, but the perp had tanning oil on his hands, and it left some pretty good latents on the victim’s skin. The thing is, oil doesn’t wash away so easily around water.”

“I don’t think ARGUS had tanning oil under Emergency Supplies, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Diggle said.

Barry beamed at him, like he appreciated the joke. “Our hands are constantly secreting a mixture of water and natural oils — sweat, basically. The guy who did this — the robber — he picked up the security guards by the throat, right? Maybe that’s his signature move.”

Felicity shifted the hood aside for Barry’s flashlight. “Are you saying you can get the guy’s prints?” she said.

Barry nodded, rummaging in his kit. “If he touched Oliver somewhere, there’s a pretty good possibility some fingerprint evidence might still be intact if his hood protected it from the rain.” He stopped, clearly having a thought. “But you guys don’t have a fingerprint database.”

Diggle snorted. “You really don’t understand what Felicity does, do you?”

Felicity shot him a glare that telegraphed _be nice_. “We don’t have a fingerprint database, but the FBI, CIA, SCPD…they have very…borrower-friendly systems,” she said. “As long as we have a print, I can get us a comparison.”

“Oh, sweet,” Barry said, looking up at the two of them. “So Felicity — you do the digital, hacky stuff — and Mr Diggle does…?”

Diggle raised an eyebrow. “Any other damn thing that the team needs,” he replied, very succinctly.

“Digg was with the Special Forces,” Felicity added, to make it sound less unwelcoming. “Three tours in Afghanistan.”

“You looked like you knew what you were doing,” Barry said. “Just now — when Oliver was flat-lining.”

“I had some emergency medical training,” he said. “Add that to the self-defence classes I run down here, and working security for Oliver during the day…”

“He’s lucky to have you too,” Barry concluded. “Thanks for not using a bigger dart to knock me out, by the way.”

Diggle seemed a little disarmed by Barry as a whole, and inclined his head in response. “You’re a strange kid, Allen. Most people would be asking for a sanity check right about now.”

“He’s not _most people_ ,” Felicity said, pressing briefly on Barry’s arm in passing, on her way to bring up their “borrowed” access to the various law enforcement databases.

Diggle joined her at the computers, leaving Barry to work on collecting evidence from Oliver’s non-responsive state. Their backs were to him, not to mention at a discreet out-of-earshot distance, which made it easy for Diggle to put his slightly smug, knowing expression on full display.

“Oh, shut up,” she said, pre-empting whatever teasing thing he was planning to say.

“What?” He nudged her. “I like to watch people get smitten — keeps things interesting.”

She nudged back, even if it felt a little bit like trying to budge a brick wall with her shoulder. “You know, it’s really not fair that I can’t tease you about Lyla, and Tommy practically has a _force field_ around him when it comes to being laughed at — shameless, is what I’m saying — and — oh good, he’s back.”

“What happened to your shift?” Diggle asked.

Tommy wagged the beer bottles in his hand. “On break, so I thought I’d bring some provisions, plus I have a sixth sense when people gossip about me,” he said. “Traitors.”

He stopped abruptly mid-step, and pointed. “Oliver?”

Diggle and Felicity’s heads both snapped around, at around the same time that Oliver — fully conscious now — grabbed Barry by the throat, his expression nothing short of dangerous.

“Who are you?” he snarled.

He didn’t seem to realize that A) he’d already met Barry, and B) asking someone a question while choking them wasn’t exactly the best way to get an answer. Fortunately, Diggle had fast reflexes, and he hurriedly grabbed Oliver’s strangling arm, working to loosen his fingers from around Barry’s neck.

“Oliver — easy, _easy_ ,” he said, while Felicity held him by the shoulders.

Her hands slipped a little against his suit, but she tried her level best to push anyway. “It’s Barry,” she said, as the glare sharpened without a trace of recognition. “Oliver, calm down — he saved your life.”

As Barry made strangled choking noises, and Felicity started to seriously wonder about the chances of brain trauma, Oliver released his grip at the last second and threw himself from the table. His landing was a little unsteady, and he blinked against the light like it was a stark glare in his eyes, but the look on his face was only slightly less murderous.

“What the hell is he doing here?” he demanded, out of breath.

At this point, Tommy and Diggle were both braced to keep him from trying to kill Barry again — and the former even looked like he wouldn’t regret it. “Oliver, calm down,” Tommy said, echoing Felicity. “Your fight at the warehouse almost killed you — we had to make a few emergency decisions to stop you from stroking out. It was a strong-acting blood poison thing, right?”

This was aimed at Barry, who was incapable of anything but vague croaking. He held up one finger, doubled over. _Gimme a minute._

“A strong-acting blood poison thing,” Tommy repeated. “You got injected with it, and Allen saved your life. After we kidnapped him from a train station. Well — Digg did it — he had the blowgun.”

“It’s true, Oliver,” Diggle said. “The kid found out what you were poisoned with, and he saved your life.”

None of this seemed to register with Oliver, but Felicity had other concerns.

“Are you okay?” she said to Barry, who nodded silently, red-faced from the blood that had rushed into his head.

Oliver stared at her like the simple action of patting an almost-asyphxiated-to-death human being on the back was an act of pure betrayal. “You brought him in?”

“You were _dying_ ,” she answered, planting herself between Barry and Oliver just in time. “I didn’t have a choice.”

“You chose to tell him my secret,” he said hoarsely. “It’s not yours to tell — I thought you of all people would understand that.”

Oliver was _very_ much in her personal space, but Felicity didn’t back down. He wasn’t a danger, not to her, even if they were practically nose to nose and completely in disagreement. “And I thought you of all people would understand why I couldn’t let you die,” she said, very quietly.

Oliver looked like he wanted to answer, but turned at the last minute to Barry. “What did you do to me?”

Barry had recovered somewhat from the impromptu choking, and credit where credit was due, he gave the answer without flinching. “You overdosed on a fast-acting blood coagulant, and the only thing around here that was strong enough to thin your blood was warfarin.”

“Rat poison,” Tommy clarified, and Felicity shot him a look. _Not helping_.

There was a silence. “I think this is where you’re supposed to say _thank you_ ,” she prompted. “Barry saved your life.”

“He didn’t have to — not with you around,” Oliver answered flatly.

Felicity honestly didn’t understand why they were splitting hairs about the fact that Barry had gotten them out of a dead-end situation, or how Oliver — ironically, the person who’d have been legally, medically, literally _dead_ in said situation — could persist in making it seem like everything was her fault.

Her voice shook slightly when she spoke again, from anger or something else — she wasn’t quite sure. “It’s touching how much faith you have in me,” she said, “but when we found you in the bunker, you practically didn’t have a pulse, and I had _no_ idea what was wrong with you. We needed Barry. Just like you put your faith in Diggle when Deadshot poisoned him with the curare, when you pulled back the hood and showed Tommy who you were…or when you came to me after your mother shot you.”

“His mother shot him?” Barry asked, in an audible whisper.

Oliver ignored that. “I’ve known Tommy for most of my life, and I researched you and Diggle to the last letter. Barry Allen might as well be a stranger, and I don’t trust him not to go straight to the police with my identity.”

“I wouldn’t — I would _never_ —” Barry said, but Oliver ignored that too.

“What if I trust him?” Felicity asked.

Oliver’s gaze hardened. “I put my faith in the right people,” he said, enunciating each syllable with deliberate care. “Forgive me for thinking you have a track record with doing the opposite when it comes to Barry Allen.”

Felicity felt her temper spike, in the familiar way that only Oliver could manage. “We’ve been over this before —”

“—it’s not about that,” he snapped, as though he could tell she was about to say the word _jealous_.

“—then what, Oliver?” she retorted.

“Because that was something concerning Oliver Queen,” he answered. “This is about the Arrow, and you know what happens to people who get too close to my identity.”

“So what are you going to do, Oliver?” she demanded. “Put an arrow in him? You promised Tommy you weren’t going to do that anymore.”

Tommy cleared his throat, but Diggle hit him before he could say anything in the vein of granting a temporary revocation.

“I’m considering it,” Oliver said, still glaring at Felicity.

She glared back, well aware that they’d reached a stalemate.

“Um, first things first,” Barry interjected, “I promise I won’t say a word — I wouldn’t do that to you, or the Arrow. And secondly, I don’t need you to thank me, but I think you _should_ be thanking Felicity, since she’s the one who actually made the call and saved your life, and no offence, I think you’re being kind of a dick to her about it.”

Felicity grabbed at Oliver’s sleeve a little too late, and he advanced on Barry with a look that was purely hostile. Once again, Barry surprised her by unflinchingly staring back, even in the face of Oliver at the height of intimidation.

“I’m glad you’re alive, Mr Queen,” he said, as composed as Oliver was cold.

“Oliver,” Diggle said, finally. “What’s done is done, man. You’re alive, that’s what counts.”

Despite it being a question of his life, Oliver showed every sign of wanting to disagree. He was saved from having to answer by Tommy, who held up his phone. “Thea’s been messaging me all night — Moira wants you home, and you’re not answering your texts.”

There was a strained pause, and he nodded. “Fine.”

Barry stooped to grab something off the floor by the table, and held it up. It was some kind of plastic sheet, black on clear film. “The guy grabbed you by the throat when he attacked,” he said, still trying to help. “The residual oils he left on your skin should give us a pretty good print if I add it to a gel-based polymer. If his prints are in the database, Felicity might be able to get you a name.”

Oliver only nodded, curtly, and Tommy gave him a gentle push to get him going towards the stairs. “C’mon, buddy. You need a good night’s sleep and a facial — _just kidding_ about the facial, you look gorgeous by undead standards. By the way, if you ever almost-die on me again, I'm gonna kill you.”

The sound of their voices — well, just _voice_ , since Tommy was the only one talking — echoed back to Felicity, from where she stood by Barry.

Who looked a little crestfallen, to say the least.

Even Diggle appeared sympathetic. “He’s like that sometimes,” he said, and patted him briefly on the shoulder.

Felicity touched Barry’s arm, surprised at how little she regretted her choices, even after seeing how angry Oliver was with her. “Should have warned you,” she murmured. “He’s a lot grumpier in person.”

“You don’t say,” he answered, sounding thoughtful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FUN TIMES.  
> Cheesy? Yes. Do I have regrets? Psh.  
> So school's started for me (I'm in my first week now), and I can't promise anything about updates. I'll try to keep onto the schedule, but if I get slammed with a load of work, well...you know what happens next.  
> ANYWAY. Happy thoughts. Until the next update! :D


	16. Close Shaves & Paranormal Activity (The Mirakuru, Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the missed update, it wasn't really school that stopped me from writing, I had a good chunk of this written on time, but some family stuff kinda affected my ability to get into the writing mindset and finish up. Anyway, here we are :)

Oliver was bent over the sink, washing the last traces of blood from his hands and face. Getting drenched by rainwater had done most of the work for him, but he knew from experience that being thorough was better than having to lie about another shaving accident.

“You okay?” Tommy asked again.

He’d been hovering since the Foundry, sneaking worried looks when he thought Oliver wouldn’t see. It would have been mildly irritating on anybody who wasn’t Tommy — who had every right to be concerned — even less so when Oliver remembered that his best friend had never actually seen him in a real, near-death situation before.

It wasn’t something that was easy getting used to.

“Tommy, I’m _fine_ ,” he said. “You don’t have to keep an eye on me.”

“You almost _died_. Damned straight I’m gonna keep an eye on you,” he answered, sounding surprisingly fierce. “You shouldn’t have gone out there to fight… _whoever_ that guy was.”

As though in recognition, Oliver’s back and shoulders ached from the remembered impact of being thrown clear across the bunker. “I’m fine,” he repeated, continuing to scrub at his hands.

“You told us you faced people like him before. So you knew — you knew what was gonna happen — what _could_ have happened.”

Oliver looked up, at their reflections in the mirror. Tommy clearly had a point to make, and in spite of his instinctive dislike of being fussed over, Oliver knew that he had to hear it, eventually.

“I always do,” he said, bluntly. “I know what it means when I put on the hood, and I accept the risks, even if it means I could end up dead. You’ve known that from the beginning.”

Tommy bristled, like he’d said something accusatory. “Tonight was different. It was like…it was like you had something to prove. Me, Digg, Felicity — all of us were telling you to turn back, but you just…you just kept pushing.”

The tap continued to run, filling the silence with the sound of rushing water.

Oliver considered his answer, but only so he could choose his words with care. “Because I know what the Mirakuru can do,” he said. “I’ve seen what it can do to people — good people — and once it infects them, they’re _gone_. Beyond reason, beyond humanity. There’s only one way to stop someone injected with the serum, and it’s by killing them. If someone’s mass-producing the Mirakuru and turning ordinary people into monsters, I don’t care if it means risking my life all over again. It’s better than the alternative.”

They stared at each other. “And what if I don’t want to watch my best friend die?” Tommy asked, very quietly.

Oliver didn’t have an answer ready for him. “I made my choice a long time ago. But it’s _my_ choice. Not yours.”

“I said I wanted in, and I still do. But I remember that you being the Arrow wasn’t just the no-kill rule, or righting wrongs — it’s fighting for the city, and you can’t do that if you treat every mission like it’s your last one. I know you, and I know you still have a crapload of stuff left in your life that has _nothing_ to do with being the vigilante —”

Oliver opened his mouth to interrupt, because he didn’t have the energy to start a conversation about his personal life, least of all in its current abysmal state.

“— so stop fighting to die. That’s all I’m asking. Like you said, the Mirakuru’s dangerous, but you can’t stop it if you go down against this one guy.”

After a beat, Oliver nodded. “Sorry,” he said, the apology catching a little in his throat, because he’d never apologized for something like this. “I’ll try.”

“Liar.” But Tommy’s expression softened, and he gave Oliver a hug anyway, muttering a string of expletives the whole time. “By the way, we _will_ be discussing a game plan 2.0, y’know — since you blew up in front of Felicity, _again_.”

Oliver grunted at the reminder. “Did I really try to choke Barry?”

Tommy snorted rudely. “I wouldn’t sweat it too much. Felicity was okay with me slapping him in the face, but that was to save your life. I’m pretty sure it’s all one big free pass, under _Hey, You Almost Died_.”

As exhausted as he was, Oliver had to laugh at the interminable optimism. “Thanks.”

Tommy pulled back, and clapped Oliver on the shoulder. “I’ll drive you to Verdant tomorrow, so don't even _think_ about sneaking out, okay?”

Oliver made a non-committal noise, and turned the other way. “I’m going to start taking off my clothes now, so —”

Tommy snorted. “Oh sure, _I_ get an advance warning before you go shirtless, but god forbid I’m a blonde genius with glasses…” he said, pulling the door shut as he went. “Night — don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

“Night,” Oliver answered, ducking his head to pull his sweater off. Even though he couldn’t see his back (and didn’t want to), he still felt the ache from the network of fresh bruises. One more thing to explain away.

The mirror was already fogged up from the hot water in the sink, the bathroom warm and humid even before Oliver reached past the curtains to start the shower. As he waited for the water to turn hot, he absentmindedly swiped a swathe of glass clean, his thoughts elsewhere.

“ _Liar_ ,” said a voice.

With a steely calm that Oliver couldn’t readily explain, he looked once over his shoulder — confirming what he already knew — then back at the mirror. The single word crackled from a wealth of unresolved hatred, and Oliver stared back at the reflected face. “You’re not really here,” he said. “You’re dead.”

“Because you killed me,” Slade said, as though in agreement. “So now you think yourself safe. But do you remember what I promised?”

Oliver’s knuckles were white, his hands balled into fists. “It doesn’t matter, because you’re dead, Slade. You’re dead.”

“Do you remember what I promised?” he snarled. “The ones you love — _dead_ , at your feet. For what you did to Shado, for all those who died because of your lies, I will kill every single person you have ever loved, until you will see death as a mercy, and beg me for a quick end. I keep my promises, kid. I —”

The anger surged out of Oliver without warning, black and toxic and uncontrollable —

“ _SHUT UP!_ ”

Silence.

Blood dripped into the sink, onto the irregular shards of glass lying at the bottom of the basin, a dozen reflected versions of himself, smeared with dark red. Oliver hunched over the sink, breathing hard, sweat beading on his skin. His punch had shattered the mirror, leaving his knuckles open and raw, but he only knew how fast his heart was beating.

Guilt.

Slade had been a lot of things, but he’d never been a liar. Between the two of them, that had always been Oliver’s specialty. His nature.

Oliver shook his head. “Dead,” he said, like it could make everything stop. “He’s dead.”

* * *

“This had better be good, little monster,” Tommy said, holding up his phone as evidence. “I’m in the middle of some _very_ non-PG 13 texting, and she’s coming over right now, so —”

He was unceremoniously cut off when Thea grabbed him by the front of his shirt and hauled him down the hallway with embarrassing ease, for someone a head shorter than him and built like a China doll.

“Ow, ow — you’re pulling out my chest hairs,” he complained. “Where’s the fire?”

“There _will_ be a fire if mom finds out,” she said ominously, still dragging him behind her. “Ollie’s not in his room, and he’s not answering his phone — I didn’t know who else to get.”

As flattered as he was at being a last-ditch option, Tommy glanced through one of the windows as they passed, squinting out into the morning fog like he could spot Oliver in the woods surrounding the mansion. “Uh, he went for a run…I think. I mean, I hid the keys for _all_ the cars, and his bike, so he’s either on a twenty-mile hike into the city, or he found a way to kick-start the ignition on your Barbie dreamhouse convertible. Ha, wouldn’t put it past him to try that last one.”

Normal Thea would have found him a _little_ funny, but she still looked distracted. “Really? Mom thinks he’s sneaking out to meet a girl,” she answered. “She says it makes a nice change to know whoever he’s dating _has_ the brain cells to handle having her own place.”

Tommy winced. “Harsh.”

“Yeah, well, that’s mom. Since when has she _not_ been picky about who we’re dating? Which is actually a pretty good segue into what I’m about to ask you.”

Thea ground to a halt outside her room, one hand on the knob, the other still holding his shirt (and precious chest hairs) hostage. “You _cannot_ tell mom about this, okay? Promise me.”

“Like, pinky stuff?” Tommy asked, holding up his finger. “That’s serious.”

Thea stared beadily at him. “Do you promise?”

“Sure,” he said, warily. “What’s going on?”

She gave him a look that said _too long to explain_ , and rapped on the door in a blatantly pre-scripted pattern.

“What is this — Nancy Drew?” he said sarcastically. “Do I need a password to get into the treehouse?”

The door cracked open, and an unfamiliar — but highly dubious — face peered out at them. “Did your brother get a facelift?” she said.

Tommy turned to Thea. “Does she think Oliver’s hotter?”

“He’s fine, Sin,” Thea said. “Tommy’s practically my brother.”

“I can see the resemblance,” she muttered, opening the door all the way.

“Oh, we’re not actually rela—” Once again, Tommy was interrupted mid-sentence, because Thea shoved him into the room, looked both ways down the corridor, and slammed the door shut behind them, locking it to boot.

“What’s going on?” he demanded, massaging his back. “You know I bruise like a peach.”

None of them answered immediately, which was fine (loosely speaking), because Tommy could smell the blood anyway. He turned in the direction of Thea’s bed, and stared.

_W.T.F._

“Hey,” Roy croaked, shiny with sweat and blanched a sickly white, a state of wellbeing that may or may not have had something to do with the great big _arrow_ protruding from his thigh.

Tommy was starting to wish he’d stuck a tracker on Oliver, most likely somewhere the light didn’t shine. “Okay, I’m starting to see what the problem is,” he said lamely. “You look _great_ , by the way.”

* * *

“Morning,” Tommy said brightly, answering the door with a stack of extra towels high enough to raise McKenna’s eyebrows hazardously close to her hair.

“Tommy, you know _breakfast_ wasn’t a metaphor for anything weird, right?” she said, speaking in the kind of voice he associated with the mentally deranged. “I don’t care if the maple syrup is imported, I’m — _not_ — doing that.”

“‘Course I did,” he answered, ushering her into the foyer before Moira could intercept them. “Quick pit stop before we hit the diner — and you’ll get extra Tommy points if you don’t tell _anyone_ about this. Especially not Quentin. Or any cop, actually. Last part’s very important.”

McKenna followed him up the staircase with a suspicious look on her face. “Is that a first-aid kit?”

No point in fibbing about that one. “Yeah, we had a bit of an accident in the Queen household,” he said. “Small whoopsie, nothing major. You know how to stitch people up, right?”

“I took the emergency first aid training, but —”

“ _Perfect_.” He tapped out a random sequence on Thea’s door (couldn’t remember the special code). “Thea — open up, I brought help.”

And he barged in as soon as Sin cracked open the door, before anyone could react to the teensy little fact that his definition of _help_ involved an off-duty detective with the SCPD.

“ _Tommy_ ,” Thea hissed, twitching the covers up like she could hide Roy’s leg from view (who groaned, because _ow_ ). “The whole point of not taking him to a hospital was to avoid the police looking into the _arrow wound_.”

“Hey, she’s cool,” Tommy said, coming to McKenna’s defence. “Roy got shot with the arrow, not the other way round. Wait — did he shoot himself in the leg by accident?”

Thea’s glare made him think _not_.

Sin’s arms were folded, and for someone the size of a ninth-grader, she managed to look just the right amount of intimidating in front of McKenna, who wasn’t exactly a blushing damsel herself (and would taze anyone who dared to suggest otherwise). “You look familiar,” she said, giving McKenna a speculative once-over. “Have I run away from you before?”

McKenna had either seen worse, or knew Roy Harper well enough from their brief encounters to _not_ be surprised, at all. “Probably,” she answered, the bulk of her attention on the bleeding invalid sprawled across Thea’s queen-sized mattress. “Harper, I thought I told you to stay out of trouble.”

“This is me being well-behaved,” Roy said feebly.

Tommy grabbed Roy’s foot, triggering a fresh round of heavy sweating and _I-hate-you_ glares. “Okay, spill. What happened? And remember, you can’t lie to a police officer.”

“Yes, you can,” said Roy, Sin, and McKenna all at once.

“ _Ju-st_ trying to help,” he muttered.

“The vigilante used Roy for target practice, okay?” Thea said, dropping the blanket so McKenna could get a better look. “Sin’s friend Max went missing the other day, and Roy was helping her look into it. The police found him dead in a dumpster, and they assumed he’d just OD-ed. The Hood asked him to drop it, and when Roy wouldn’t —” she gestured at the end result. “That guy’s a total _psycho_.”

Tommy scratched behind his ear uncomfortably, because irony gave him the itches. McKenna — well aware that he’d been helping the Arrow since the Dollmaker’s encore show — gave him a sidelong look, and he put on his best version of _innocent_ , because Oliver had genuinely left out the fact that he’d shot his sister’s boyfriend in the leg.

But if Tommy _had_ to pin it somewhere on the timeline, his first guess would have been sometime after Oliver had gotten chewed out by his lady love.

Poor kid hadn’t even seen it coming.

“Okay, first thing’s first — that arrow needs to come out of your leg,” McKenna said, shrugging off her jacket. “If you went to the hospital, they’d give you something for the pain.”

“My anger’s doing a pretty good job with that,” Roy said (a tad dramatically, Tommy thought), as she took a spare towel from the stack.

McKenna made a skeptical noise, inspecting the label on the bottle Tommy helpfully passed her. "What is this?" she asked, understandably wary about the Russian label.

Which Tommy couldn't read either, but he'd stolen it from Oliver's room and taken an experimental sip that almost paralyzed his vocal chords, so he was pretty sure the contents could kill just about any microbe out there, hospitable, or otherwise. "Only the best for friends and family," he said, a little hoarse from the emotionally scarring experience.

It seemed abundantly clear to everyone in the room that there was a profound lack of options, because McKenna unscrewed the cap and twisted her towel-wrapped hand around the bloody arrow shaft. “I can tell you from experience that anger does _not_ work as well as lidocaine,” she said. “You sure you want to do this here?”

Roy nodded, his jaw set. McKenna glanced at Tommy, who was holding down Roy’s legs. “Hey,” he said, pointing at the calves. “Did you shave these?”

Roy frowned at the _non sequitur_. “What? N—”

McKenna sloshed about a quart of vodka onto Roy’s leg, making him buck from the shock, at which point she yanked the arrow straight out with a sickening squelch of flesh. Tommy dutifully held Roy down while he articulated his man-pain (along with a string of curse words), patting him below the knee. “There you go, buddy, let it _all_ out.”

Thea looked queasy, but Sin looked over his shoulder, intrigued. “That’s gonna leave a mark,” she said, helpfully.

Pressing firmly on the bleeding wound, McKenna pulled the first aid kit towards her. “Okay, so what happened?”

* * *

Oliver hadn’t slept all night, and thanks to another one of Tommy’s well-meaning — albeit misguided — attempts to make him rest, he was currently in the process of hot-wiring his own bike to get into town. The knuckles on his right hand were bandaged but still smarting from the night before, making his whole arm feel stiff and unworkable. Unfortunately, he knew Tommy well enough to guess that his keys were either somewhere unreachable in the woods, or concealed in a more anatomical location he had _zero_ interest in searching.

“I don’t know if I should feel bereft, or concerned, because I haven’t seen my son in days, and here he is, trying to escape at the crack of dawn,” Moira said, standing on the front steps in her robe. “We do have drivers, if you’re in too much of a hurry to look for your keys.”

Oliver turned, a little sheepishly, and walked up to give his mother a kiss on the cheek. “Hi mom,” he said, already sounding apologetic. “Something came up at the office, and I didn’t want to bother Mr Diggle on the weekend.”

Moira chafed his arm, like she wanted to make sure he was wearing enough clothes in the cold. “I see,” she said, sounding amused. “Well, I’m sure Miss Smoak won’t mind being kept waiting for a little longer, and I — on the other hand — _do_ like seeing my son more than once a week, you know.”

It took Oliver a second to make the connection, between the non-office clothes, the odd hour, and his apparent hurry to get out of the house. Apparently — to his mother, anyway — it added up to an illicit meeting with his CTO.

Tommy would have burst with pride if he’d been around.

“I’m not — it’s not — Felicity,” he managed, though with the amount of pauses and false starts, he doubted he’d convinced anyone, much less his mother. “It’s work.”

His tone seemed to have helped somewhat, even though she only looked at him, a hand on his cheek. “Is everything all right? You seem different today. Tired, but…worried.”

Oliver shook his head and forced a smile. “Just the usual. My co-CEO wants the best numbers possible before the end of the year.”

Moira nodded. “I should be the one losing sleep over the state of the company, not you,” she said, with a trace of regret. “I’m very sorry, Oliver. Sometimes I think that I haven’t done the best I can by you and your sister.”

“Mom,” he said, firmly. “This isn’t your fault. I promise, I’m handling it.”

She gave no overt sign that she disbelieved him, and opened her arms for a hug. “All right, off you go,” she said, holding him close like she always did. “My beautiful boy.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d used the particular endearment, but something in her tone made Oliver hesitate. “What about you?” he asked, noting the shadows under her eyes, maybe a few extra lines that hadn’t been there before. “Are you…okay?”

Moira returned the kiss, this time on his cheek. “I promise, I am handling it,” she said, echoing his choice of phrase. “Go on — knowing you, you’re already late.”

That part was true, as far as the Mirakuru problem was concerned, anyway. But Oliver hesitated. “Mom,” he said, not quite knowing why. “It’s not Felicity.”

Instead of looking disappointed, Moira’s expression turned the slightest bit playful. “Why not?”

He didn’t have an answer for her there, but he sensed that she wasn’t expecting one. Moira stayed at the door, watching as Oliver put on his helmet and revved the engine on his bike. She raised her hand in a wave, mirroring his gesture, and she was still standing alone on the front steps when he tore out of the driveway and disappeared through the trees.

* * *

“I really don’t see the difference,” Tommy said, reading the label on Thea’s bottle of _Tylenol: Menstrual Relief_ while McKenna very slowly sutured up Roy’s leg (a part of him wondered if she was doing it on purpose). “Oo, do you take requests? Make the stitches look like a lightning bolt.”

“It’s hard enough to keep them straight as it is,” she said, pulling the needle through the torn skin. “My training officer took marks off because my stitches were always crooked.”

“You’re not making it any easier for me to sit still,” Roy winced, shifting his weight with difficulty.

“Well, that should teach you something about chasing after the vigilante,” Thea said. “He’s dangerous.”

Again, Tommy fidgeted under McKenna’s stare. “So they say,” she said.

“Walk me through what happened with the Arrow,” he interrupted, to marginally change the subject. “You asked him for help and he — what — shot you in the leg?”

“Sin and I found Max’s body,” Roy explained. “It looked like an overdose and that’s what the police thought, but I got past the police tape and took a picture with my phone, because there was no way. I showed it to the Arrow, and got all quiet, told me to walk away from the case. I didn’t, and he lost it.”

Tommy grimaced. “I need a copy of that photo — I mean, McKenna does, if she’s going to help you look into what happened to Max.”

“Is she?” Sin asked. “Last time I checked, the SCPD found it easier to write him off as a junkie.”

“Max was a fully-grown adult in a part of town with a high proportion of drug-related accidental deaths,” McKenna said evenly. “The SCPD can’t afford to treat every single case like it’s a homicide.”

“Okay, but just because Max was an artist living in a bad part of town doesn’t mean he was a user,” Sin said defensively. “He donated blood to Starling East all the time for extra cash — the staff all knew him. They wouldn’t have accepted his blood if he didn’t test clean first.”

“It would help if you knew when he went missing,” McKenna said, as Tommy got a look at the photo on Roy’s phone.

An action he more or less regretted immediately. “Is that blood coming out his eyes?” he said queasily.

Not unlike her brother, Thea didn’t seem fazed by the gore. “That’s not any kind of OD I’ve ever seen before,” she added. “But someone tried _really_ hard to make it look like one.”

McKenna managed to look dispassionately at the body, but Tommy noticed a line appear between her eyebrows. “I’ll look into similar incidents. If there’s a pattern — and I’m not saying there is — the victims are usually young, unemployed, and living alone. The kind of people who disappear very easily. _If_ someone’s choosing them on purpose, it’ll be hard to convince anyone that there’s foul play, without hard evidence of whatever caused their deaths.”

“So basically,” Roy said, “you want us to find evidence to convince the police that there’s evidence?”

“I’m just telling you what it’ll take to get official hours on this,” she answered. “I’ll look into it when I can, but I think everyone in this room needs to be very careful.”

Tommy poked Thea in the side. “Yeah, I don’t like the idea of you nosing around shady business, especially if shady business has a habit of making people wind up dead in dumpsters.”

“You’re welcome to help us,” she said, ignoring his concern. “We think Max went missing the same day as one of Sebastian Blood’s blood drives. Ollie knows him, doesn’t he? Maybe he could ask if someone saw Max come in.”

“Probably,” Tommy said vaguely, checking to make sure he had the dumpster photo on his phone. “Then again, if I know your brother, he’s pretty much gonna tell you the same thing I just did.”

“Oh good, because if I know Ollie, he won’t be surprised if I don’t listen to him either,” she said acidly.

“Runs in the family,” McKenna remarked, and snipped the last thread on Roy’s stitches.

* * *

Oliver was in less than an ideal mood, thanks to the lack of sleep and the recurring pain in his hand from smashing his bathroom mirror. The Foundry was the safe space, _the_ place he could go to when he was feeling like being alone. Today, it felt different. Not quite compromised, but almost. He made it halfway down the staircase before he hesitated. After constantly feeling that there was something hovering at the corner of his eye, keeping just out of view, he was wary at anything that wasn’t silence.

There were voices in the Foundry, and after a beat, Oliver realized they weren’t inside his head.

Unfortunately, there was a part of him that wished they were.

Felicity and Barry were at her workstation, though some of the monitors had been shifted to make room for his equipment. The news was playing from one of the screens, something about the particle accelerator in Central City. Her hand was on his arm and they were speaking in a murmur, the words flying quicksilver-fast, and Barry was laughing, shaking his head like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

Oliver was used to Felicity’s way of sensing whenever he was around as a matter of habit, but Barry was the one who noticed him first, like she’d been distracted. Or stopped paying attention altogether.

“Morning,” he said brightly, as though Oliver’s first instinct upon regaining consciousness hadn’t been to try and choke him single-handedly.

To paraphrase one of Tommy’s mantras, it was incredibly — almost instinctively — annoying. But it didn’t stop him from feeling a pang of guilt, especially at the way Felicity looked at him. Not quite as though she was expecting the worst, but still on the wary side.

Like he needed reminding that they’d fought, again.

“Hey,” he said, pretending it was for the both of them.

“Hi,” Felicity answered, both hands wrapped around her coffee cup. “How’d you sleep?”

Without meaning to, Oliver noticed that she and Barry had coffee from the same café, like they’d gotten them at the same time — which made him wonder if Barry had spent the night with her.

He didn’t quite know what to make of that possibility.

“Fine,” he said, gesturing vaguely with one arm. “I just came back here to…check on things.”

Oliver was more than sure that Felicity didn’t believe him, but fortunately for them, they had other, more pressing concerns than how he’d spent the last eight hours.

“Did you find anything on the thief?” he asked.

Felicity didn’t pursue the subject, probably because she knew he hated discussing his wellbeing, period, much less in front of someone who qualified — in his book, anyway — as a not-entirely-welcome visitor.

“The prints Barry got off your neck were a match to someone called Cyrus Gold,” she said, bringing up the corresponding mugshot from the SCPD database. “No next of kin, grew up in the foster system, and — surprise, surprise — has a track record in violent assault. I’m patched into CCTV networks all over the city. If he crosses one of them, facial recognition should pick him up, but since there’s been nothing so far, he might be laying low.”

Oliver didn’t say anything, but he must have let his disappointment show.

Felicity’s look made him feel as transparent as glass. “Oliver,” she said. “He nearly killed you. I don’t think anyone should be approaching Gold until we have a real plan — and before you go running to Diggle and Tommy for backup, they agree with me.”

After the conversation with Tommy, Oliver knew he couldn’t put up much of a meaningful resistance. “I know,” he answered, shortly before he noticed that Barry was staring at him, an unsettling expression of pure delight on his face. “Can I help you?”

“Sorry — I’m sorry,” he said, holding up his hands. “I just…can’t believe that I met the vigilante — _Arrow_ , sorry, Felicity mentioned that’s what you like to be called now.”

“Right,” Oliver said, not entirely sure what it had to do with anything, so he turned back to Felicity. “I’ve been thinking about my gear. The trick wires worked on Gold. Not for long, but I just need to —”

“—increase the anchoring potential of the counterweights and up the tensile strength of the cables?” she finished, showing him a tray of semi-dismantled arrows she’d evidently been working on. “Barry had an idea.”

Oliver, who had been in the process of examining one of the arrows, almost snapped the shaft in two. “Did he?” he said, keeping his voice light. “That’s…nice of him.”

It might have been his imagination, but Felicity seemed to enjoy reminding him that Barry existed, like she could tell that he had the tendency to disregard the things that irritated him.

“So you…design arrows,” Oliver said, haltingly. “Great.”

Barry shrugged his shoulders, still eyeing the tray of arrows like they were the greatest thing he’d ever seen. “It’s nothing — I fiddle a lot when I’m by myself. _That,_ came out very wrong. I swear I wouldn’t — fiddle — in your Arrowcave — _wow_ , this is getting worse and worse —”

Felicity stopped Barry’s string of babbling with a hand on the arm, very nearly laughing, and the smile that passed between them — the knowing look — nearly made Oliver head straight for the training dummies stored in the Foundry.

Because he needed to _hit_ something.

In lieu of that, Oliver felt the first twinges of a migraine coming on. “You and Felicity almost sound related,” he said, a rare example of a comeback that got him narrowed eyes from the latter.

But Barry grinned at him, like Oliver had intentionally made a joke. “Anyway, what I _meant_ to say was — after your fight with Gold, I thought I’d take a look at your arrowheads, see what I could do about the specs. Did you design these by yourself?”

“Yes.” The answer came through gritted teeth.

“ _Cool_ ,” Barry breathed. “By the way, concealing the charge at the base of the shaft instead of the arrowhead was total genius, because —”

“—it balances out the weight, I know,” Oliver interrupted. “What’s your point?”

“Barry had the idea to rewire the anchor points so they carry an electro-shock charge,” Felicity said. “You know, since the cables are metal, the electricity might slow Gold down, even if it doesn’t knock him out.”

“Oh,” Oliver said, because he hadn’t really thought about it.

Despite the lack of enthusiasm from his audience, Barry wasn’t done, going for another tray beneath the workstation. “And your arrows — the average ones — _not_ that I’m saying your aim is average, I mean, if anything — it’s phenomenal, but we were thinking —”

Oliver gave Felicity a sharp look at the word _we_ , as though it implicated her in the conspiracy. She returned it with a bland one of her own, lips pressed together like she was trying not to smile.

“—instead of using carbon arrows, if you switched to a composite blend, aluminum-carbon maybe, you’d have _far_ better penetration,” he said, completely straight-faced.

As much as he preferred not having his best friend around to tease him, Oliver wondered if Tommy would have made a joke about the totally unnecessary use of the word.

“Oh, and —” Barry was out of his chair again, striding towards the glass case where he kept his suit. “Not that I’m taking an issue with the greasepaint, but as far as identity concealment goes…”

It sounded to Oliver like Barry _was_ taking issue with the greasepaint, but he had other things on his mind, and caught Felicity’s arm before she could follow, drawing her back. “Does he know that —”

“—you don’t like people touching your stuff?” she guessed, a little too innocently. “Huh. I guess someone _forgot_ to tell him.”

Whether she was challenging or teasing him, Oliver couldn’t quite tell. But the two of them usually went hand in hand. “Fair enough,” he said, still in an undertone. “I _did_ try to strangle your boyfriend.”

Felicity tipped her head to one side. “He’s not,” she answered, matter-of-factly. “But _if_ he were, and _if_ you had a problem with that, trying to murder him after he saved your life? Not very cool.”

Barry was almost on the other side of the room, and Oliver had to actively fight the urge to roll his eyes when he looked at him. But that wasn’t why he’d almost killed Barry. He remembered opening his eyes to the disorienting brightness, the image of Slade still fresh in his mind, and thinking that the stranger was something else, something worse. Fear had always brought out the worst in him, and the previous night was no exception.

In terms of people who could help him and people he trusted, Felicity was one of the few — if not the only one — who fell into both categories.

“I thought he was a hallucination,” Oliver admitted. “When I was on that table, I saw…things. They seemed — real — at the time, and when I woke up, I thought Barry was another one of them.”

Felicity’s attention was wholly on him now. “Things?” she said, her concern palpable. “Like what?”

_Liar._

_I keep my promises, kid._

“People,” he said shortly. “Shado — her father was a man called Yao Fei, and she was with me on the island.”

Contrary to expectations, Felicity didn’t look all that surprised, which made him wonder what he’d done. “So _that’s_ what you meant,” she said, like she’d missed something obvious. “When you were under — you said something. I thought you meant _shadow_ , but you meant a girl.”

Her tone made it sound like she’d meant _of course_ , of course he’d be dreaming about someone else, even while semi-conscious. “Shado, Sara…marooned on a deserted island with you — sounds more like a fantasy to me, not a hallucination,” she said, without looking at him.

“I didn’t see Sara, I saw —” Oliver cut himself off, before he let slip that she’d appeared in the hallucinations too.

That he’d kissed her.

That she’d kissed him back.

Felicity glanced at him, waiting for the rest of his sentence, and Oliver forced himself not to stare anywhere in the vicinity of her lips. “I just need to know if it’s something I should be worrying about, before I go back into the field,” he said, quietly.

“Off the top of my head, warfarin isn’t something you’re meant to be shooting into your arm, so I wouldn’t be surprised if seeing things turns out to be a side effect. Barry could run a blood test —”

“— so could you,” he said, a little too quickly.

Felicity paused. “I could. Is there…something else? Have you been seeing things since you woke up?”

Again, Oliver thought he saw a flicker of something — some _one_ — reflected in the glass cases. Behind his back, but gone when he turned around to see.

No, it couldn’t be. Slade was dead.

His knuckles ached, the raw skin bleeding into the bandaging as his fingers curled into a fist again. Felicity didn’t need to know about a ghost, especially one who couldn’t hurt her. “No,” he said, as the door at the top of the steps opened, and he heard Tommy thundering down the stairs. “Nothing.”

“Where the hell did you go?” he demanded, before waving Oliver off, apparently realizing that the answer was self-evident. “You know what I mean — anyway, when were you gonna tell me that you put an _arrow_ in Roy Harper?”

Felicity stared. “You _what_?”

* * *

“Well, I suppose it was only a matter of time before Roy got shot,” Diggle said, with extreme sarcasm. “I mean, all he did was ask you to investigate an unusual death, which you obviously _never do._ ”

Even if Verdant was a long way away from opening hours, and they were at the corner of the bar, Tommy didn’t like the idea of their secret meetings happening in a public space. Especially since Oliver and Felicity — despite their earlier detente — seemed to have reverted back to _guns a-blazin’_ mode.

“Guys,” he said, trying to channel Switzerland vibes while the two of them glowered at each other in a way that bristled with unresolved issues (of the bangity-bang kind, in his humble opinion). “Is there a reason you’re not using the basement to have this conversation?”

“Depends,” Diggle said dryly. “Oliver, did you have time to put an arrow through Barry too?”

Tommy snapped his fingers. _Right._ He’d forgotten that the science geek had taken up temporary residence in Oliver’s safe space. It was funny how that kid dropped out sometimes, as if no one would notice if he mysteriously disappeared —

 _Stop it, Tommy_.

“Roy was a mistake,” Oliver answered, without a trace of humor. “He was getting too close to the Mirakuru, and I didn’t want him to get in over his head.”

“So naturally, the way to handle that is to stick him with an arrow,” Felicity said sarcastically. “But I forgot. You have an allergy to being rational when it’s something you don’t like, even if that something — or _someone_ — has nothing but a healthy, albeit undeserved, admiration for you.”

Tommy made an _eh_ kind of noise, wiping down a couple more glasses to preserve the illusion that he was working. “I’m not sure I’d describe Roy’s puppy dog love for the Arrow as _healthy_. Especially not if that arrow leaves a mark — he’s very self-conscious about his legs.”

Felicity skewered the two cherries in her drink. “I’m not _talking_ about Roy.”

Cue the crackling, _I-want-to-kill-you_ glares. “ _Anyway_ ,” Oliver said, looking like he’d separated his gritted teeth with an enormous effort, “whoever sent the thief to steal the centrifuge, they have everything they need after the bunker to start mass-producing the serum.”

“Which means there’s gonna be a lot more Maxes winding up dead in the Glades — unless they start disposing of the bodies more discreetly,” Diggle summarized. “Sounds like they know how to pick people who won’t be missed.”

“McKenna says the SCPD won’t go on the alert without any kind of hard proof that there’s foul play,” Tommy confirmed. “In other words, we’re on our own.”

“Tell her to be careful,” Oliver said. “Someone covering up the deaths means that they’re clearing their tracks — if someone starts asking questions, it might extend to her too.”

Fortunately, Tommy had already considered this. “She’s smart, it won’t be easy to trip her up.”

Oliver nodded. “It all goes back to finding Gold. He’s been delivering the stolen items to their base of operations — we find him, we shut them down.”

“Which is my cue to go,” Felicity said, sliding off her chair. “The computer’s running through every surveillance camera in the city, but your gear needs an upgrade before you should even _think_ about getting near Crazypants again.”

“I’m guessing Barry’s helping you there,” Diggle said.

“He’s not very good at holding grudges.” Cue a pointed look at Oliver. “But don’t mind me — wouldn’t want to break up the brooding time.”

She turned on her heel and walked off, and Tommy — like Diggle — both looked at Oliver, who rolled his eyes. “It’s nothing.”

“Well, _that’s_ not true,” Tommy said. “You’re acting like there’s an arrow up your ass. What happened to being cool about Barry?”

Oliver rubbed a band-aid on his arm from the recent blood test, as though it still stung. Which wasn’t hard to believe, especially since Felicity was _clearly_ irritated with him, and she’d been the one with the pointy needle. “That was when I thought she was going to date him, not bring him into —” he gestured vaguely “—all this.”

“In other words,” Diggle translated, “you didn’t expect to have to share Felicity at night, too.”

Tommy finger-gunned in his direction. “ _Nice_.”

“That’s not what it’s about,” Oliver said, but failed to elaborate.

Diggle sighed. “If what happened yesterday is any indication of what Barry can do, I think it’s safe to say that he might be an asset to the case. The Mirakuru doesn’t sound like good news, and you know that better than I do. If you want to shut them down before they start creating more super-strong friends for the guy who nearly killed you, you might have to bite the bullet and deal with it.”

“ _It_ , being Barry’s help,” Tommy specified. “But — before you look all sad and hurt — I didn’t say you have to roll over and _push_ them together. Just, y’know, try to avoid anything that might do that accidentally.”

 _Which is basically how you’ve been acting since you woke up_.

From the expression on Oliver’s face, Tommy had a feeling he was contemplating a second round with the Mirakuru man as a more pleasant alternative.

“Fine,” he said. “ _Fine_.”

* * *

“Hey,” Felicity said, a little wary of the new chemical smell, especially since she’d only been gone for less than half an hour. “Are you cooking something? You know we can get takeout here, right?”

Barry swiveled at his temporary workstation. “Pretty sure you can’t get takeout for this,” he said, his smile working wonders at banishing her bad mood. “I’m working on a little something for the Arrow.”

In spite of his ostentatious enthusiasm, Felicity was finding it hard to believe that any present from Barry to Oliver would end well. “Really?” she asked, peering at the beakers and their contents, all in varying shades of green. “You know that if there’s going to be _any_ kind of present-giving, it should be from the one who did the strangling, not the other way around, right?”

“I surprised him, that’s all,” Barry said reasonably. “You warned me that he wouldn’t take it well, and I should have been more careful. Besides, he liked my ideas.”

“ _Like_ is not the word I would have used,” she muttered, sliding into her usual spot. “What is it?”

“You’ll see,” he said, pushing the safety goggles into his hair as he got up to join her. “Kind of a Christmas surprise.”

She smiled a little, not just because the goggles made his hair stick up in weird peaks, like he’d just rolled out of bed.

“So what are you up to now?” he asked, peeking over her shoulder. “Who’s…Max Stanton?”

“Oli— _we_ think there might be some test runs with the Mirakuru serum, and they’re turning up as dead bodies. Stanton’s the latest one.”

“That’s terrible,” Barry said, frowning.

“Very terrible,” she agreed, running a search through police files. “It’s a shot in the dark, but I thought I’d look into similar cases — see what kind of people they tend to pick for test subjects.”

Barry pulled a chair over to one of the monitors. “I can help sift through reports. What are we looking for?”

“Stanton was found in a dumpster with blood coming out of his eyes,” Felicity said, and winced. “Yet another sentence I thought I’d never say out loud.”

Barry nodded gravely. “Happens a lot, huh?”

“Occupational hazard,” she breathed, filtering the results through the (highly disturbing) keywords. Which still left them with a decent-sized chunk of people who may or may not have been Mirakuru-ed.

She scrutinized the list, feeling like they were still missing something big. “We know he donated at hospitals for cash, so maybe financial trouble is something all the victims had in common?”

“Could be,” Barry said. “But it’s still risky to extrapolate a pattern from one data point.”

Felicity glanced at him. “You sound like you’ve done this before.”

“My foster dad’s a detective,” he said. “I know it’s dorky that I work with a guy who still helps me with my laundry, but…”

“It’s what you love, right?”

Barry smiled at her in a way that made her think _yes_ , in spades. “You mentioned you were using cameras to track Cyrus Gold. Any chance you could follow Stanton the same way — just backwards?”

“Prepare to be impressed, young Padawan,” she said, resisting the impulse to crack her knuckles for emphasis. “Max Stanton’s friends mentioned that he went missing the same day as a blood drive, so we can use the date as a cut-off for when he disappeared…let’s see where he’s been.”

“It still _blows_ my mind that you can do that,” he said, shaking his head at the growing list of hits from the police database. “It should be criminal, how easy it is for you. I mean — it _is_ criminal, technically — but I wouldn’t — I would _never_ tell on you. God, I sound like I’m five.”

Felicity laughed. “I believe you. Not the age part — otherwise _I’d_ be in trouble, but you should know, whatever anyone says, I trust you.”

“You mean Oliver,” he guessed.

Felicity cleared her throat in response to the thermostat spike, because there was no surer way to get under her skin that bring up the arrow-slinging dummy upstairs.

“He has trust issues,” she said simply. _Along with enough PTSD-related symptoms to give any psychiatrist a field day_.

“Nobody’s perfect,” he said, unexpectedly coming to Oliver’s defence. “But billionaire by day, saving the city by night? That comes pretty close.”

Felicity snorted, humorlessly. “Maybe you should date him.”

Barry smiled again, glancing at his feet and back up again like he was bracing himself to say something. “You know…when I asked — whether you and Oliver were… _something_ , it’s because of the way he looked at you. At the warehouse, in your office…”

He smiled, ruefully. “It’s hard to explain unless you’ve been there, but I have a _little_ bit of experience in liking someone who may not…see it the same way, or at all.”

“ _If_ that were true,” she turned, so that her knee was lightly touching his, “why would you tell me?”

“Because it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t. I like you, but if you liked someone else — and they liked you back — I’d just be getting in the way.”

Even Felicity was a little taken aback by his frankness (yet another worrying trend), and in lieu of an answer, she occupied herself with taking off Barry’s (forgotten) lab goggles, patting down the quizzical cowlicks of dark hair left standing. “For what it’s worth, I don’t think you’re not getting in the way at all,” she said, trying and failing with one stubborn patch. “Your _hair_ , on the other hand…”

Barry caught her hand and gave it a playful squeeze. “I know, it even sticks up after a shower.”

The thought of Barry standing in front of a steamed-up bathroom mirror wearing nothing but a towel was _not_ something Felicity intended to think about, but she still managed to enjoy that brief mental image.

Unfortunately, she had work to do, and thinking about half-naked science nerds most definitely counted as back-burner stuff.

Mental sigh.

“Based on the surveillance, it looks like Max might have crossed paths with a couple of test subjects,” she said, switching back to the (totally legitimate) business of hacking. “A lot of the overlap seems to come from around Fifth and Delgado.”

Barry looked intrigued. “What’s over there? Apartment building?”

Felicity frowned at the city map. “Doesn’t look like it. The area’s mostly small businesses, a couple of bars. I think he had a favorite — some place called _The Green Room_. Which isn’t ironic, at all.”

Barry was typing over on his side of the computers. “The website says it’s a dive bar,” he said. “They have theme nights — slam poetry, freestyle art…huh, that sounds pretty cool.”

Felicity was thinking hard, which meant doing it aloud. “A couple of the victims hung out there — it can’t be a coincidence. But we’re supposed to be tracking down Gold,” she said, half-imagining the look on the grumpy cat’s face if she brought up a side mission.

“Oliver’s not going to fight this guy head-on, right?” Barry said. “The point is to find where they’re making the serum and shut it down, so one way _would_ be to wait until Gold shows up — and tail him — but finding out how they’re choosing test subjects might get us a lead from someone else who works for the Big Bad.”

Felicity didn’t disagree at all, but in a moment of perfect timing, the doors banged open, followed shortly by the sound of footsteps.

“Find anything?” Oliver said, with his standard level of preamble. True to form, he was also showing no sign he’d even noticed Barry’s existence.

Didn’t mean Felicity couldn’t constantly remind him of it. “Barry actually had the idea to track Max Stanton’s movements over the last few days and cross-reference those locations with other victims who might have been Mirakuru test subjects,” she said innocently. “It looks like they had a habit of hanging out at a bar called _The Green Room_ —”

Tommy made a noise of vocal disgust, and everyone turned to look at him. “Sorry, that’s one of Max Fuller’s. He sold it last year, but still — _yeuch_. Human snot alert.”

Oliver was the only one who nodded, like the animosity was sufficiently explained by the name, but Barry looked interested. “Who’s Max Fuller?” he asked.

Tommy made a big _X_ with his arms to illustrate his point. “Hates us. He got his bodyguards to toss us out of his club, back when Oliver was still pretending that he couldn't throw a punch. It's a _whole_ long story, but Oliver here s—”

Subject #2 of the anecdote cleared his throat, pointedly.

“— _hook_ ,” Tommy coughed, changing gears mid-sentence, “ _shook_ his fiancee’s hand at the rehearsal dinner. Ollie had a bad cold, and then Max caught the cold when he shook _her_ hand, totally ruined the honeymoon. Hey — that part’s actually true.”

Another dangerous look from Oliver.

“As is the rest of the story,” he finished, and promptly assumed an expression more appropriate for a close friend’s funeral.

“I hope Oliver went to the doctor about that handshake,” Diggle said, playing along with the euphemism. “Or at least wrapped it up until he got on a dose of antibiotics.”

Felicity had a pretty good idea what the handshake stood for, but had neither the time nor the patience to pursue it (one had to pick their battles when it came to Oliver’s illustrious record with the female population).

Plus, _gross._

“Anyway,” she continued, “if they’re recruiting test subjects from the bar, we wouldn’t have to wait for Gold to show up. Grab and interrogate, no chance of another fight.”

“You think we should stake out the place,” Diggle said.

“Actually,” Barry said. “What if someone went in there?”

A pause.

“What?” He looked around at the silence, ever the happy puppy. “Don’t you guys ever do undercover stuff?”

“Once,” Oliver said, curtly. “Underground casino.”

Felicity carefully avoided his eye, but Barry was undeterred. “ _Awesome_.”

“Actually, a stakeout doesn’t sound like such a bad idea,” she said, checking the website over Barry's shoulder. “Oh, but it’s karaoke night.”

“I could do karaoke,” he said, lifting his shoulders. “Should we? Do you want to?”

“You and me?” Felicity weighed the risks in terms of _Santa Baby_. “I can do inconspicuous. Meet you there at eight?”

She'd forgotten about the golden rule — never make plans in front of a Supreme Meddler of Busybody Island.

“ _Hold up_ ,” Tommy said, sending everything crashing to a halt. “We’re coming too.”

“Oh.” Felicity looked at Diggle, trying to imagine him in a karaoke bar. That wasn’t even getting to Tommy, who looked too pretty for most things, and Oliver, who was almost _guaranteed_ to stick out like a sore thumb anywhere. “I thought we were gonna do it like we did the last one," she said, awkwardly. "Meaning just me. And an earpiece.”

“But Barry’s going,” Tommy pointed out. “More the merrier, right?”

Judging by the expression on Diggle and Oliver's faces (amused and mystified respectively), Tommy had evidently gone rogue without consulting them. Given the present company, Felicity didn't think it was completely _kosher_ to ask Barry if it was a _date_ -date (stakeout and undercover mission notwithstanding), but she also had the feeling that Tommy wasn't going to let the evening slide without pulling _some_ kind of shenanigan. At a loss for anything else to say (somehow _you're too pretty_ didn't really seem like a con, not out loud), Felicity glanced at Barry. He shrugged, a gesture both helpless and adorable, leaving it up to her.

She tried the last-ditch option, which even to her, sounded incredibly lame. “Um, it’s not really a fancy place, guys. I don’t think —”

“—oh _no_ ,” Tommy said firmly, slapping Oliver on the back with what looked like a painful amount of force. “We will see you there at eight.”

* * *

Oliver pinched the bridge of his nose, experiencing the first stirrings of a raging headache. “Why are we going into a dive bar with Barry and Felicity?”

It felt like something of a pointless question already, seeing as he’d been marched up to said bar’s entrance, and had no doubts whatsoever that Tommy would full-body tackle him if he tried to leave. Which wouldn't necessarily deter him, but it would draw unnecessary attention to a situation he’d rather remain under the radar.

In the vein of more bad news, Diggle had assigned himself the task of observing the location from inside the van, parked at a discreet distance across the street, and he grunted in amusement.

“Because crashing someone’s date is the new _classy_ ,” he answered. “Isn’t that right, Tommy?”

Oliver yanked Tommy’s arm back down to his side, before his hand could go to his ear, _again_. “Stop touching it,” he said through his teeth. “And _don’t_ —”

“— _that’s what she said_ ,” Tommy rattled off, before Oliver could finish. “Sorry, couldn’t resist. And in answer to your question — Nonexistent-Code-Name-across-the-street, because someone said we didn’t _need_ code names — we’re _helping_. We’re making sure that Felicity stays focused on the mission.”

“Right,” Diggle said. “Because out of you, Oliver, and Felicity — _she’s_ the one with the most trouble staying professional.”

“ _Exactly_ ,” Tommy said. “It’s outrageous. Two dimples shouldn't be a reason for anyone to go insane. Besides — strong words, coming from someone hanging out in a tinted van with binoculars around his neck. You look like someone I’d tell my kids to run their skateboards into.”

Diggle chuckled dismissively. “That’s a big _if_ , man.”

They continued to bicker over the comms, which Oliver took as an opportunity to let his thoughts wander. The bar entrance was crowded from people smoking in the street despite the cold, and the sign above the doors flickered occasionally, the neon bright enough to make his eyes hurt. He had a leather jacket over his shirt — a little too light for the weather — but the chill was something he’d stopped noticing a while ago, taking slow, deep breaths while he waited.

His breath formed a pale cloud mid-air, at the precise second that he glimpsed movement on one of the rooftops. Oliver stepped forward, his heart pounding in his chest, but everything was still.

He could have sworn there was a man, watching him from the ledge, the low light outlining the silhouette of a sword across his back.

 _Nothing_.

“Oliver?” Tommy said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Why?” he said, a little too sharply.

Tommy gave him a strange look. “Figure of speech, buddy. What’s up?”

Oliver shook his head. “We should get inside. Place looks like it’s getting busy.”

“Science Boy seems like the type who’s chronically late,” Tommy said, looking at his watch. “But the alleyway’s right there — in case Plan M’s still a go. M for _Murder_.”

Oliver stared at him.

“Okay, fine, taking the high road,” he said. “Jeez, I’d say ‘grow a sense of humor’, but you might actually take me seriously, because you don’t have one and they do _not_ do transplants. Trust me, I asked.”

Oliver pushed through the front doors, ignoring the blast of warm air and overly loud music. Finding an out-of-the-way table was only half on his mind, considering what he’d just seen and what he was probably about to have to witness.

“I just don’t know if I have it in me to watch Felicity go on a date with someone who’s perfect for her, okay?” he said, after Tommy found them a booth and ordered drinks from a very appreciative waitress.

“Don’t worry, she got the message. Four people is _not_ a date,” Tommy reassured him, before reconsidering. “Not a date by Felicity Smoak’s standards anyway. You and me, on the other hand…”

Oliver chose not to dignify that last statement with a comment.

Tommy leaned back against the cracked leather seat, shortly before the waitress reappeared with their drinks. “Okay, liquid courage,” he said, pushing the vodka towards him. “ _Relax_.”

Oliver was tempted to down it in one, but he clinked the glass against Tommy’s with a long-suffering sigh.

“Incoming,” Diggle said. “Try to behave, okay, kids?”

The doors opened again, and two people walked into the dimly lit entranceway. One of them was unmistakably Felicity, a glint of loose blonde hair and glasses, and Tommy waved to catch her attention. She waved back, but turned around because Barry was helping her with her coat (Oliver felt an irrational urge to look elsewhere).

“See? Not a date,” Tommy repeated. “It is _not_ —”

For what felt like the hundredth time, Oliver choked on a drink he'd forgotten to put down, while Tommy trailed off into silence.

In the simplest terms, Felicity was wearing a black dress, but it was also a black dress that put him at a temporary loss for words, like all he could possibly do in the first thirty seconds of exposure was to just — _stare_.

And he never stared.

It was difficult to pinpoint what he was meant to be looking at, given the short skirt, the snug fit, and the stray, highly inconvenient observation that parts of the dress seemed to have been strategically carved out to show off her skin — shoulders, back, waist. The fact that she'd subtly changed the way she dressed at the office had already taken him by surprise, but this was on another level entirely, because it wasn't just confidence, it was… _sex_.

Oliver thought an extremely bad word he’d learned from Diggle.

“Okay, maybe she’s more into group dates than we thought,” Tommy said feebly. “My bad.”

Oliver wasn’t the only one having trouble looking away in the general vicinity (another twinge of annoyance), but Felicity didn’t seem to notice, self-consciously smoothing down the front of the skirt — whatever there was of it, anyway. Barry, seemingly recovered from a moment of surprise, ducked to say something in her ear — the music was almost deafening, after all — and she laughed, leaning into him a little, her hand in the crook of his arm while they walked over.

He sighed, heavily. It was going to be an incredibly long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I brought in the black dress. Anything to make Oliver's jaw drop, right? ;)  
> GUYS, it's a two-chapter update. There's one more after this. READ ON IF YOU WANT TO.


	17. A Firm Grasp of Reality (The Mirakuru, Part III)

“Wow,” Barry said, while every molecule-slash-instinct in Felicity’s body was in the process of shrieking _Turn Back, Turn Back_. “You look — you look amazing.”

“Really?” she said, still iffy at the unprecedented amount of skin left uncovered. Her legs were literally fidgeting like they wanted to run all the way home and crawl back into sweatpants and panda slippers.

But the nerves evaporated (or at least went to pour themselves a drink) when Barry nodded, enthusiastically. “Like, right now, I wish I could go back in time and tell my twelve-year-old self that getting shoved into lockers for being a science geek is _totally_ worth it, because becoming a CSI is how I got to go on a date with Felicity Smoak.”

She laughed while he hung up their coats, fumbling a little with his scarf because he was so distracted. “So this _is_ a date?” she said, slipping her arm into the bend of his elbow. “You had me thinking it was an undercover thing.”

Barry shrugged, even though the corner of his mouth twitched. “I mean…when a girl you’ve been flirting with and asked to dinner a couple of times shows up in a _mind-blowingly_ hot dress — you tend to make some logical deductions.”

Felicity knew she was one-hundred-percent blushing. “Well, I’m good at multitasking,” she whispered.

The other half of said undercover thing ( _not_ date) had varying expressions of disbelief on their faces, though in Oliver’s case, the better descriptor was a total lack thereof. Tommy, on the other hand, looked like someone had hit him in the face with a frying pan.

 _Good_. It was his fault for meddling in the first place.

“Hey guys,” Barry said, beaming at them.

In the brief pause, Felicity could have sworn Tommy kicked Oliver underneath the table, hard. But in the absence of a response from the latter, Tommy jumped to his feet and bent to kiss her cheek like he always did.

“Who are you, and what have you done with the nerd queen called Felicity Smoak?” he said. “Jeez, are you trying to start a riot?”

Felicity let him spin her in a circle, even though the breeze made the exposed skin on her back tickle, _and_ she was pretty sure he was just being nice. “All my librarian outfits got stuck in the wash,” she said casually.

“Mhm, mhm, I bet.” Tommy sounded completely convinced. “Oliver — thoughts?”

Felicity slid into the booth, while Barry took the seat on the outside, but for a moment, she thought she saw something in Oliver’s eye — an ineffable look that made the knot in her stomach tighten, that made the blood rush into her face, her fingers, everywhere else…

But it was the dress. Just the dress.

For…reasons.

“So,” she said, keeping her voice as casual as humanly possible, without sliding straight off the booth and onto the vaguely sticky floor. “See anything sketchy?”

Barry was turning from side to side in a not-totally-subtle way, but apart from the slightly off-key warbling coming from the stage (the song sounded like something Adele-related) and tipsy cheering all around, Felicity felt like all her senses were on overload.

Though her instincts were still functioning just fine, and the look she flashed Tommy said _don’t_ , in case he wanted to make another semi-dirty pun. “Well, since the bartender’s a lady,” he said, “I thought I’d go up to her and ask about Max. He was here last week — she might have seen someone talking to him. Of course, it would have helped if he was a whole lot cuter and looked like Brad Pitt, but eh, not everyone’s born handsome.”

“Like yourself, you mean,” Felicity said, returning Barry’s grin.

“Shh, lemme work my magic. Oliver? Coming?” Tommy said, on the edge of his seat.

“What?” he answered, completely blank.

Tommy rolled his eyes and grabbed him by the sleeve. “Excuse us, I don’t think he’s drunk enough to get flirty.”

Felicity — who’d been in the process of stealing Tommy’s drink while waiting for hers to arrive — almost inhaled the lime wedge. “Flirt?” she said. “You’re bringing him to —”

Tommy raised his eyebrows, as if he was saying: _yeeees?_ “I mean, I'm there in case Bartender Lady likes funny and charming and he's there in case she likes...thunderclouds and brooding and a very nice ass.”

Oliver narrowed his eyes at Tommy, the implied question of _what the hell are you doing?_ conveyed without so much as a word. Felicity bit back her protest (not to mention any inappropriate thoughts about Oliver’s anatomy), because it was completely ridiculous. It was all work, and Oliver was totally free to flirt with whoever he wanted (for Arrow business), even the tall, leggy bartender wearing the black tank top and tight jeans.

Tommy was watching her carefully, which was when she realized that he was still meddling, and did her best version of _nonchalant_.

“Sure,” she said meekly.

With a cheeky wink, Tommy wagged his fingers at her and left with Oliver, the two of them drawing stares from the present female demographic like magnets in a box of nails.

Even though she wanted to kick him, there was something very admirable about the way Tommy bounced back from one backfired plan to another, like a cologne-scented rubber band with infinite positivity for an inexplicable dream pairing that was _never_ going to happen.

“Wow,” Barry said, a very appropriate reaction to the hormone-induced phenomenon of two incredibly good-looking guys walking up to a bar. “So that’s what hanging out with billionaires looks like.”

Felicity paused in the middle of chewing on her straw. “They’re kind of a package deal,” she said, her voice slightly hoarse from choking on the gin.

Barry seemed to have misinterpreted her glum expression as something else, because he reached out and took her hand. “Hey,” he said, a smile on his face. “Wanna multi-task?”

Given how things had turned out lately, Felicity should have been extremely wary of open-ended questions. But sitting in a cozy bar with a guy who liked her (and wasn’t averse to actually _doing_ something about it), wearing a dress she never thought she’d leave the house in…it gave Felicity a little falling sensation in her stomach, like missing a step and landing somewhere she hadn’t expected to be.

Reckless, out of breath, and very much in _like_.

 _What ifs_ were one thing, reality was another.

“What did you have in mind?” she asked.

* * *

“Yeah, I remember him,” said the bartender. “Max was a regular around here. I don’t know if he was using, but he seemed like a good guy. Didn’t deserve to go that way.”

“Did you notice anyone talking to him? Tommy asked. “Anyone weird?”

She gave him a doubtful look. “You’re not from around here, are you? We get weirdos, but we’re not that kind of bar. No one would leave a kid dead in a dumpster like that.”

The questions seemed to have dumped a load of cold water on any interest whatsoever that she’d taken in either Oliver or Tommy, and she moved away to take someone else’s order. “So that was a waste of time,” he said, scratching the back of his head. “I don’t think she likes us very much.”

“She’s not lying.” Oliver was leaning on the side of the bar, staring at the door. “She shut us down because Max was her friend. No one wants to discuss a loss with strangers.”

Tommy eyed him beadily. “You know, for someone who reads people like a book, you are _terrible_ at doing normal-person reactions.”

A blink. “What?”

“Back there — what was that? Going gaga is fine in your head, but _c’mon_.” Tommy whacked the side of his arm with a satisfying _thwap_. “You could have stolen her right out of that kid’s pasty white science geek hands. Look at her — he wouldn’t know _what_ to do with her. You, on the other hand —”

Oliver sighed. “We’ve been over this. As long as Felicity’s happy, I —”

There was a little whine of feedback, an incredibly _deja vu_ sound, and they both turned instinctively towards the stage, crisscrossed with green and yellow spotlights, in addition to _The Green Room_ spray-painted on the exposed brick wall behind it.

Tommy squinted at the two people underneath the blazing lights. “Is that —?”

“Take it easy on us, guys — we’re not really singers,” Barry said, adjusting his mic a little higher (damn him for being so tall). “You ready?”

Felicity whispered something to him, her hand over the mic, but he laughed and said something back that made her smile, albeit nervously.

_Damn. It._

Questionable lighting choices and being on a date with someone else did exactly zip to make that dress look any less _smoaking_ (he punned when he was nervous). Not that Tommy could remotely judge anyone for choosing to serenade via karaoke, but he had the distinct feeling that the karma gods were having some fun with the reversal, since it looked like Felicity had gotten up on stage without being dragged there by crowd support.

It took Tommy two seconds of listening to figure out what Science Boy’s choice number was, and he groaned when he did, because the quirky, indie, aw-shucksy capital-R _Romance_ of it all.

“ _Maybe it’s much too early in the game,_ ” Felicity sang, softly at first, but growing louder when a few idiots in the audience whooped. “ _Ah, but I thought I’d ask you just the same_ …”

Tommy already knew this from other less public karaoke nights, but she was good, like _good-good_ , her voice hitting the precisely right balance between low and high, as addictive and need-to-hear as her laugh. Being shy made her turn towards Barry as she sang, who looked as surprised as Tommy felt, but grinned at her like it was another one of their secrets.

_Cue internal screaming._

“Digg,” Tommy whispered. “You have to kill the power.”

“What?” he answered, audibly enjoying himself. “You know that’s Felicity’s area of expertise.”

Tommy rolled his eyes at the principled-ness of it all. “Ha, I get the irony, but she’s up on stage —”

“—what, singing? Let her have some fun, she’s supposed to be on a date. But of course you know that, since you crashed it.” Diggle sounded fixed on the subject. “Let it go, Tommy.”

“ _Never_ ,” he hissed.

“ _Who’s gonna be the one to hold you tight_ ,” Barry sang back, and true to aggravating puppy form, he was _good_ at it. Like crooning, but not creepy and a whole lot smoother. “ _When it’s exactly twelve o’clock at night…_ ”

Just as Tommy started wondering how much vodka it would take for Oliver to even the score (i.e. sacrifice his dignity-slash-untested-singing-talents in front of a crowd and Felicity), he realized his best friend had disappeared into the crowd.

Oblivious, the two people on a date had gotten to the chorus, laughing at each other and themselves like it was one of those annoyingly cute inside jokes. “ _What are you doing New Year’s, New Year’s Eve?_ ”

_Dammit._

* * *

Oliver was starting to think the night was a complete waste of time, and they’d have been better off waiting for Cyrus Gold to reappear on the surveillance. If anything, the outcome had reminded him of Tommy’s wonderful track record with plans that backfired — spectacularly — and he wasn’t interested in hearing his best friend attempt to spin it as a positive.

Felicity liked Barry, a lot, because he was different. He liked her, he made her laugh, and despite everything Tommy could rattle off about chemistry and opposites attracting — the fact remained that she was painfully interested in someone who was exactly nothing like Oliver.

Which stung, more than a little.

The light overhead was green and flickered occasionally, making his eyes hurt. He was in a dingy, poster-covered hallway between the toilets and the staff entrance, thinking pointless thoughts to himself.

He turned, head throbbing, to lean his back against the wall. There was a mirror at the far end of the hallway, but he refused to look at it, as though he couldn’t trust what he might see.

“ _Nihao, qin ai de._ ”

Oliver shut his eyes, trying to block out the soft voice, but he could feel her hand on his cheek, her slender fingers stretching out across his skin. No matter how much he told himself it wasn’t real, that it was a side-effect of the warfarin, that _she_ wasn’t real, everything he felt seemed to tell him otherwise. Her hands were the same, always a combination of rough and smooth, callused at the fingertips and rough at the places where her palm curled around her bow, but soft in the creases where she’d taught him to read fortunes as a joke, and along the graceful line of her bones. She could shoot like a hunter, but at the heart of it, she had a doctor’s hands. A healer.

“Shado,” he murmured, like it was a spell.

He opened his eyes, and there she was, looking up at him with the same tender expression he remembered, like it wasn’t his fault.

“Oliver,” she said, as though in greeting. “You’re tired. You’ve been fighting for so long.”

“I know,” he answered. “But it never seems to stop. Things from the island…they just keep coming back to haunt me. Like you.”

Her eyes fluttered closed at the last part. “I know,” she echoed. “But I had to see you — I had to warn you.”

“About what?”

Her forehead touched his, gently. “You can’t fight what’s coming. Not if you keep forgetting what you’re fighting _for_ ,” she whispered.

“I wear the hood to honor your father,” Oliver said. “And you.”

She pulled back, a small, sad smile on her face. “We’re all just ghosts. You can’t fight the rest of your life for people who died a long time ago — you just can’t. The guilt will eat you alive, and you’ll only be waiting to die.”

“But you died because of me,” he whispered. “Because I chose someone else.”

She shook her head, brushing his fingers with her lips. “Not every death is your fault, Oliver. There’s a difference between sacrifice and murder. People gave their lives for you — so that you could live — not so you could bear the burden of their deaths. You have to remember that, especially with what’s coming.”

“What?” he asked. “What’s coming?”

Even as he formed the question, he knew that he was speaking to empty air. Gradually, he returned to himself, his limbs, his heart, his head.

But his fingers curled into something soft, and he could feel someone breathing against his throat. He opened his eyes — despite not remembering if he’d ever closed them — and realized that he’d pinned someone to the wall.

“Felicity?” he said, in disbelief.

* * *

As far as first dates went, two extra people and a karaoke run onstage hadn’t turned out badly, at all. Felicity was on her second mojito when she told Barry she needed the bathroom (which was partially true) and escaped from the crowd and into the back corridor, lit a theme-appropriate green.

Now that she was alone, Felicity was thinking about the dress, while pulling it down to make sure it wasn’t riding up again. Because she still wasn’t entirely sure why she’d chosen to jailbreak it out of the _Danger - Keep Out_ section of her closet, as fantastic a decision as it had turned out to be. She knew what people wore to bars (she regularly _worked_ underneath one, for crying out loud), but the black dress was something she’d bought online without contemplating the possibility of nightclub wear, while she'd been a couple of glasses into a very nice red wine (drinking alone at home and the internet never worked out well).

She even remembered the label. _Chateau Lafite Rothschild_ 1982, sent to her office in a nice case as a _thank you_ , for helping out a certain CEO’s son with a totally-made-up-but-still-lied-about-with-a-straight-face scavenger hunt. The rest of it was a little foggy, though she had a vague feeling that she’d clicked on the sexy dress because she’d been busy imagining the look on Oliver Queen’s face if he ever saw it on her (less likely than a unicorn invasion, at the time).

But she knew for sure why she’d kept it at the back of her closet instead of returning it. Because sometimes it was nice to think about the impossible, every now and then.

No one ever mentioned that the _impossible_ would come around like a cannonball of irony and awkward, because she was kinda-sorta on a date with someone else she really liked, and said quasi-date inexplicably included her reason for buying the dress in the first place.

Actually, scratch that. She _knew_ why Oliver was around — because Tommy was hell-bent on meddling, as per usual. But like a sibling who pulled annoying shenanigans for a living, it didn’t mean she could stay mad at him for long.

Her shoulder bumped against somebody else’s, and she stumbled a little in her heels, apologizing. “Sorry,” she said, instinctively holding onto his arm (it felt muscly enough to be a _him_ ) for balance.

The person didn’t answer, and Felicity took a second look. “Oliver?” she said.

His eyes were mostly closed, and the euphoria died away in favor of something a little more panicked. “Digg,” she said, tapping her earpiece to reopen the comm-link. “I think something’s wrong with Oliver.”

Her voice must have alerted him to the absence of humor, because Diggle came back, deadly serious. “What’s going on?”

“He’s…just standing there,” she whispered, waving a hand in front of his face. “I think it’s the warfarin. Dammit, I should have waited for the test results to come back before we left — Barry said there might be side effects.”

"Too late for that now," Diggle said. "Snap him out of it."

“I’ll try.” Felicity raised her other hand, intending to snap her fingers near his ear, but before she'd gotten anywhere close, he’d moved, defensive instincts as sharp as ever, faster than she was prepared for.

There was barely any time to make a sound, but she felt an inarticulate murmur escape her lips when her back touched the brick wall. It prickled against her exposed skin, cool, but everywhere else felt unbearably hot.

No, that wasn’t quite true.

The unbearable part wasn’t, anyway. She was dimly aware that she’d lost the earpiece somewhere, and any kind of assistance from their friends. Oliver was in front of her, completely in her personal space, holding her raised arm against the wall while his other hand splayed out above her shoulder, effectively fencing her in. He still didn’t look entirely… _there_.

It felt like the first time they’d been this close to each other. Felicity’s mind was racing, synapses firing in a moment of pure _what the hell is going on_? Oliver’s chest rose and fell with every breath, and she couldn’t stop herself from noticing — remembering — how good he smelled, like soap and metal and _him_.

“Oliver?” she said, tentatively.

He jerked, as though in shock. One of his hands slipped — brushing her neck — and the grip around her wrist eased. He gasped, quietly, and she felt him turn.

“Felicity?”

He’d moved his head at the precise right angle, so their faces were exactly level, eye to eye. “Are you okay?” she asked. “You were just…standing there.”

Oliver seemed distracted, and he licked his lips, an instinctive reaction before asking a question. The gesture made her suddenly aware of how close their faces were, how easily either of them could lean forward — just a little — before it would technically, physically, count as a kiss. “Are you…are you real?” he said, like he genuinely wasn’t sure.

“What?”

She’d been distracted (for obvious reasons) and the question took her completely by surprise — but because of content, not context. Of course she was real. He’d even told her who he’d hallucinated, a girl called Shado. _That_ was the hallucination, nothing whatsoever to do with Felicity. Anything else shouldn’t have raised the question of reality or imagination.

Unless _this_ — her, them — was so unbelievable that it had to be a dream. Like maybe, just maybe, he’d also realized how easily he could have kissed her.

Which was both good and bad, because at that very moment, Felicity wasn’t sure if she’d stop him.

But he dropped his gaze, and she felt him freeze. “Felicity, that —”

She looked. Between her arm and waist, a flyer with an unquestionably familiar face. _Sebastian Blood — Donate Your Blood For a Good Cause_.

It was stapled to the board, but Oliver yanked it free. “It says generous compensation — to help the hospitals with shortages,” he read. “You don’t think…”

“The victims all came to the bar,” she said, thinking hard. “Max Stanton donated blood for cash, and he disappeared the same day as the blood drive. What if the others did too? What if Blood’s charity is what they have in common?”

“If the person doing the kidnapping has access to all donor records, they’d have addresses and personal profiles — family, people who’d miss them if they disappeared. It wouldn’t be hard to stage an abduction with that kind of information.”

They stared at each other, and she wondered if his heart was racing too, the thrill of finding a new lead.

Or if he was pretending — like she was — that it had nothing to do with the person standing in front of them.

Too close.

But not close enough.

* * *

“The Blood charity keeps donor records and employee information on a serious lockdown,” Felicity said, as her hack continued to run on the computers. “Might take a couple of hours to crack.”

“Sebastian’s careful,” Oliver said. “He’s been to City Hall, he knows online records have a habit of being hacked in Starling.”

“You’re welcome,” she muttered, and he smiled at the back of her head.

“Aw, look at you two, all made up,” Tommy cooed. “Who knew that all it took was a lead in an unsolved murder to make mom and dad best friends again?”

Barry was upstairs waiting for Felicity, but she still gave Tommy a look. “Ha ha.”

Diggle had a particularly knowing expression on his face, and Oliver wondered if he’d heard everything that happened in the corridor. But he didn’t seem to be rushing to share the information, which was fair enough. Diggle had uncanny instincts for that kind of thing, and it was more likely than not that he’d already guessed.

“Why don’t we call it a night,” he suggested. “Everyone’s beat, and having the lead’ll work better if we come back with fresh eyes.”

Oliver nodded. “You guys go, it’s a little crowded at my house right now.”

“You’re welcome,” Tommy said, hopping off the table he’d been using as a seat. “I gotta report to my Supreme Overlord anyway. I hope Thea hasn’t been trying out experimental drinks on the Science Geek. He doesn’t look like he has much of a tolerance for roofies.”

“ _Tommy_ ,” Felicity said reprovingly.

He dodged the swing of her purse, bounding up the staircase with a laugh. Instead of chasing him, she hesitated at Oliver’s side, looking a little worried. “We’re going to dinner — me and Barry. Do you…want to come?”

Oliver forced a smile, even though his instinctive response was to gouge out his own eyes instead of having to be a third wheel again (or fourth, he was too tired to nitpick). “I’m fine. Have a great time.”

He could have sworn Diggle nodded at Felicity, as though to reassure her of something. There was a small line between her eyebrows, but she waved over her shoulder, sliding her coat back on as she followed Tommy upstairs.

Then it was just Diggle, who clearly had no intention of leaving.

“Are you all right?” he asked, leaning on a table.

Oliver stared at the case of arrows instead of looking him in the eye, not entirely sure where to start. “You heard,” he guessed.

He nodded. “Some of it. You had a — moment. Felicity said she found you standing in a hallway. She was worried, so was I. Still am.”

It was pointless to try and cover up the truth of the matter, and it wasn’t exactly the first time Oliver had gone to Diggle with a troubled admission. Just to have something to do with his hands, Oliver twisted an arrow between his fingers as he turned back to face his friend. “I’m compromised,” he said, quietly. “I’m seeing things — I’m seeing people who should be dead, and they’re telling me the _worst_ of myself, things I know but keep shoving back down, and they’re right. They’re so right, John, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“It’s probably just a side-effect from last night,” Diggle said, evenly. “You still haven’t gotten the results from the blood test, and when you do, Felicity will go through hell or high water to make sure you’re at the top of your game. You can trust her with that.”

Oliver practiced a slash with the arrow, slicing through the air with a whistle of steel. “What if it’s not because of the poison? What if I’m…broken?”

Diggle looked at him without saying a word, then got to his feet, arms folded. “When I got back from Afghanistan, I went through something a lot like that. It was survivor’s guilt, but I kept seeing someone who wasn't really there, telling me things I knew deep down, same as you. It rattled me, just like it’s rattling you.”

“How’d you make them go away?”

“Ghosts appear to us for a reason, Oliver,” he said. “I figured out what it was trying to tell me…eventually.”

Oliver glanced at him. “What was that?”

Diggle smiled slightly, as if to say, _nice try_. “Everyone needs to learn something different. Whatever your ghosts want you to know, you have to stop struggling, and listen.”

Oliver nodded. “Thanks.”

Diggle inclined his head, and reached for his coat. “Need a ride home? I heard Tommy… _messed_ with the transportation at the Queen household.”

Oliver snorted at the massive understatement. “It’s fine — I took care of it. You go.”

Diggle gave him a gentle shake, understanding as always, and turned to go. “Don’t work too hard,” he called, before the door slammed.

Oliver reached for a tennis ball, his bow already in hand. He wasn’t using Barry’s modified arrows, not yet. This was just practice, a way to clear his head. He bounced the ball once, caught it in his palm, again, letting the normalcy of the routine filter out the unwanted noise.

Slade.

Shado.

Two ghosts, resurrecting old truths from the island.

But he already knew them — so why?

With a shake of his head, he tossed the ball high into the air, and fired at it mid-arc. The arrow shot straight from his bow, but it never found its mark.

Oliver watched, stunned, because Slade stood where Diggle had been just moments before. He’d caught the arrow with one hand, inches away from his heart, and looked Oliver in the eye, as though daring him to believe his presence was anything but real.

“What’s the matter, kid?” he said. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“You’re not here,” Oliver said, the same mantra, the same meaningless reassurance. “You’re dead.”

All the same, his hand reached for another arrow, sliding it onto the string.

Slade tipped his head slightly, taking in the gesture, deliberate and mocking. “Am I?" he said, and slid the sword from the sheath across his back, the same iron-gray blade, marked and nicked in the same places, just as real and life-like as Shado had been when he’d seen her standing in the hallway.

Slade Wilson looked exactly the same as the first day Oliver had met him, before the mask. He still had the scar across the corner of one eyebrow, and the thin scratch across his cheek, the same scattering of silver hairs in his beard — except his eyes glowed with smoldering hatred, identical to the last day he’d been alive.

He was looking at the Arrow suit, disdain curling the corner of his mouth. "You don't deserve to wear her hood. She never meant for you to have it,” he said, coldly. “Not a murderer like you.”

Oliver tensed at the word, but something inside him seemed to hum in recognition of the truth, something black and vindictive and bottomless that he’d been pushing down for years.

“I tried to save her,” he answered, ignoring how hollow it sounded to him. “Ivo pointed a gun at Sara and Shado —”

“— _do not use that name in front of me_ ,” Slade snarled, his rage as tangible as the crack of a whip. “Ivo only had Shado in his sights because you crossed him. And you spit on her memory just by daring to say her name.”

Oliver turned away, willing Slade to disappear like the illusion he was. "You're dead," he repeated, staring sightlessly ahead. "You died on the island."

“I’m alive as long as you remember your sins.” Slade advanced, the tip of his sword scraping softly against the floor. “As long as you remember that Shado is dead — because of _you_!”

The last part was a roar of fury, and Oliver narrowly dodged the blade that would have severed his spine. He rolled across the floor, coming up on one knee with his bow raised.

The arrow left his fingertips and hurtled towards Slade’s throat, but once again, the sword came up and flicked it aside. “Weak,” he said. “Just like the facade you’ve created for yourself. The Hood. The Arrow. You may think you’ve created something beautiful — this _place_ where you can feel safe — but all the beauty comes from those with pure souls, the people you call your friends, not the _taint_ of your guilty conscience.”

“Leave them out of this,” Oliver said, getting to his feet. “This is between you and me.”

Slade smirked, kicking at one of the broken shafts so that it went skittering under the tables. “You think that you can beat me on your own? You think that you could best the man who taught you everything you know about fighting — about _killing_?”

“I did it once,” Oliver reminded him. “And I don’t have to fight someone who’s not really here.”

“Wherever I am — I’m real enough to take you with me,” Slade said, and lunged.

Oliver brought up the bow to block his swing, but a part of him hadn’t really expected to feel the crash of metal on metal, and was shocked when it actually came. He staggered backwards from the impact, locked in a struggle with his old mentor. Slade was just as strong as he’d been when they’d trained together, a soldier with the training of an assassin, and he advanced with contemptuous ease, forcing Oliver to his knees while the blade edge curved dangerously close to his throat.

“Liar, murderer, false friend,” he whispered. “You tell them who you are — the people you’ve deceived into thinking of you as a hero — or I will show them just how ugly Oliver Queen can be.”

Oliver heaved with all of his strength and shoved Slade back, drawing another arrow and firing in the same breath. It whizzed over Slade’s head, because he wasn’t there anymore, and when Oliver paused in confusion, he felt the air sharpen at the back of his neck.

He turned just in time to block again, and exchanged a series of rapid-fire blows, using his bow like a quarterstaff against the sword, sparks scattering the floor. But Slade was still faster, dealing a flurry of swipes and slashes, and with a jarring swing of his sword that flung the bow aside, he drove his elbow into Oliver’s gut, knocking him into one of the tables. Glass shattered as the metal surface overturned, taking the equipment with it, and Oliver was still struggling to his feet when Slade grabbed him by the throat — arms locked around his neck as though he was about to snap his spine — and held him there.

The blood rushed into Oliver’s skull, and he reached blindly for his bow, lying on the floor near the glass cases.

“You disappoint me,” Slade said hoarsely, forcing Oliver’s head back so that he was made to look at the Arrow suit too. The voice in his ear was as corrosive as acid, his breath heated with rage. “You think becoming the city’s savior has made you strong, but lying has made you weak. When it comes — I know you won’t be able to stop it, and you will watch your world burn to ashes.”

Before Oliver could answer, Slade heaved with impossible strength and threw him headlong into the glass. He crashed into the suit, knocking it to the floor in an explosion of breaking glass, but the sudden rush of oxygen flooded his brain and he lunged for the bow, scrabbling among the shards for an arrow.

Slade was still here, and real or not real — he was going to kill Oliver if he didn’t fight back. There was movement behind him, and he whirled, loosing the shaft as he did. Immediately, the action registered as _wrong_ , but it was only when he heard the gasp — a single, terrible sound — did he realize who he’d really fired at.

It was like the moment in the hallway, back at the bar, his vision refocusing in the wake of the hallucination, and the first thing he saw was the arrow embedded in a concrete pillar —

Just inches shy of Felicity’s terrified face.

* * *

Felicity didn’t notice her knees giving out, or that she was hunched over in the middle of all the broken glass. She just had her hands clamped over her mouth to suppress the strangled noise coming from her throat, and she wanted to make herself small, as small as humanly possible.

She also wanted to forget the feeling — the pure moment of panic when she’d actually thought that Oliver had meant to kill her — and the look of shock at the precise moment it dawned on him, what he’d done.

It couldn't have been more than a few seconds, but Oliver seemed to have stood there, rooted, for what felt like an eternity. Then his bow clattered to the floor (the sound made her flinch all over again) and she heard glass crunch from him going on his knees, the unexpected warmth of his hands on her shoulders, tentatively, as though he wasn’t sure if she’d jerk away.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sounding almost frantic. “Felicity — I didn’t mean to — I’m so sorry.”

The guilt and shock in his voice made her vision sting from instinctive, childish tears, but Felicity swallowed in spite of the lump in her throat, shaking her head to let him know it was okay.

She was okay. Mostly.

Except it standard protocol to hit the friend who shot at her, especially if said friend knew she did _not_ like objects of the sharp and pointy persuasion. Which she did right then, shoving him hard in the chest so that he landed on his hands in the glass.

“What the _frack_?” she demanded, as he looked at her in visible surprise (clearly someone hadn’t told him about standard protocol). “Do I look like a tennis ball to you?”

Felicity wiped her cheeks, still glaring furiously at him as though she was daring him to answer the undisputedly rhetorical question. Or make up an obvious lie along the lines of an intensive spring cleaning that necessitated breaking anything non-shatterproof within reach.

“I thought you left,” Oliver said, lamely.

“I came back for my phone,” she said, wincing as he helped her back up (landing on glass had its downsides). “I also wanted to make sure you were okay — and before you try to fib your way out of this one — _clearly_ the answer to that is _no_.”

Oliver had the sense not to pull the habitual denial, given the evidence surrounding them. It looked like a concentrated hurricane had blown through the Foundry, what with the smashed cases, scattered equipment and overturned tables.

But he did hesitate. “I didn’t want you to worry.”

It was such an _Oliver_ thing to say that Felicity gave an unsteady laugh in response. “Well, that kind of concern almost got me an arrow in the face, so now it’s my turn to worry about you. When was the last time you slept?”

Oliver rubbed his forehead while he considered his response, which didn’t bode well. “I might have dozed off for five minutes about twenty-four hours ago,” he said, flatly. “Does that count?”

He’d probably meant it as a joke, but in light of the fact that he’d almost killed her under the delusion that she was _Mystery Gorgeous Island Girl_ , she yanked his head down — harder than she probably needed to — and slapped a hand to his forehead to check for fever.

“I don’t know where you got your medical degree, Dr Queen, but the average human being needs at least seven hours of sleep to function,” she snarked back. “Good news — you don’t have a fever, so it’s probably not a life-threatening brain infection.”

“Perfect,” Oliver grunted.

Felicity released him and crossed over to the computers, sliding back into her usual chair. “Hallucinations, sleep deprivation — that’s two non-reassuring symptoms already,” she rattled off, while he sank obediently into a seat beside her. “Your blood analysis results should point us in the right direction.”

Well aware that Oliver was watching her instead of sneaking looks at the report, Felicity scanned through the results for signs of trouble (physically speaking, anyway), and her frown deepened the closer she got to the end. Barry spoke tox screens and pharmacological factors better than she did, but she had enough biochemistry to know that Oliver’s blood was completely, one hundred percent fine.

Not even a smidge of high cholesterol.

“Your blood came back clean,” she said hesitantly. “Which means it’s not a drug-related cause, it’s —

“—in my head,” he finished, and proceeded to swear, sincerely and colorfully.

Felicity knew the feeling. The last thing Oliver probably wanted to hear (in light of being an especial kind of _Freaked Out_ over the Mirakuru) was that he now had to deal with hallucinations too, the kind that didn’t come from being injected with rat poison. He looked even more exhausted than before (if that was possible), his eyes closed, mouth turned down at the corners.

“Oliver…” she began, not entirely sure what she wanted to say. “Tell me.”

Silence.

Then, quietly: “I think I’m losing my mind.”

For some reason, Felicity had always thought of Oliver as the kind of person who was A-okay with treading the fine line between _Crazy_ and _Sanity_ , and if she was being honest — the bulk of her concern usually ended up with the physical aspect of things, namely the many and sometimes unnecessary injuries he’d built up over a few years of taking on the worst of the worst.

Now she wasn’t so sure.

Felicity touched his forearm. “Hey,” she said, gently. “You haven’t slept since your fight with Gold. For all we know, you’re seeing things because your brain’s telling you it needs to catch up on some REM sleep.”

“You don’t know what I’m seeing,” he said dully. “I’ve _been_ tired. This is different.”

“Because the gorgeous island girl went full _Huntress_ on you?” she said, and immediately regretted it. _Petty. Jealous._ “Sorry.”

He brushed it off, his concerns clearly elsewhere. “I saw a friend from the island. He died because of me, and —”

“— naturally, his ghost is enjoying the afterlife by guilt-tripping you for whatever you think you did.” She tipped her head to one side. “Oliver, you can’t blame yourself for every single death, not in Starling, and not on Lian Yu either.”

“I don’t blame myself for every one — there are already enough of them that are.”

“So you’re seeing people that trigger your guilt,” she summarized. “What about me?”

The question clearly took him aback, because he looked up, guilt-spiral interrupted. “You?”

It was a complete guess, albeit an educated one based on what he’d asked her, back at the bar. _Are you real?_ Like he’d had to raise that question before, because it wasn’t the first time he’d hallucinated something totally unbelievable, which just so happened to involve her.

Once again, Oliver had the sense not to lie. “You don’t come after me with a sword,” he said, possibly making a second attempt at humor. “You’re just… _you_.”

She waited, but that seemed to be the extent of his elaboration. “I’m just me,” she repeated. “What is ‘me’ doing, exactly?”

For a moment, a smile crossed his face — doom and gloom aside — and it was a little sad. “You’re Felicity,” he answered, simply. “You’re always Felicity.”

Unbelievable. Well, believable. Oliver had always been as hard to crack as a walnut, as far as the big _T_ word was concerned ( _truth_ , not Tommy). She leaned back in her chair, thinking. “You haven’t seen _Inception_ , have you?” she asked, squinting at him speculatively.

He shook his head, once again proving his dismal record of keeping up with pop culture. Felicity briefly contemplated an abridged explanation of the movie, all four (maybe five?) layers of reality inclusive (not to mention hot British supporting characters), and just as quickly shoved the thought out the window.

“Too hard to explain,” she muttered. “But still a movie you _have_ to see. Y’know, maybe later. When it’s less…triggering. Anyway — basically, you need something to latch onto. Something you _know_ the hallucinations can’t fake. It’s not a foolproof solution, but when you think you’re seeing something that isn’t there, that thing should anchor you to reality.”

Oliver thought about it, for a long time, his fingers drumming on the table surface until they went still. “There is one thing,” he said.

Their eyes met, and he didn’t look away, not while a slow, but full-powered blush crept into Felicity’s cheeks. She forced herself not to deflect the moment, even though it felt like one of those moments of honesty that were _just_ a little unbearable.

Not in a bad way. Never in a bad way.

“ _This_ feels real,” he said, as his hand stretched out across the steel table, his fingertips nearly brushing the side of her wrist, close enough to make her skin tingle with the anticipation of it. “Almost.”

Felicity could have taken the _almost_ at face value, that Oliver meant he still wasn’t sure about the reality of things, but as a matter of her gut talking, the _almost_ seemed — to her, at least — like his way of describing them.

 _This_.

“Always the same dance,” she answered, just to see if she was right.

Oliver didn’t correct her, but smiled the same understated smile, the one tinged with something like sadness.

Because his reality was always the one where she was out of reach. Tantalizingly close, just not enough, and Felicity might have helped disprove that. If she hadn’t promised herself that she wouldn’t wait around for the elusive _what if_ to lose its hypothetical status.

Anyway, right now wasn’t about that.

“You’re not losing your mind,” she said, quietly. “No more than the rest of us, anyway.”

Oliver managed a smile. “I’m sorry about your date.”

Felicity laughed, resting the side of her head on one hand. “No, you’re not.”

“I’m serious,” he said, and they stared at each other. “Barry’s…a nice guy, and he really likes you.”

Again, the same pause like they both knew the unfinished portion to the sentence. Felicity cleared her throat, brushing past the brief hiccup. “To be fair, I think we could probably chalk everything up to a certain busybody called Tommy Merlyn,” she said lightly. “I’d like to think he’s never seen a date he couldn’t meddle with.”

It was Oliver’s turn to laugh. “Tommy means well…I think.”

The only person Oliver Queen could stay so bizarrely optimistic about was Tommy Merlyn, but it was one of those little stubborn quirks that gave her a brief glimpse at a different side of him. Even though it felt like she’d seen plenty, a gentler, happier Oliver wasn’t something she’d ever get tired of.

“Come on,” she said. “I’ll walk you out.”

He shook his head, turning in the chair to survey the general destruction. “I should probably clean this up, otherwise John —”

Whatever he might have said next went unfinished because Felicity impulsively reached out to pull him back on his feet. Maybe she pulled a little too hard, because he swayed forward at the start, bracing one palm against the table to stop himself from falling into her.

There was another pause, another moment that said nothing and everything, all at once.

“What you need right now is _sleep_ ,” she said, belatedly realizing that she’d forgotten to speak. “Come on. Don’t make me get help from upstairs.”

After a beat, he nodded, and she waited for him to grab his jacket off a chair, feeling suddenly shy in her coat and short dress. Location and property damage notwithstanding, she had the inexplicable impression that the two of them might have been the ones going home after a pretty successful date.

She might have slipped her hand into his as they walked, and he might have quickened his pace just a little so he could reach the door first and hold it open for her. There might have been physical contact of the on-purpose persuasion (it was a pretty small doorway, after all), and most definitely some laughter.

But that was a question for some other reality, and Felicity went up the steps with Oliver just behind her, feeling more confused than she’d expected, given the current (onward and upward) state of her love life.

_Things don’t have to stay the same, you know._

_It doesn’t always have to be_ almost _._

_Just say something._

Instead, she stepped aside at the top of the staircase, her shoulder nearly brushing his, and they turned the Foundry lights out together.

* * *

Judging by the increasing incoherence of the hoots coming from the dance floor, and the number of clean-ups he’d had to send some of his less lucky employees to fix, Tommy guessed that the time was creeping closer to dawn.

Otherwise known as _Walk of Shame hour_ , or _Oh God Was the Sun Always This Bright-AM_.

“Maybe we should install sleep pods in the office,” he said, polishing the same scratch on a beer mug like it was physically — scientifically — glassily possible for him to buff it out.

Thea gave him a sidelong look. “What’s with you?” she asked. “You look like you need a shot of espresso. Age catching up already?”

“Excuse you,” Tommy said. “I don’t look a day over twenty-one.”

She scoffed in the same way Oliver rolled his eyes, and picked up a tray of shots. “ _Right_ ,” she answered. “You already lost your phone — that’s how it starts. Soon you’ll be wondering why the music’s so loud and wearing your pants up to your armpits.”

 _She’s Oliver’s little sis_ , Tommy repeated to himself, while the more stunned/offended part of him fought furiously to make a finger gesture that was simultaneously very French, and very rude.

Or maybe it was Serbian. He couldn’t remember whether it was the model he’d picked it up from, or her extremely angry boyfriend who’d almost given him a black eye.

“Hey,” someone said.

Tommy nearly dropped the beer mug, mid-puzzling. “Hey,” he said, spinning around. “What are you doing here?”

The question was directed at McKenna, who A) was better than a thousand models, French or otherwise, and B) never came to Verdant during opening hours (she said the temptation to arrest someone was always too big, which maybe was a dig at his club management strategy, but whatever).

“You weren’t answering your phone,” she said, after a kiss on the cheek. “Since you actively try to have the last word in every conversation, I thought I’d come by to make sure you weren’t dead in a freezer somewhere.”

“Aw, you’d look for me if I died?” Tommy said, semi-missing the point. “That’s adorable. I’d just put up a really big reward for information on your unfortunate demise and get a sad tattoo.”

McKenna made a face. “Mine’s better. Anyway, did you see my texts?”

Tommy’s hand went instinctively to his back pocket, before he realized that he’d been missing his phone since he got to Verdant. Definitely after McKenna had stopped by the mansion, because of the SOS message he’d sent about Roy. “No, I think I dropped my phone somewhere,” he explained. “There’s a _slight_ chance it might be in a bush.”

Along with the keys to Oliver’s bike.

 _Karma_ , the ever-relentless b—

“I looked into Max Stanton’s case — you know, after what Sin said about the blood drive? Sebastian Blood’s built himself up as a squeaky clean alderman, it’d make sense for a charity he personally sponsors to be extra-careful with the people they allow in as blood donors, especially young men from high-risk parts of town.”

A part of Tommy wondered if there were tangible benefits to having an actual detective join Team Arrow, since it had taken them a nauseating trip to a karaoke bar and a stroke of dumb luck to trip over the same lead.

Either way, Tommy dropped his elbows on the bar, leaning forward to hear her better. “Define _extra-careful_.”

There was a gleam in her eye he recognized from an investigation in-progress. “Max went missing the same day as the blood drive. The Blood charity partners with a psychiatric institution called the Langford institute to screen candidates for red flags. Now, the bad news is, they keep their files pretty close to the chest, and you’ll need a warrant for them, but if Max made it to the blood drive, they should have his records.”

She gave him a look as though she remembered what he’d said during Moira’s trial, about having a friend who could do some gray-area stuff with a computer.

“I’ll look into it,” Tommy said, playing along. He reached for his back pocket again — forgetting that he didn’t have a phone — and paused, because he’d had a thought. “Did you put all of this in the texts you sent me?”

She nodded. “Yeah. Why?”

Tommy ducked under the bar and grabbed McKenna’s hand, headed for the phone upstairs in the office. “Because I underestimated what an arrow in the leg could do to a pickpocket,” he said.

* * *

“That jackass stole my phone,” Tommy said, pacing in disbelief, if that was a thing. “I cannot believe that he stole my phone — with an arrow in his leg. An arrow. Not a splinter. An _arrow_.”

“Sorry,” Oliver said, seemingly at random. He looked surprisingly fresh-faced for someone who’d been dragged out of bed at an ungodly hour, after witnessing his paramour enjoy the hell out of a date that had proved impervious to sabotage.

Okay, so that one was technically his bad.

“Why am I surrounded with people who _cannot_ take no for an answer?” he asked, rhetorically.

Diggle snorted. “You’re one to talk.”

“ _Finally_ ,” Tommy said, when Felicity showed up, thankfully wearing something other than the bombshell dress with the superpower to make a certain archer go _gaga_.

Unfortunately, her puppy was still following her around.

“I got your message,” she said, sliding into her chair. “You know, I made a bet with myself that the day Tommy Merlyn asked me to ping his phone, it’d have something to do with naked pictures.”

“I already offered to give you those for free,” Tommy answered, because nerves made him less than appropriate. “I can whip one out right now if —”

Oliver cleared his throat. “Felicity, can you find Roy?” he asked.

“Already did,” she said, showing them the monitor. “Tommy’s phone definitely isn’t in a bush, but it’s not at the Langford Institute either. It’s in a warehouse somewhere on Crescent Circle. That’s a Glades address.”

“Registered to who?”

“ _Whom_ ,” Barry said. “Sorry. So this — Roy Harper — stole your phone and used the detective’s info about the Langford Institute? How does that explain him ending up in a completely unrelated address?”

Diggle shook his head a little. “Kid, in our line of work, the people we look into don’t usually like being put under a microscope,” he said. “I think there’s a good chance Roy might be tied up in a basement, or worse.”

The dots suddenly lined up. “You think Crescent Circle’s where the Mirakuru people are turning people into zombies?” Tommy asked.

“I’d say _yes_ ,” Felicity said, looking up from her computer. “The warehouse is registered to someone called Solomon Grundy, but that’s —”

“—an alias,” Barry interjected, because _of course_ the nerd would know nerdy references. “It’s a poem, right? _Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday, christened on Tuesday_ —”

“— _died on Saturday, buried on Sunday_ ,” Oliver said, which was surprising, considering Tommy remembered he’d flunked Lit. “Appropriate, at the rate they’re going through test subjects.”

Tommy wasn’t the only one who noticed he had his bow. “Wait,” he said, nearly tripping over a broken case (long story). “Are you insane?”

Oliver didn’t smile. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but we’ve been looking for a way to cut the Mirakuru off at the source. We have their base of operations, and Roy Harper is about to become their next experiment. He's my responsibility. I’m going.”

Tommy’s response was an inarticulate noise, and a semi-pivot towards Felicity. She was already on her feet, advancing on Oliver with a serious look on her face. “Don’t,” she said.

He’d never appreciated how little difference height could make when the smaller one had enough stubbornness to fill the gap ( _not_ literally), as Felicity stared up at Oliver’s expressionless face. “I know there’s a better way to say this, but you’re not at one-hundred-percent, and if you start seeing things out there again —”

“— you’re seeing things?” Tommy said, but Diggle shushed him.

“— Gold could kill you. For real, this time. You need —”

“— I know, Felicity, I know,” Oliver said, sounding more frustrated with the situation than her. “Ideally, I’d have all the time in the world to work through what I’m seeing, but I don’t, and Roy's down there now because I tried to keep him out of the investigation. I’m not losing him to the Mirakuru. I can’t let that happen.”

A part of Tommy (panic aside) was extremely pleased to see that they were still capable of finishing each other’s sentences, even if it was while they were disagreeing heavily.

For a long, _more-than-moment_ -moment, they just looked at each other without speaking, and something in Oliver’s face softened. His head dropped slightly and his lips moved, too soft to hear. Her answer was a corresponding murmur, but he was already moving, and her hand slid silently from his sleeve.

“You sure about this?” Diggle said to Oliver, holding out his quiver.

Oliver nodded, and turned to Tommy. There was something steely in his expression, and more than ever he was reminded that the Arrow was a soldier in the ongoing war for the city’s soul. “I’ll be careful.”

“You’d better be,” he said. “I need Roy for the New Year’s party.”

A ghost of a smile there, and all of them walked up to Felicity’s side, watching as Oliver took the Foundry steps at a run, and the door closed with a resounding slam.

Felicity still hadn’t moved, shoulder to shoulder with Diggle and Tommy, her eyes on where he’d been just seconds before.

“What did he say to you?” Tommy asked.

She gripped her arms, like she was cold. “He said…he said he’d come back.”

* * *

_I'll come back._

_Promise me._

Oliver wanted Felicity to believe it, if only so he could begin to believe it himself. Except he hadn’t promised her, not really, because he didn’t want his last words to her — face to face — to have been a lie.

If the worst happened.

There was something at the corner of his eye, a familiar smirk and a low laugh. Not really there. Oliver shook his head slightly to clear it. He needed the anchor, and if anything, his goodbye to Felicity was the perfect _almost_.

It was always too easy to kiss her. Dangerously so.

“We have visual confirmation,” Felicity said, her voice strangely tight. “Facial recognition just confirmed it — Cyrus Gold’s in the warehouse.”

He’d been expecting that, but there was still a tensing of his muscles at the knowledge that he was about to face the hardest fight of his life. “No sign of them.”

“ _Don’t_ say that,” Tommy groaned. “You’ve seen crappy movies. Every single time someone says that, they —”

Oliver heard something moving, rapidly, and threw himself forward — just before the desiccated wall behind him crumpled from a solid metal beam, thrown straight through.

“Oliver!”

“I’m all right,” he said, moving rapidly for cover in the cloud of dust and debris. “He missed.”

Any more noise would give him away, so he muted the comms as he moved. His refuge was the nearest open doorway, and he flung himself through before he realized what it was. For a moment, the shape, thrown almost completely in shadow from the glare of the glass-fronted freezer behind it, was so still that Oliver didn’t recognize it immediately.

Then —

“ _Roy_ ,” he said, rushing over to the metal chair. Roy’s chin was touching his chest; he could have just been asleep, and Oliver shook him, not gently.

There was blood tracked down his face, down the sides of his cheeks, dark red tears. It was a painfully familiar sight with a meaning he still remembered, but Oliver still felt for a heartbeat anyway, his throat tight.

There was a pulse, but it was fading, fast.

 _Not again. Goddammit, not again_.

“Brother Cyrus told me he’d killed the Arrow,” said a distorted voice.

Oliver whirled, his arrow pointed at the soundless intruder.

It was a strange sight, the kind that would have been at home in a nightmare. It was a skull stained the color of rust and char, stitched grotesquely out of leather and grossly elongated where the teeth should have been, with wicked curved horns curving from the sides of the jaw like tusks.

“Who are you?” Oliver said.

“The man who will save this city from itself,” was the answer, delivered in the same eerie monotone.

“Who gave you the Mirakuru?” Oliver continued. “Who told you how to use it?”

“Man did not question the Titan Prometheus when he brought them fire.”

As though to illustrate his point, he extended his arms from his sides, gesturing at the vast underground room. The centrifuge was at the center, bags of blood hanging in the freezer, and empty chairs beside Roy’s that looked only recently vacated. Everything was assembled and ready for the mass-production of Mirakuru, and Oliver felt his spine crawl with unwelcome recognition.

“You have no idea what you’re doing,” Oliver said, trying again. “You have no idea what you’re setting loose on this city.”

“Oh, I do, and it is a beautiful chaos. But I do not question my benefactor’s generosity _—_ I merely carry out his will."

 _Benefactor_. The word triggered a memory, something Count Vertigo had said, lulled by Felicity into disclosing valuable information. He’d mentioned a Benefactor, helping him with his drug manufacturing operation.

It couldn’t be.

“Who?” Oliver asked. “Who’s your benefactor?”

The skull mask tilted slightly, as though its wearer was taking a better look at the Arrow. “Brother Cyrus — if you would.”

“Yes, Brother Blood.”

The voice, along with the rush of charging footsteps, came from the side, and Oliver twisted out of the way. Gold’s fist missed him by a bare inch, crashing through the drywall, but when Oliver looked around, the skull mask — Brother Blood — had melted into the shadows.

_Gone._

But he was facing a fight now, ready or not, and Oliver wasn’t sure if he was. He rolled across the floor and shot as he came up, the arrow squelching into Gold’s shoulder. Oliver tapped to reopen the comms, and interrupted his friends before they could start shouting warnings.

“Roy’s in trouble,” he said, firing one arrow after another in an attempt to slow down Gold’s charge. “There’s someone pulling the strings on this. Brother Bl—”

Oliver ducked Gold’s swing, but his knee crashed into his middle, and before he knew it, Gold was throwing him across the room again. The rotted wall giving way beneath his back coincided with a sudden absence of noise from the comms, and Oliver realized — groggily, while every unhealed injury in his body burned in protest — that he’d lost his earpiece.

Roy was still slumped in the chair directly across from him, and Oliver’s hands seemed incapable of getting a firm enough grip on the floor to push himself back up. For some reason, all he could see was his sister’s tearstained face, because of everything Roy was to her, the first time since her father and brother had supposedly drowned at sea, since her brother had come home a completely different person, since her mother’s trial, since losing a sister in Laurel — that she’d been really, truly, happy.

Oliver had resigned himself to watching everyone else enjoy their happiness, but now Thea had lost hers.

“Back on your feet, son,” said a third voice.

With a faint start, Oliver recognized his father. The grayed beard and gruff features, a glimmer in his eye that could go from amusement to steel in a second. Like Shado, and Slade, he looked exactly as he should have, if he’d been flesh and blood instead of smoke and dreams. But unlike Slade, and much like Shado, there was only kindness in the way he held out his hand to Oliver.

Kindness he wasn’t sure he deserved.

“Dad,” he said, tiredly. “What are you doing here?”

“My boy’s fighting for his life,” he said, as though it was the simplest answer in the world. “And I came to tell him that he’s not going to die down here.”

“I can’t —”

“You can,” Robert said, firmly. “You’re strong, Oliver, stronger than I had any right to expect. You survived, and you came back to do what I asked. You put right my wrongs, and you fight — every day — to save this city. That’s why I know you’re going to beat this, and finish what you’ve started.”

Oliver stared at Robert’s face, every line, every detail, as he was reminded — an ache in his heart — that he still missed his father, and always would. “I’m sorry you had to die for me,” he said. “I’m sorry for everything — all of it.”

“I made my choice, Oliver,” Robert said, laying a hand on his cheek. “I sacrificed myself so that my son might survive something terrible, something he was only caught up in because of my wrongs. I didn’t do it so you could take on my guilt — I never wanted that for you.”

“I wish you were still with me — with us. Mom, Speedy, they miss you. Every day.”

Robert shut his eyes briefly, as though in acknowledgment. “I know you’ll protect them, and you always will. Do you remember what I told you?”

Despite the vagueness of the question, the answer came to Oliver so quickly that he must have known it all along. “Survive,” he said.

His father nodded, and the corners of his eyes creased in one final smile. “Survive,” he agreed. "And you did, son. But now I want you to _live_."

Oliver reached for his bow as the hallucination cleared, pushing the debris clear from his limbs. “We’re not done yet,” he growled, as the adrenaline rushed into his limbs, making him feel a surge of heat.

There was strength in his body, and as Gold prowled around the shadowed centrifuge, he knew what to do.

He just hoped the CSI was as smart as Felicity seemed to think he was.

The modified arrow exploded into reinforced wires that forced Gold to stumble back into the centrifuge, binding him in a crisscross pattern over the chest. He heaved, and the bolts securing the machine groaned in protest, but the wires stayed tight. The barest hint of a smile on his face, Oliver aimed at the blinking centrifuge.

“You cannot stop Brother Blood,” Gold said, in a voice of detached calm.

“I like my chances,” Oliver answered, and fired.

The electroshock charge tore through the hull and made the humming machine accelerate into a full-blown whine of overloading circuits. Gold convulsed, his masked face jerking and twitching along with the current going through his body, until he — and the machine — went suddenly still. Smoke hissed from the cracks between the metal, and there was a metallic tang of charred flesh in the air.

His head dropped, limp as a doll, and it was over.

Without a second's hesitation, Oliver turned back to Roy and grabbed him by the front of his shirt. He spilled across the floor, as good as dead, but Oliver wasn’t ready to give in just yet. He gave Roy a hard shake, pumping his chest to get his heart going again.

“Come on, kid,” he said fiercely. “You’re strong. You stood up to me — you stood up to them. Fight. _Fight!_ ”

His shout echoed up to the rafters, and Roy’s eyes flew open with a gasp, wide with shock, but alive.

“What — what happened?” he said hoarsely.

* * *

“So the ex-pickpocket, wannabe vigilante got shot up with miracle serum, almost died, and now he’s — what — super-strong and homicidal?” Diggle summarized, using his ever-understated way.

Oliver nodded, watching Roy across the room. He was behind the bar with Thea, the two of them helping to prepare drinks for the private New Year’s party at Verdant. It had been days since the Arrow saved him, and his leg seemed to have healed up overnight, but apart from being a little quieter than usual — it was like none of it had ever happened.

“I won’t let the same thing happen to Roy,” Oliver said. “The Mirakuru corrupts people’s nature, but I can stop it — if I help him from the start.”

“Tommy said you still had some stuff to show him,” Felicity pointed out. “Sounds like you have yourself a bit of a protege backlog there, Mr Arrow.”

“I’m sure he can handle it,” Barry said, his suitcase and bag at his feet. “I mean, you took on a guy twice your size with superhuman enhancements — that has _got_ to be some kind of record.”

“If you ever mention the word _Guinness_ and _Arrow_ in the same sentence, I will kill you,” Oliver said, completely straight-faced.

There was only silence because Felicity had taken a second to sip her drink. “ _Oliver_ ,” she admonished. “Manners.”

“That was a joke,” he added, pretending he hadn’t finished his sentence. “So, Barry — back to Central City already?”

Although some part of Oliver had hoped the conclusion of the Mirakuru incident would coincide with the last time he'd encounter Barry Allen for a long time, he’d been invited to the New Year’s party by Felicity, and delayed his return to Central City — presumably just for her.

“The same,” Barry said. “I almost didn’t get time off tonight. They’re stepping up security at STAR Labs because of the particle accelerator — even my foster dad got called in to help.”

“Can you make it back before they turn it on?” she asked, while Oliver listened idly, interested in the prospect of Barry making the countdown if it meant he'd leave.

“Probably not, but I can still try,” he said, grinning.

It seemed like a completely nonsensical arrangement to Oliver, but Felicity evidently appreciated it, and he barely resisted the impulse to roll his eyes at them. Diggle winked at him and nudged his glass with the refill bottle, and they turned to the stage. The party was extremely tiny by Tommy standards (anything under fifty), who’d made the joint decision with Thea to close up Verdant for a private New Year’s party, making it friends and family only.

Tommy was currently onstage with what seemed to be becoming the party staple — microphone and music — along with McKenna, who he’d put on a borrowed barstool while he serenaded her in a truly embarrassing fashion.

“Oh god,” Felicity laughed.

Tommy’s jacket landed somewhere beneath the stage, but out of the four of them, Felicity was the only one who clapped at the prospect of him doing a striptease to music.

“I don’t think I can watch,” Oliver said.

“Really?” Diggle raised an eyebrow. “I thought Tommy didn’t have anything left to surprise you with.”

Oliver glared at him, but Diggle continued the tradition of being impervious to it. Barry looked at his watch, and Felicity’s face fell slightly. “I gotta go,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no — it’s fine. I’ll walk you out,” she said, slipping her arm easily into his.

“Easy, now,” Diggle said to Oliver, in an undertone.

“Bye guys,” Barry said, waving.

Oliver made a half-hearted attempt at returning the gesture, but neither of them really seemed to notice, always in a little bubble of their own.

“I wonder who Felicity’s gonna kiss at New Year’s,” Diggle wondered innocently, once they were out of earshot. “Oliver, any ideas?”

* * *

It was raining again. The weather channel said it might hit sub-zero, cloudy with a chance of snow, and Barry’s taxi — somewhat predictably — was late. They were standing near the entrance, his suitcase and ever-present bag near their feet, away from the noise and hooting and tiny _pops_ of the New Year’s party.

It was surprisingly hard to have a moment with her date when one of her friends was up on stage doing a striptease for _his_ date.

“You didn’t have to come,” Felicity said, ignoring Tommy’s strange choice of song ( _Santa Baby_ , again). “But I’m really glad you did.”

Barry gave her a wide smile in return. “Of course I came,” he said. “It’s just a train ride away, right?”

“You’ll come see me, and I’ll go see you,” she agreed. “We’ll make it work.”

“You should do the voice — like that guy from _Project Runway_.”

Felicity laughed, tugging gently on Barry’s red tie. He was the only one she knew who could pull off a checked shirt with a touch of workwear, in his geeky, incredibly cute way.

“I wish I could kiss you on New Year’s,” he said, in a low voice.

She made a little moue with her mouth. “There is _no_ way you can miss the particle accelerator turning on. I will seriously kill you if you let that ticket go to waste.”

“Oh yeah?” He sounded intrigued. “How?”

“I’d hack your computer and delete all your music,” she said. “That’s the extent of my nefarious scheming.”

“You _wouldn’t_.”

“I know, _such_ an evil plan, right?” Felicity tried to lean her head on the side of the door, the classic flirtatious gesture, but overestimated and bumped against the metal frame. “ _Ow_.”

Chivalrously refraining from laughter (but letting a chuckle loose here and there), Barry gently parted her hair to check for serious injury while she waited, her face scrunched up to try and make the embarrassing _faux pas_ something passably cute. “I think you’ll live,” he announced. “Just try not to intentionally walk into doors.”

“No promises,” she murmured, her voice suddenly lazy.

Barry’s hands slipped from her hair to the sides of her jaw, as warm as the outside was cold, and Felicity felt her smile fade just a little, matching the newly earnest expression on his face.

“Happy New Year, Felicity,” he said, softly.

“Happy New Year, Barry,” she answered.

The kiss was as light as a feather, a drop of sweetness in a bittersweet goodbye, and when she opened her eyes at the sound of a car pulling up, she felt like everything had already been said.

Barry evidently thought so too, because he stooped to get the bag strap over his shoulder, straightening up with the suitcase in tow. “By the way,” he said, rummaging inside the zip, “I made a little something for Oliver. It’s kinda late for Christmas presents, but I hope he’ll like it.”

He pressed a small box into her hand, wrapped with what looked like magazine pages and newspaper. An utterly _Barry_ way of doing the holidays, and Felicity raised her eyebrows at him, a wordless question on the subject of taking a peek.

She lifted the lid a little, and what she saw made her smile. “Is that —?”

“Flexible microfiber so it doesn’t affect his aim while he’s on the run?” Barry said, sounding both proud and shy. “I didn't exactly get a chance to measure the dimensions, but that’s kinda the point.”

Felicity slipped the lid back onto the gift box, shaking her head at Barry’s unerring optimism and outward fanboyishness, going extremely strong after teaming up with aforementioned fanboy icon to take down The Bad Guys. “I’ll make sure he gets the message,” she said, laughing a little.

Barry didn’t seem to mind at all, and his smile was the same as the day she’d crossed paths with him outside the club, the CSI who believed in the impossible, in seeing the best of people the world had already fit into neat little boxes, the man who’d leap to save someone’s life without a second thought. For all intents and purposes, she’d met Barry Allen less than a week ago, but it felt like they’d known each other for years, and it was pretty damn amazing how coincidences could work themselves out into something…more.

Something else.

“Bye, Barry,” she whispered. “I’ll see you soon.”

“Definitely,” he promised. “Bye, Felicity.”

Another kiss, bashful and soft and in an open doorway, before Barry hurried to catch his train. She returned his wave through the window, her lips and cheeks flushed from the cold and not-cold, and she stood there watching, long after the taillights had vanished into the silent rain.

* * *

“You can check the time all you want, Oliver, but it’s not gonna make Felicity turn up any faster,” Diggle said laconically. “Why don’t you go look for her before the countdown starts?”

Oliver’s indignant denial trailed off within the first second of looking at his friend. “I’m not going to kiss her,” he said. “She’s with someone else.”

“Well, _I’m_ not going to kiss you, so why don’t you find someone who _isn’t_ with someone else?”

It was as good an exit line as any, and Oliver walked off with another eye-roll, although he knew very well that it was six minutes until the new year, and he did very much want to see a specific someone before it passed, even if it was nothing more than platonic.

Four minutes to the new year, when he managed to find her. Felicity was standing in the open doorway to Verdant, hands in the pockets of her coat, the tip of her nose pink from the cold. Oliver stopped just shy of her, wondering if he was just making things more difficult for himself, true to self-destructive form. While he debated the question, she kept looking ahead, without a sign of acknowledgment that she was aware of him.

“It’s snowing,” she said suddenly, her breath clouding in the cold.

Objections out the metaphorical window, Oliver stepped up to join her at the door, his shoulder nearly touching hers. Something cold landed on his cheek and vanished. Then, a few seconds later, another.

“You’re right,” he said, belatedly.

Another silence fell, but they were used to that, the easy, comfortable kind neither of them felt the need to fill up with talk. Oliver exhaled, his hands in his pockets. The street was dark and quiet, missing the usual dueling colors and hissing currents from competing neon signs, the roads glossily black from the rain earlier than evening. Apart from the party behind them, they could have been the only people left in the world.

The thought didn’t make him feel as lonely as he’d assumed it would.

“So…Barry went home?” he asked.

“Mm-hm.” She nodded, a few stray snowflakes caught in her hair. There was an uncharacteristic downturn to her mouth, and every now and then she inhaled sharply, only to breathe out slow, as though she’d had a private thought about something that bothered her.

“You’ll see him soon,” Oliver reassured her, against his more selfish instincts. “It’s just a train ride.”

“I don't know about that,” she said quietly. “We both have reasons to stay where we are — Central City's closer to his dad, and Starling…Starling’s home. For me.”

Even though Oliver felt the knot in his stomach untwist at the implication that she’d be staying, and as little as he liked the idea that she’d seriously date Barry, he deeply disliked the prospect of Felicity feeling dejected, especially at New Year’s. “He’d be an idiot not to see you again,” he said, and felt like he might have meant it.

Felicity paused in surprised — but flattered — silence, before she ducked her head, scratching her nose shyly. “Did you come out into the cold just to make me feel better?” she asked.

Thankfully, Oliver’s need to explain was shortened by a muffled _bang_ from the club interior, a sound he associated with glitter and a blinding tangle of multi-colored streamers. “Needed a little air,” he answered dryly. “Confetti isn’t really my thing.”

The corners of Felicity’s mouth twitched. "Barry left you something,” she said, and one hand withdrew from her coat pocket with a small box. “Even the Arrow needs a Christmas present, I guess.”

Oliver took the box in silence, but made no move to pry it open. “What is it?”

She buried her face in her coat collar. “One way to find out.”

He pushed the lid up, and paused, taking in the gift. As a matter of habit, he rarely absorbed the things that came out of Barry’s mouth, preferring to tune them out instead. Sheer volume and density seemed like the easy way to not mean what he said, but as it turned out, Barry had been serious about upgrading his method of identity concealment.

It was a mask, the exact color of his suit, as flexible as a second skin and clearly designed for an archer on the run. A perfect gift.

“It’s…” he began, momentarily at a loss for words. “It’s very thoughtful of him.”

“Aren’t you going to try it on?” she asked, quietly teasing him again.

Oliver closed the box again and slipped it into his pocket. “You’ll be there when I do.”

Felicity leaned her head on the side of the door, looking up at him through her lashes. “So I never asked,” she said, “but your ghost problem — did you make it go away?”

Oliver had been so busy thinking about how to deal with the Mirakuru that he hadn’t given his hallucinations (past tense now) much consideration. “I did,” he said, sounding taken aback even to his own ears.

“How?” she asked, curiously.

A few months ago, Oliver might have brushed off the question, guarding the secret like saying it aloud would have cost him something dear. But it was always easy with Felicity, to feel like he could have told her anything and everything, secrets that he'd gladly give away for free.

“I saw my dad,” Oliver admitted. “In the warehouse, while I was fighting Gold. He told me something I needed to hear — that I can’t keep blaming myself for the choices other people make. That I can’t just survive the island, like he told me to. That I need to do more — I need to _live_.”

“And are you going to?”

Her voice was careful, as light as one of the falling snowflakes.

Oliver squinted up at the sky. “People usually make New Year’s resolutions, don’t they?” he said, feigning ignorance.

Felicity nodded, playing along as always. “ _Normal_ people do.”

Oliver cracked a smile, and she laughed, a clear, unguarded sound released in a rush of white mist that swirled up along with the flurry of snow, a sound that made his heart genuinely skip a beat.

“ _Ten…nine…_ ”

They both turned when they heard the countdown start, but neither of them raised the prospect of going back inside, not even to get out of the snow. Oliver stole a glance at Felicity, or he’d meant to, but found himself lingering instead, as he always did. The Verdant sign overhead was bright and green, but the glow from the streetlights made amber silhouettes on the pavement and a contrast of gold and shadow on her skin, luminous and lovely as a dream, except for the blush in her cheeks and the light in her eyes reinforcing the simple, indisputable fact that she was real.

In front of him, and close.

Always close.

“ _Six…five…four…_ ”

As though sensing his gaze like palpable heat, she turned to look at him, a slight inquisitive tilt to her head, and in the last three seconds of their shared year, Oliver felt his heart race all over again.

Someone very smart told him to stop fighting his ghosts so that he could hear what they wanted to say. It was advice that had saved his life, but it seemed hollow to treat it as a one-off, a last-minute trick, instead of something meant to be honored.

Especially since it came from his last ghost, and the most important one.

Robert Queen, telling him not just to survive, but _live_.

_Live._

“Felicity —”

“ _Two…one — HAPPY NEW YEAR!_ ”

Something very loud went off inside the club with a gigantic _bang_ , followed by what sounded like an army of champagne corks. Felicity yelped in response — hands crossed in front of her chest — before she began to laugh at herself for getting scared. The music started up again, and Oliver felt himself move a little closer, close enough to get her attention again.

Felicity went very still, and her lips parted slightly as if she wanted to ask him what he was doing. Maybe she already knew the answer, because neither of them made a sound. Oliver wondered if he would have kissed her, and whether she wanted him to, but at the very last second, he did exactly what he’d meant to do.

He kissed her softly on one cheek.

In spite of all the _should_ s and _would_ s and the sudden rush of warmth in his whole face, Oliver felt himself linger, just barely brushing the corner of her mouth. But he knew — and maybe she did too — that the reason was because she’d turned her head slightly towards him, like it was a reflexive response, stalled just in time.

A reflex to kiss him back.

“Happy New Year, Felicity,” he said, surprised, but more gratified than words could express.

She blinked, a frosting of snow on her lashes, and murmured, “Happy New Year, Oliver.”

There was a wealth of history — not to mention a stubbornly upbeat CSI from another city — to back up the proposition that nothing was impossible, so maybe this would be the year when everything changed.

As the clock ticked its first few seconds into a brand new year, Oliver felt himself hope.

Anything could happen, so why the hell not?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Yes, I KNOW there's a lot of karaoke and parties and stuff in this story, but it's fuuuuuun.  
> \- Barry and Felicity kiss a lot more in this, but that's also kinda fun :D  
> \- Oliver flails around when he hallucinates, okay? Flailing has both good and bad consequences :P  
> \- In case anyone’s wondering, what Shado says to Oliver in the hallway is the Mandarin pinyin (pronunciation) for “你好，親愛的”, which translates roughly to “hello, my darling/my love” or something like that. I know she says “nihao, wo de ai ren” (你好，我的愛人) in the show, which literally means “hello, lover” but it’s a bit of a weird thing to say to someone in Chinese. Also, I think Cupid says that in English, so NOPE. Ah Arrow, and your love of Google Translate (shakes head). Anyway, now you know what to call your loved ones if you ever have the urge to use Chinese endearments (waves).  
> Until the next update! Suggestions for 2x10 are, as always, super welcome.


	18. Complications (Blast Radius, Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Working title of the episode: The One Where Oliver is Extremely Jealous

Oliver kicked through the door as the car peeled out of the lot with a screech of tires.

“What the hell happened?” Tommy said indignantly. “You had the guy!”

“He got spooked,” Oliver answered, climbing onto his waiting bike. “And there were eight armed guards.”

“Interesting use of past tense there, buddy — uh, what do you want us to do?”

“What do you think?” Oliver was already racing onto the road after his target, swerving to avoid oncoming traffic. “ _Track him_.”

“Jeez, _unclench_ ,” Tommy muttered. “Everybody gains a little weight after the holidays — doesn’t mean you have to get all cranky with me because your pants are too tight.”

“That’s _not —_ ”

“We’ll try to catch him on the traffic cams,” Diggle interrupted, pre-empting the inevitable bickering. “Make and model?”

“No need.” Oliver craned his neck, trying to pick out the car from the others on the road. “I put a tracker on the bumper before I went in. Just patch into the signal and tell me where he’s headed.”

“Great.” There was a pause, and he could imagine Tommy staring at the computers, bewildered. “Now how do I do that?”

Oliver said an extremely bad word, not just because he didn’t have the time or the expertise to educate his best friend in the mechanics of IT in the field, but also due to the fact that he’d attempted to cut across an intersection — which put him in the path of some very large trucks.

By the time he zigzagged his way out of the potential pile-up, Tommy (most likely with Diggle’s help) had straightened out the kinks. “Sorry about that — this isn’t really my thing,” Diggle said calmly, as though it was a mild mixup with a coffee order. “Your guy’s heading north on Elm, moving fast.”

“Got it.” Oliver took the next corner at a sharp angle, emerging onto a road of shuttered warehouses. “I know a shortcut.”

“Oh good,” Tommy said. “Because I legit have _no_ idea what I’m doing right now.”

The road sloped downward as his bike sped into a tunnel. “I figured,” Oliver muttered.

“Hey — it’s not my fault that you didn’t stop Felicity from taking the first train to Central City. I believe your exact words were: _it’s fine, I can handle things down here_. Not _I love you, don’t go see the snoozing nerd, marry me now and have my babies_ — which is a whole other story —”

“Maybe there’s a better time to discuss this,” Diggle suggested, gamely attempting to stay on track.

Tommy hacked a cough, possibly due to the fact that he’d dropped his voice on purpose to imitate Oliver’s. “Shh, I’m making a point. Anyway, you totally should have told her how much you need her — which, by the way, you _so_ do, because Digg and I are terrible at this. And I mean worse than the guys at that tech repair shop that’s also a shawarma joint. Did I tell you what they did to my iPod?”

“Barry’s in a _coma_ , Tommy,” Oliver said, not entirely sure why he was choosing to argue while on a high-speed chase. “How was I supposed to ask her to stay?”

“Well, opening your mouth and actually _saying_ the words might have been a good place to start,” Tommy said, acidly. “Not — y’know — getting all grumpy and taking out your profound sexlessness on the lowlifes in the Glades.”

Even Oliver had to wince at the truly terrible phrasing. “That is _not_ — that’s just — my personal life has _nothing_ to do with this. I’m trying to track down the man in the skull mask, before he starts using the Mirakuru to make himself an army.”

“Uh-huh.” Tommy was clicking again, hopefully for the legitimate purposes of helping him track down the criminal he was chasing. “By my estimate, you haven’t had sex since Moscow, so that’s like — what — a hundred and twenty days of making shower babies?”

“Did you just _calculate_ that?”

“He did,” Diggle confirmed, sounding like his face was covered by his hand. “The calculator app, he can figure out, but not the tracker program.”

Tommy ignored this. “At the rate you’re moving — which is nothing, optimistically speaking — you’re gonna die alone,” he declared. “ _Et tu_ , sexless sir?”

“If it’ll make you stop talking…”

“You’re almost on him,” Diggle said. “Take a right.”

“No — left,” Tommy said. “That’s him, right? The triangle one.”

“No, that’s the perp. The circle.”

Oliver tried not to swear again, and succeeded — only because he emerged from the tunnel and nearly collided head-on with the exact car he’d been chasing for the last five minutes.

“Oh _hello_ ,” Tommy said, unnecessarily. “Oliver, he’s right in front of you.”

“I _noticed!_ ”

Drivers in other cities would have braked, but the ones in Starling City all seemed to have the collective instinct to step on the gas, which was precisely what happened next. Quick reflexes and experience meant that Oliver managed to avoid being flattened — by a hairsbreadth — raising the bike on its back wheel at the absolute last second, dropping only after the car was halfway down the deserted road.

Undaunted, Oliver nocked an arrow and aimed for the left rear tire.

The charge exploded beneath the bumper, and the car squealed, its back wheel in flames, veering wildly off course until it collided to a stop with a streetlamp.

Silence.

“Nice recovery,” Diggle remarked.

“Thanks.” Oliver walked towards the car, which was hissing acrid black smoke and looking distinctly the worse for wear. The driver groaned, his forehead bleeding onto the steering wheel.

All pretense of unconsciousness went out the window when Oliver grabbed him by the front of his jacket and hauled him out the shattered windshield, throwing him onto the sidewalk.

“Don’t shoot — please!” he begged, his hands raised in surrender.

Oliver made sure an arrow was pointed at his chest before he spoke. “The man in the skull mask,” he snarled. “Where is he?”

* * *

Oliver walked back into the Foundry half an hour later, in a distinctly worse mood than what he’d started the evening with, something he hadn't thought was possible.

“Sorry, buddy,” Tommy said, swiveling around in Felicity’s chair. “No luck, huh?”

Oliver pushed back his hood and yanked the mask Barry had given him down to his neck, his movements sharp and jerky from frustration. “No one’s seen him. It’s like he’s some kind of ghost.”

“I think that has something to do with leaving more dead bodies than witnesses,” Diggle pointed out. “You’ve been pushing yourself pretty hard these last few weeks. Maybe you need a night off.”

The remark — while well-meaning — rubbed Oliver the wrong way, and he dropped his bow onto the table with a crash. “I don’t have _time_ for a break, Diggle,” he snapped, rounding on him. “The man in the skull mask has the Mirakuru and god only knows what he plans to do with it. I can’t just _stop_.”

Diggle only raised his eyebrow at the outburst. “Look, man, you keep me around because I’m a good partner in the field, but also because I don’t like to waste anyone’s time. The Mirakuru has you spooked — I get it. Cyrus Gold almost killed you, and it took an actual power surge to take him down.”

Tommy coughed into his fist. “Where are you going with this?” he said, in a loud whisper.

Oliver ignored him. “What are you trying to say?” he asked Diggle.

“I’m saying that if having Felicity in Starling City means so much to you, maybe you should tell her that the next time she asks if she can take the night off to visit another guy,” he said bluntly.

Seemingly satisfied that the requisite advice had been delivered, Diggle got to his feet and clapped Tommy on the shoulder before he left the Foundry, leaving just the two of them in silence.

“So…” Tommy said, as the awkward pause stretched. “You hungry?”

Oliver rolled his neck, tense with discomfort, crossing over to the computers. “There’s a program here that monitors police chatter,” he said. “If anyone’s seen the man in the skull mask, we’ll know about it.”

“Right,” Tommy turned back to the screens, watching from the side while Oliver tried to navigate his way through the perplexing maze of multifunctional, cross-linked algorithms and programs without the person who’d configured them in the first place. “Need some help there, buddy? I think I can get Felicity on FaceTime if you w—”

Oliver cursed as the inexplicable authentication request failed with his log-in credentials, also for some unexplained reason. “What I _want_ ,” he said, “is for everybody to stop acting like I’m falling to pieces because we’re missing one person in the team.”

“But it’s _fu-un_ ,” Tommy said, unaffected by Oliver’s responding glare. “And very true, but mostly the _fun_ part. Oo — I think you made it angry.”

“What?” Oliver narrowed his eyes at the monitor, which was now frozen on the traffic cameras. “I just pressed —”

Another beep. “Say you’re sorry,” Tommy muttered. “Wait, no — it’s Felicity’s computer, right? Take your shirt off. Maybe that’ll help.”

Oliver sincerely doubted it would, but before he could do anything else, all the screens blinked into the same uniform blackness, and no amount of key-pressing seemed capable of bringing it back online.

The two men stared at the non-functional computers in silence.

“Hm.” Tommy gave one of the monitors an experimental jiggle (which did nothing), before he wriggled his phone out of his pocket. “Call her?”

Again, Oliver ignored him. “It’s fine,” he said, ducking under the table surface to check on the PC. “I can fix it.”

Tommy slumped back in Felicity’s chair with his eyes to the ceiling. “I’ll get the shawarma guys on speed-dial, I guess.”

* * *

There was nothing sadder than the sight of a fully-grown man sitting on the floor beside a dismantled computer, surrounded by loose wires, hard disks, and — for some strange reason — a hammer, examining circuit board thingies like he actually knew what to do with them.

That was just the tip of the iceberg. Somehow, a failing computer to _Mr Technologically Deaf_ meant rooting around the server setup as well, in all its wire-bundled, blinking light-ed glory. Tommy had a bartending shift starting in fifteen, which he couldn’t exactly miss because it was an excellent opportunity to check on Roy’s incredibly inexplicable okay-ness, post-Mirakuru.

But he knew trainwrecks when he saw them, and Oliver trying to fix a computer he’d crashed was just about the most trainwreck-y one there was.

“Remind me again, what’s wrong with calling Felicity?” he asked, turning his chair around and around while he waited for the man to see sense.

“She’s busy,” he said, without looking up.

“And what’s wrong with waiting for her to get back so she can fix it? Y'know, competently. Effectively. Or really — just know what she's doing, in _any_ sense of the word.”

“I set up the hardware and configured the network in the Foundry before Felicity ever got involved,” Oliver said, now shining a flashlight into one of the tiny cooling fans. “I think I can handle some maintenance work.”

"Okay, so why aren't you also handling the whole _telling her how you feel_ thing?" he asked. "And don't say —"

"— it's not the right time," Oliver said, before he could finish.

Tommy barely resisted the urge to kick him somewhere, because if there was one sentence he absolutely hated hearing from Oliver's punchable-perfect lips, it was _that_ old chestnut. "What, because Barry's still in the picture?” he sighed.

"Just because he's in a coma doesn't mean he's not in the picture."

"Explain that sentence."

Oliver dropped the flashlight, noisily, and started up with a screwdriver instead. "So I tell her how I feel, and say it works out for a while — what if he wakes up? Felicity and Barry are always going to be unfinished business, and he's always going to be the one she chose first."

Tommy raised his eyes skyward. "We've been _over_ this. They're practically twins — it's weird, and icky, and _bleh_."

"She chose _bleh_ before he got hit by lightning," Oliver pointed out. "So no. It's not the right time, and I'm not having this conversation right now."

"Oli—"

" _Drop it_."

Tommy sighed, shaking his head as he started a new text. “If the mountain won’t come to Mohamed…” he mumbled, attaching an on-site picture for helpful reference, “the mountain’s best friend is gonna send Mohamed an SOS and hope he picks up.”

* * *

Felicity stumbled into the corner of a table, her hip making the _exact_ amount of solid contact with the mirrored surface to make her swear and hop around the unlit entrance of her hotel room. The unfortunate downside of being a somewhat consequential person in a company semi-ruled by a Disney cartoon villain was the fact that taking a few days to visit a comatose _sorta-more-than-friend_ was a non-option.

Which meant she’d had to ask to visit Central City on Queen Consolidated business, with the official purpose of checking on the highly tricky biofuel project they were working on with Mercury Labs. In a similar vein of unfortunate-ness, _official purpose_ was an euphemism for something that took up most of her day, leaving lunch hour and everything after eight PM as free time to spend with Barry. Thankfully, STAR Labs was twenty-four hours, and the personnel taking care of him had a sense of humor.

Well, Cisco did. Caitlin, she wasn’t entirely sure could take a joke.

The upside of getting to stay in a nice hotel on the company’s budget looked a lot less _uppy_ in the middle of the night, trying to find her way around a bewilderingly modern hotel room that had reflective walls and concealed switches in the most unlikely places. If the corporate gods that be dictated company hotel choices, this was the _Isabel_ of hotel rooms, intensely ahead of its time and bizarrely judgmental to anyone who didn’t quite know how to use its many and varying functions. Like a misbehaving remote, except Felicity couldn't dismantle it and force it to be nice.

She eventually managed to turn on one of the lamps — an origami paper construction shaped like no real-life animal she could think of — and made a beeline straight for the bathroom, with the view of a quick shower, hasty blow-dry, and maybe a few hours’ sleep before having to rinse-and-repeat the whole routine the next day.

The hotel room looked a lot less unfriendly from the tail end of a nice hot shower, and Felicity squeaked out in a pair of terrycloth slippers and a matching robe, toweling her wet hair by the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over Central City.

The particle accelerator was impossible to miss in the distance, a portion of the ring-shaped structure torn away and left exposed after the blast. Even with structural damage, it was still tall and sleek enough to make the older buildings around it look squat and grubby by comparison, like a side by side juxtaposition of two completely different centuries.

Barry’s lab was one of the smaller buildings nearer downtown, red brick and skylighted, where he’d left her that last message — forty-five minutes into the new year. Him admitting that he’d ended up missing the cutoff time for entry into STAR Labs was so predictably Barry that she smiled at the memory, despite knowing what came next. The particle accelerator had failed, catastrophically, releasing a blast of energy that scientists all over the country were still trying to puzzle out, but — ironically enough — what put Barry into a coma had been a random bolt of lightning. A freak storm and a freak accident.

And here they were.

 _Here_ was Felicity visiting Central City whenever she could (which realistically-speaking, wasn’t a lot) to sit by his bed, reassured by the fact that his condition had stabilized, but was unlikely to change. The words _coma_ and _miracle_ were favorites in the story-trading experience, because someone always knew somebody whose uncle, brother, sister, cousin — whatever — had been in a comatose state too, and none of the doctors knew how to help, until they suddenly _woke_ up. Just like that.

Exceptions, not the rule.

She knew the science, and she knew the chances, but in lieu of sudden advancements in the realm of neurology, there wasn’t a whole lot Felicity could do. Sometimes, even visiting Barry felt like she was still hoping for a miracle. Naively. Pointlessly.

Morbidly.

Felicity shook her head at the train of thought and draped the damp towel across the back of the chair. Sleep deprivation made her moody, and she desperately needed a sense of humor for work in the morning (people at Mercury Labs didn’t smile a whole lot). She'd tossed her phone onto the bed before heading in for a shower, and made the amateur mistake of checking it before she set it on the nightstand to charge.

A couple of new company emails and texts, the most recent from Tommy. Apart from the usual snapshots of what he’d had for lunch, he’d also sent her an emoji of an angel and praying hands, attached to a picture of Oliver sitting on the floor with what looked like the insides of a computer.

She’d been on her back, scrolling laconically through updates, but now bolted upright, staring at the…the… _sacrilege_.

“What the actual _frack_?” she breathed, already starting to dial.

* * *

Oliver picked up his buzzing phone without much thought, absorbed with trying to tighten a minuscule screw on a circuit board. It was probably Tommy anyway, checking on him from upstairs. “Hello?” he said, pinning it between shoulder and ear.

“What the hell have you done to my system?”

He almost dropped the phone.

“Felicity?”

“No, it’s the IT police,” she said sarcastically. “What do you think?”

Oliver paused, screwdriver in hand. “I think somebody called you,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Who sold me out?”

“Nobody,” she said, too quickly. “Tommy.”

Oliver grunted, and pulled one of the chairs towards him so that he could have a better seat than the floor. _Of course_. Another one of his subliminal meddlings, almost completely guaranteed to backfire. “How’s Barry?” he asked, a question that _had_ to be gotten out of the way first.

Felicity made a wordless sound that implied a lack of change. “Sleeping. A word I prefer over _comatose_. I mean, the people at STAR Labs don’t think a kiss on the lips might wake him up, but I don’t know — desperate times.”

For understandable reasons, the idea of Felicity kissing Barry was something Oliver preferred not to discuss, so he answered with a non-verbal noise of his own. “You never know. Barry’s always believing in the impossible. Something might change.”

“Thanks,” she said.

Oliver winced at the ineptness of the reassurance. Bringing up Barry Allen was the surest way to turn a conversation between them stilted and oddly polite, as evidenced by the slightly awkward pause, albeit one where neither suggested hanging up.

As though they still had everything left to say to each other.

Something rustled, and Oliver imagined her in a hotel room somewhere, in the middle of downtown Central City. Probably five-star, fancier than she was comfortable with, the kind that had a museum-like decor which only seemed to amplify the silence.

It was a lonely setup, and suffice it to say he knew the feeling, even though actually letting it faze him was a relatively new phenomenon. “You should probably get some sleep,” he suggested, with a lot less conviction than the words implied. “Long day tomorrow.”

“So should you,” she answered. “And I thought I was calling because you needed your personal computer geek."

The surprising possessiveness of the word _your_ — from Felicity, of all people — made Oliver's pulse do something he wasn't entirely comfortable discussing with anyone.

“What gave you that idea?" he inquired, studiously avoiding eye contact with the deadened screens. “I thought I told you I was handling it.”

“Taking my computers apart and picking at the pieces is _handling_ it?” she challenged. “Excuse me, but I don’t take your arrows and tell you where to stick them. That…sounded very wrong.”

“Actually, you do,” he pointed out, graciously refraining from remarking on the interesting verbal slip-up. “You modify my gear all the time.”

“Because _I_ know what I’m doing. My credentials involve nerd skills, so of course I get to mess around with your arrows — _again_ , that’s not what I meant. Oh god, that’s not what I meant.”

Oliver laughed, and the sound echoed down the line, reminding him — again — how far away they were from each other. The thought made him feel strangely lonely, and he shifted his weight, wondering if it was right to tell her.

“So how’re things?” she asked, after another pause. “Apart from the tech-murder, I mean.”

Oliver rubbed at his forehead, tiredly. “Meetings. Briefs. Reports. Isabel invited some magazine to do a profile on Queen Consolidated — which means interviews. But you probably knew that.”

“I did,” she agreed, probably thinking about the memo Isabel had sent out. “ _Such_ a shame I’m missing it. I always wanted to hear Madam CEO spin her ruthless almost-takeover as the perfect love story first thing in the morning. Like we don't get enough press already. Didn’t a reporter from that tabloid try to sneak in last week?”

“I think she’d tell me not to confuse _notoriety_ with publicity,” he said, with the vague sense that he might have heard it from Isabel already. “Again — sorry.”

“You punch a TMZ guy _one_ time…” Felicity said, mock-serious, and Oliver smiled.

But just as quickly covered his face at the prospect of having to sit down and answer questions in the presence of a tape recorder, when every part of him wanted to be out on the streets, hunting down the elusive link connecting the skull mask to the Mirakuru.

“I hate interviews,” he said, finally. “I don’t even know anyone who reads _The Journal_ — except maybe my mother —”

“— _I_ read _The Journal_. Investors read _The Journal_ , which is probably what Isabel’s banking on. That, and your million-watt smile to fluster whatever poor writer they send to interview the _charming_ CEO Oliver Queen.”

Oliver felt himself flush, in spite of it being Felicity’s attempt to cheer him up. “I think Tommy might have slept with her once — the interviewer.”

“Pot, meet kettle.”

“Fair point.” Oliver was smiling again. “Sorry.”

“You’ll be fine. Just tell them what you’ve been doing with your family’s company. It’s good work — which is my way of saying that Isabel should _not_ get to grab all the credit.”

“Speaking of credit, cybersecurity’s your department. You should be the one getting interviewed, so…”

 _Come home_ , he thought.

Felicity snorted. “I’m already terrible in regular conversation, imagine how much worse I’d be in print.”

“I am,” Oliver said. “You’re still very funny.”

“Shut _up_.”

A candid discussion of daytime work inevitably bled into a similar discussion of the nocturnal side of things, the one that took unspoken precedence. “I chased down another lead today," he said, tracing an aimless pattern on the tabletop. "He was the biggest dealer in Crescent Circle, and he still had no idea about the man in the skull mask.”

She _hm_ -ed thoughtfully. “That’s disappointing. Did you try monitoring police chatter?”

Oliver hid another smile in his hand, staring at the now-useless keyboards. Sometimes he wondered if he was picking up on Felicity's instinct for technological solutions, or if she just had a knack for reading his investigative habits. “I was planning to — but then the computer died.”

“I knew I’d regret not leaving emergency instructions,” she sighed. “Okay, do you want to know how to get them up and running again?”

“If you feel like it,” he said casually.

“Go into the back room — there should be a spare CPU back there. It's _ancient_ , but functional, which is probably more than I can say for what you're looking at right now. Anyway, hook the spare up to the power source, plug in the monitors, and it should work until I get back and fix whatever you broke.”

“Wow.” A part of him was a little affronted, but seeing the disassembled parts heaped accusingly on the floor didn't give him much room to protest. “You trust us that much?”

“I trust _you_ …to go Neanderthal on my technology. Which you did. In a _truly_ spectacular fashion,” Felicity said, and laughed, the exact opposite of how angry he thought she’d be.

Her sounding relaxed and happy was the easiest way to get him to smile, and her laugh nearly always got something identical out of him. Felicity’s side of the line rustled again, like she was shifting against the pillows to get comfortable.

“Are you in bed?” he asked.

She didn’t answer immediately, and he realized how it must have sounded. _Sleazy. Inappropriate. Ill-timed_.

“Sorry — I didn’t mean it like that,” he said hastily, a flush creeping up his neck. “I just meant — if I was keeping you up — I…shouldn’t.”

The sheer inadequacy of the sentence made him shake his head at the ceiling in exasperation.

“Keeping me up and me actually being able to sleep are two _very_ different things, Mr Queen,” Felicity said, sounding amused. “Thank your lucky stars and arrow-toting deities that Isabel isn’t letting you anywhere near the biofuel project, because _god_.”

Oliver laughed again and reclined in her chair, like he was already making himself comfortable to hear it. “Tell me,” he said.

* * *

Felicity scrubbed at her eyes and glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand. It was almost two in the morning. She’d called Oliver at a little past midnight, which meant they’d been talking for... _hours_.

About what, she couldn’t precisely remember. It was just one of those things that took tangents and turns without really stopping for more than a couple of seconds, which reminded her that she hadn’t touched the glass of water at her elbow at all, and that her voice was the kind of scratchy that made her self-conscious.

But she couldn’t imagine asking Oliver to hold the phone while she went for a pee break.

_Scratchy quasi-Felicity voice it is, then._

It wasn’t the first time she’d thought this, but while they’d talked lazy circles around each other, like _friends_ were supposed to do, she realized how much she liked Oliver’s voice when it was husky. He apparently hadn’t stopped for water either, and there was a nice roughness to his voice — the velvety kind, not bare bricks and sandpaper — that made her feel like she missed Starling, even if she’d only been gone for a day or two.

And something else, like a warm comforter on a winter night, like hot cinnamon-related drinks on a cold day. She wriggled her toes and stretched her legs underneath the covers, her robe falling open along the thigh.

“I should sleep,” she said, suppressing a yawn. “I have to be up at seven.”

“I should go home,” he said, and the chair creaked like he’d sat up. “Felicity…”

“Hm?”

“…take as much time as you need with Barry,” he finished. “He’s important to you.”

The abrupt, borderline brusque subject change made her hesitate, a little wrong-footed. “Oh. Okay. Sure. Um — thanks.”

“Good night.”

“N-night.”

Felicity stared at the ceiling for what felt like a long time after Oliver had hung up, phone in her hand, wondering why she felt so confused about nothing at all.

* * *

Oliver’s fingers stayed clenched around the phone, even though he’d already ended the call. He’d told Felicity he was going home, but he leaned back instead, facing the ceiling again. He stared at the branched pattern of exposed steel beams, trying not to think about the nagging discomfort at the back of his mind, like he was missing something. The complete difference in his mood, traceable to the phone conversation.

He missed Felicity. It was genuinely that simple.

Only everything else didn’t share that status.

Oliver breathed out — again — and got to his feet. It was past time he went home, already a few hours into a brand new day.

His phone buzzed as he’d been about to get the Foundry lights, and Oliver stared at the news alert, not quite processing.

Until he did.

There’d been an explosion.

* * *

It was ridiculously early to show up to the office with a suitcase. It was also ridiculously early to have a coffee stain on her shirt, but that was the train’s fault — because who knew high-speed travel, crack-of-dawn departure times and hot drinks _weren’t_ the perfect combination?

The point being — it wasn’t on her.

Well, it was _on_ her, from the perfectly literal perspective. An indeterminately shaped splodge that announced to the world that she’d dozed off mid-caffeine binge, and was — more importantly — purely unacceptable for work, much less a run-in with a hostile CEO (last name Rochev) who had _not_ been prepped to expect Felicity at the office one day earlier.

Privately, Felicity wondered how long she could work quietly in her office and pretend she didn't exist, but that was neither mature or productive, and she’d cut her quasi-work trip short for a reason. They had a bomber to find.

But the first order of business (so to speak) was to break out her emergency stash of work clothes, the must-have of any lover of bright colors and caffeinated drinks that most _definitely_ stained.

Seven forty-five meant that the office was still in _ghost town_ status, and the elevator carried Felicity up all thirty-something floors without once making a stop. She emerged onto the semi-lit floor, suitcase in tow, feeling the inexplicable urge to creep through the corridors in a half-crouch, like she was a cartoon mouse trying to pull off a burglary.

Anyway. Grown-up, sophisticated woman. She may have had an embarrassing coffee stain down her front, but she could walk into her office like it was no one’s business — because it really wasn’t.

With that in mind, she strolled right past her EA’s desk (deserted) and pushed into the relative warmth of her office, safe from the frigid air-conditioning by the early morning sunshine streaming through the raised blinds.

“Clean shirt, clean shirt…” she muttered, running her hands along the smoky marbled wall in search of the elusive built-in cabinets, which — neat interior design perks aside — were hellishly inconvenient to find in time-sensitive conditions. “ _Aha_.”

The door whooshed outward, blocking her from the side of the glass walls that faced the elevators. Felicity pushed her suitcase into the cavernous depths before proceeding to look under rows of rustling dry-cleaning bags for something that went with a black pencil skirt, well aware that she was mumbling to herself the whole time (was lucid insanity a thing?) “Wow, I really wear too many dresses,” she said, after the excavation gave up a single dusty-rose blouse she vaguely remembered getting wasabi on at some point (the _last_ time she ever ate sushi with Tommy), thus necessitating a dry-clean. “Not that there’s much choice. Either that or looking like my tenth grade yearbook photo…”

Felicity looked hastily out from behind the door before she pulled the existing top up and over her head, shoving it into the closet while she wrangled her arms into the sleeves of the blouse, her exposed skin goosebumping like crazy. “Frack,” she said, looking down at her chest. Appreciating the somewhat-flatness of her décolletage wasn’t a regular habit, so spilling coffee on her shirt hadn’t immediately equated a corresponding stain on her bra, which was A) white lace, and B) kinda pricey — ironically one of the few times she’d splurged on something other than pajamas or clothes in the general category of _meant-for-people-to-see_.

“The _one_ time I decide to wear a bra,” she said in annoyance, not to anyone in particular, but still towards the general direction of her cleavage.

“Hello?” someone said, and Felicity stared at the door for a brief — _burning_  — second before she registered _male_ and ducked. Hard.

There might have been a yelp too.

“What the _frack_?” she demanded, yanking the blouse closed with her back to the stranger, who could have been Idris Elba for all she cared, because she’d been technically _shirtless_.

Well, shirt-opened. Half-shirted.

 _So not the point_.

Total stranger, male stranger. Who apparently hadn’t realized what he’d been looking at (ouch) until her loud reaction. “ _Agh_ , sorry — sorry,” he said, and she peered indignantly out from behind the cabinet door to see that he had a hand over his eyes. “I didn’t realize someone was in here.”

“ _Chuh_ ,” Felicity said, which wasn’t the most snappy of comebacks, but she was preoccupied with stuffing the now-buttoned blouse into her skirt, just in case Stranger McStrangeFace decided to take a peek at her nonexistent goods. “Well, that’s why you should always knock — just in case empty offices turn out to be _occupado_. Which in this case, it _so_ , totally was.”

The mouth — visible beneath the hand — quirked a little at the corners, the facial-expression equivalent of a _huh, interesting_. “And do you always knock before entering completely empty rooms?”

Felicity got to her feet in a dignified huff. “Do you even work here?” she said.

Apparently sensing that it was safe to use his eyes, Stranger McStrangeFace cracked his fingers, and finally dropped them altogether, letting them rest on the strap of his messenger bag. “Uh, no,” he said, looking around the office — and her — with polite interest. “I don’t work here, but I’m around for the day, so I thought I’d try and find someone I was supposed to meet. A while ago, actually.”

“Really,” she said, surreptitiously closing the cabinet door behind her. They both sounded a little preoccupied, probably because they were each sizing the other up, McStrangeFace noticing — _whatever_ — about her, while she took in the height (tall, like _Diggle-tall_ ), the neat shirt and tie, sleeves rolled up to the elbows of his arms (which were long in a good way and kinda muscled), and the objective fact that he was…not bad to look at. In the least. He looked like a cross between an architect and an associate professor, the next door neighbor who'd bring over her mail _just because_ , the kind who waved as he jogged past driveways in the morning. Basically, a nice guy.

Felicity didn't quite know what to make of... _this_ , in its entirety.

“Who’s that?” she asked, after an unintentionally long pause. “Not _you_ — though it would be nice to put a name to the face, or is that the other way round? Anyway, no, I meant — _who_ are you…um...looking for?”

“Felicity Smoak,” he answered, smoothly. “Do you know her? A guy downstairs said she worked up here, but the doors don’t really have names on them…” He craned his neck again to check the spotless glass door behind him, which ( _thank frack_ ) remained mercifully nameless. “Am I in the right place?”

Something in Felicity’s brain clicked, that shirtless and changing in her office was _not_ how she wanted to be introduced to… _whoever_ this incredibly nice-faced stranger was, her questionable romantic status notwithstanding. Not that she was assuming that an architect-professor hybrid wanted anything to do with her nonexistent romantic life. For all she knew, he was one of those courthouse guys who served people with lawsuits, not that she'd done much in the way of ostentatious law-breaking.

Either way, it was probably easier to save the both of them some collective time and energy, hence —

“No,” she said, reaching randomly for a few files waiting on her desk and gathering them up to her chest. “I mean — yes — this _is_ her office, but she’s not...in yet. She’s actually still in Central City, business trip, you know. Busy, busy…work.”

“Oh.” He looked momentarily disappointed, but then his eyebrow arched. “So who are you?”

Felicity really didn't possess the requisite experience in deception to have a fake name ready and waiting. “Me?” she said, stalling while the mental fruit machine of names that weren’t _Felicity_ rattled on. “I’m…”

 _Oliver Queen_.

No, she couldn't use that.

“Oli _...via_ ,” she said, a little too loudly. “My name’s Olivia. I’m F—Miss Smoak’s EA. Just grabbing a few files she asked for. Very important files, very urgent. So I’m off to the copy room — you know, scanning, buttons, toner…”

Stranger McStrangeFace — more accurately known as _Tall, Dark and Handsome_ — scratched his forehead. “I may not have the most conventional office experience, but do assistants always use their boss’s offices as changing rooms?” he asked, dryly.

Felicity made a _pft_ noise, waving the pile of files. “It’s an office thing. We’re all one big — _happy_ — family around here. Miss Smoak gets to sit at my desk, I get to change in her office…she knows I run to work, so — sports bras, sneakers, _sweat_ — anyway, you're clearly very busy, and so am I. I’ll — uh — see you around, okay?”

“Right." He shifted out of the way as she approached, holding the door open for her. "Thanks…Olivia.”

Felicity did her best imitation of an innocuous smile, trotting out of the/her office with an armful of random files, fighting the urge to crumple like a wad of wet toilet paper until she made it into an elevator, _alone_.

“Oh _god_ ,” she groaned, as the full impact of everything that had departed her mouth hit her like — well — a bolt of lightning.

Severe lack of sleep, coffee spillage, an embarrassing run-in with a strange but attractive man, and a bare-faced lie because said man had _actually_ been looking for her.

All in all, not a bad start to the day.

* * *

A bombing and a subsequent firefight later, Oliver was in the Queen Consolidated elevator with Tommy and Diggle on either side of him, both projecting similar levels of disapproval.

“First rat poison, now smoke inhalation — and he _still_ won’t go to the hospital,” Diggle muttered, shaking his head in Oliver’s peripheral vision.

Oliver cleared his throat, inexplicably tasting ash. Firefights weren't strictly within the Arrow's repertoire, but someone had set off a bomb in that building, and the people left trapped by the flames would have died if he hadn't gone in to help. “I’m fine,” he answered, a gesture that might have proved his point, if his voice wasn’t the consistency of sandpaper.

“You sound like you have the lung capacity of a forty-year-old chain-smoker,” Tommy said, shaking out the morning papers, the headlines of which were dominated by the late-night explosion. “ _Not_ as sexy as it sounds, by the way. You do realize that this is a _terrible_ idea, even for you, right? You’re about to show up to an interview with a voice that _demands_ a follow-up question, and I don’t think he — or she — is going to believe that you grew a third gonad.”

Oliver didn’t see what anatomy had to do with anything, but he had other concerns. Namely, the fact that he was late, and Isabel’s carefully-choreographed strategy for positive press didn’t incorporate anything less than complete punctuality.

“What are the police saying?” he asked, meaning the morning news.

Tommy scanned the page in front of him. “No suspects yet. They’re not ruling out Homeland Security or FBI cooperation, which sounds like police-talk for knowing squat.”

“The guy blew up the top floor of an office building in the middle of the night. There was no one there but the cleaning crew and a bunch of lawyers working on a last-minute M&A deal. What kind of message is _that_?” Diggle added.

“Good question,” Oliver said, staring at the numbers climbing steadily on the elevator display like they were a countdown.

“Maybe this is me inheriting your usual optimism, but he’s not going to stop, right?”

“Also a very good question.”

Tommy slapped the papers closed. “Great. We need Felicity,” he declared, in a tone that left no room for argument.

Not that Oliver was about to make one. “Tell me something I don’t know,” he said, under his breath.

The doors opened to a bustle of not-unusual activity, except this morning’s activities included non-QC employees marching past with towering lighting structures and masses of wires, and as though that tableau wasn’t enough of a reminder of what he was about to have to endure...

“Oliver,” Isabel said, before he’d even walked through the door to his office. She was standing with an unfamiliar woman, both of them looking expectantly in his direction. “You’re almost late.”

“Sorry — morning traffic was hell,” he said, rapidly changing gears and striding forward to greet their visitor. “Oliver Queen, how are you?”

The woman shook his hand first, eyeing him in an undisguised appraisal. She was barely taller than his sister, Asian, objectively attractive and very much aware of it. “Very well, thank you. Victoria Vale,” she said, her dark eyes flicking him from head to foot. “Writer for _The Journal_.”

Oliver noticed that Tommy had nonchalantly vanished into the crowd, his detector for romantic entanglements as strong as ever (he had a brief, amusing mental flash of his best friend using the newspaper as emergency camouflage). Before meeting Vale, his first guess had veered towards the boilerplate one night stand, but judging from the unflinchingly direct way she stared him down — he had a feeling they might have dated, knowing Tommy’s preference for women who looked like they’d kick his ass without breaking a sweat.

“Nice to meet you,” he said. “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure —”

“Tommy and I dated while you were still MIA. I did him a little favor when he flew halfway across the world to look for you in Hong Kong,” she said bluntly, unsnapping the clasp on her handbag to produce an old-fashioned voice recorder. “I got to stay in a five-star hotel, and he got a translator. So should we start with the joint interview, or do you guys want to do the photos while you’re still fresh?”

Isabel was glaring daggers at Oliver behind Vale’s back, as though she was already accusing him of crashing his past ( _Tommy's_ , he was keen to stress) through the feature piece before it had even started.

“I don’t see your photographer,” Isabel said, glancing at the conference room, which was currently being set up as the backdrop for the magazine shots. “Did he get caught in morning traffic too?”

The reference was undoubtedly meant to needle Oliver, who resolutely ignored the jab.

Vale similarly looked unfazed. “James has a habit of wandering off — it’s the freelance photographer in him,” she said, and whistled. “Olsen!”

A man detached from the small crowd and made his way over. He was taller than most of the surrounding people, broad-shouldered, but the way he moved reminded Oliver of a cat, and his smile was a little sheepish — as though he knew he’d gotten a little carried away — while a scuffed camera hung from a strap around his neck. “Hi,” he said, shaking Isabel’s hand first. “James Olsen, I’m with _The Journal_.”

The name sounded vaguely familiar to Oliver, whose mind immediately associated it with — funny how this was becoming a pattern — Tommy Merlyn. “Olsen,” he said, still trying to place him. “We definitely haven’t met, have we?”

Olsen laughed, a warm, instantly friendly sound. “I think I’d remember meeting billionaire Oliver Queen,” he said, shaking Oliver’s hand. “I might have done some work for your old club, but that’s about it. I’m hardly around for the parties, or the nine-to-five routine, come to think of it.”

A photographer who'd done a job at Verdant.

It dawned on Oliver. Or, more accurately, hit him with the totally unexpected force of a speeding train. “You’re…”

The guy Felicity had _almost_ gone out with. Who was in Starling City. In Queen Consolidated. Now, of all times.

Oliver wasn’t a born optimist, but he felt he had a good reason to think that things were about to get _slightly_ more complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- You bet they are *evil laugh*  
> \- Moral of the story: the boys are useless at crime-fighting without Felicity.  
> \- I know, Felicity probably should have used her middle name Megan as a fake name, but Oli-via was funnier in my head.  
> \- So as you can probably tell, I've made some changes. I teased James Olsen's existence back in the Vertigo episode, so here he is! I'm not really planning for him to date Felicity, since she's still preoccupied with Barry, but they'll have a fun dynamic, without giving too much away. As far as Jimmy/James Olsen and Victoria Vale are concerned, I have the James Olsen from Supergirl and Valerie Vale from Gotham in mind, if you watch either of those shows :)  
> Whelp, that was fun. Arrow's back next week, and I still haven't finished this like I was supposed to!!!!!!  
> ANYWAY. Until the next update!


	19. It's Raining Men (Blast Radius, Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fair warning, this update's a little bit on the long side (only one chapter this week), but I think you'll see why :)

Given his present social circle, it wouldn’t have been at all surprising to Oliver if he’d lost his instincts for navigating an unexpected turn of events, especially since he was shaking the hand of a man who probably had the capacity and full intention to sweep Felicity off her feet. A bizarrely one-sided conflict of interest that was apparent to nobody but himself. Except maybe Diggle, but he was deliberately not counting Diggle in a situation like this.

Fortunately, his social education had been handled by Moira Queen herself, and he managed a broad smile to smooth over the potential awkward moment. “James Olsen,” he said, while a plethora of unspeakable thoughts flitted through his head. “Okay.”

Inconveniently and inexplicably attuned to complications in Oliver’s personal life, Isabel shot him a speculative look before adjusting her features into a more appropriate expression.

“Mr Olsen,” she said, sounding almost appreciative. “I’ve seen your work in the Gotham Centennial exhibition — you’re very talented. I can’t help but think our company’s in very good hands for this article.”

“Thank you,” Olsen smiled in an embarrassed way, chafing the back of his neck like he was keen to change the subject. “Should we —”

“Oh, _don’t_ ,” Vale said, leaning on Olsen in a way that suggested a familiar line of teasing. “He gets embarrassed when anyone drops him a half a compliment. Even if it’s for a photo he nearly lost a kidney to get.”

“You were shot?” Oliver said, momentarily forgetting to keep up the level of disinterest appropriate for his daytime persona.

Olsen looked even more embarrassed than before. “Knife, actually,” he answered. “Wore my vest into the war zone, but I still got a stab wound anyway. I guess all the luck goes to my photos. Not that I’m complaining.”

“Maybe it’s just me, but I’d bask a _little_ if I had a war wound,” Vale remarked, before glancing at Oliver in interest. “Now, I bet you don’t know what getting stabbed feels like, do you, Mr Queen?”

 _The back, leg, or stomach?_ he thought darkly.

But before he could come up with a suitable deflection, his eye was drawn to a flash of blonde hair in the vicinity of the elevators. “Hm? No — no, I wouldn’t,” he said, at the precise moment Felicity walked out onto the floor.

She wasn’t supposed to be back yet, and he knew this because he’d recently devoted a disproportionate amount of attention to keeping track of her return dates, every time she set off to Central City with a suitcase and a smile. Needless to say, the sight of her seemed to loosen a previously-unnoticed knot somewhere in his midriff, and Oliver continued to watch her out the corner of his eye. She was in an obvious hurry, nearly crashing head-on into a cluster of crew members heading in the opposite direction because she had her nose in her tablet, and (by his estimate) looked about two cups of coffee into her usual daily intake.

Which — coming before 9AM — suggested problems of a larger magnitude.

Felicity’s head turned left and right, as though she’d just realized where she was. Oliver raised his eyebrows slightly, a wordless question, but instead of responding, she seemed to freeze within a second of looking in his direction — tablet still clutched to her chest — and hastily backed off the way she’d arrived, bumping into people in her rush to go, vanishing in under three seconds.

Which, even for her, struck him as off.

“So how do you want this to play out?” he asked, most of his attention still on Felicity’s abrupt and unexplained backtrack.

“Handcuffed to my kitchen table, with a bottle of Dom on the side,” Vale answered, with supreme nonchalance. “Oh, you meant the interview.”

Olsen looked like he was trying not to smile. “I think he did, Vic.”

“Honest mistake.” She flicked a glossy wave of hair behind one ear — a gesture that was confident to the point of aggression — and turned to Isabel, who looked reluctantly impressed. “Your office? It’s a little crowded up here.”

“Vic’s bark is worse than her bite,” Olsen said to Oliver, as though he needed the reassurance. “Most of the time.”

Vale’s red lips arched into a smile. “One way to find out,” she answered, more like the hunter than the prey. “Ready?”

 _Not in a million years_ , was his immediate — and shy of appropriate — answer. But it wasn’t as if he could construct a believable excuse to explain ducking out after _just_ arriving at the office, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to make himself the bright neon sign pointing James Olsen towards Felicity, so (to put it _very_ lightly) his hands were tied. As though sensing the fierce mental debate, Diggle coughed quietly near his ear. “Mr Queen, I’ll go see to that security matter while you’re busy — if that’s all right.”

Oliver glanced at him and caught the barest hint of a smile — Diggle’s version of a wink in polite company. He nodded, knowing full well that he was going to pay for it in private later.

“Great,” he said, turning back to others. “I guess I’m all yours.”

* * *

Felicity was still having heart palpitations when she burst from the elevator, having made an attempt to look for Oliver and the others before realizing who he was with.

Namely, Isabel with full _ScaryFace_ and Tall Dark Stranger from her office — two options currently in fierce competition for the title of _Worst Thing Ever_.

“Felicity!”

“What?” She whirled, nonexistent karate skills on the alert, before realizing that it was just Brie — actually because of work.

“I sent the coding report to your email,” she said. “What do you think?”

“Oh. Okay. Right,” Felicity said, scanning quickly through the email on her tablet to gather her thoughts (scattered, very scattered), “the numbers look good — let’s use them for the risk assessment profile going forward.”

“Okay,” Brie said, a little out of breath from trying to keep up with Felicity’s rapid stride (they were the same height, but only one of them was trying to out-jog her problems), “not that I’m _not_ happy to see you —”

Double negative notwithstanding, she was clearly about to ask what Felicity was doing down in the IT department A) so early in the morning, B) when she was meant to be six hundred miles away in Central City, C) or failing that, in her own office, not an out-of-the-way coding lab she’d commandeered for the purpose of avoiding mysterious strangers looking for _Olivia No-Last-Name’s_ boss. In a moment of pure insanity (or genius, depending on the focus group), she stared at Brie’s glasses and ostentatious blondness, the possibility of a _Padmé_ decoy situation going through her head.

 _No, focus_.

Plus, weird, and _way_ too hard to explain.

“BTW, if anyone tall and not unattractive asks you where I am — just pretend I don’t exist,” she said, drawing a mental line through the issue in general. “It’s a long story.”

“Right,” Brie said, as true friends would to strange requests, and pointed down the hallway. “What about him?”

Felicity almost dropped her tablet before she got a good look at who it was. Tommy paused, in a pose that suggested he’d been going from door to door and gawking through the glass. “Hey,” he said, waggling his fingers. “What’s a guy gotta do to stay under the radar around here?”

“If you don’t want him — give him to me,” Brie whispered, which _so_ wasn’t the point.

Felicity took off very quickly, snagging Tommy by the sleeve and dragging him into the coding lab before he could go into the precise details of why he was evading notice (and not, hopefully, the law).

“What did you break,” she said, very seriously, “and was it on fire?”

“I missed you too,” Tommy said, fully sarcastic. But he held out his arms anyway. “C’mere. Central City doesn’t deserve your perky genius-ness.”

Felicity let him give her the obligatory bearhug, noting — randomly — that the lighting in the coding lab was dark enough to make the whole situation at least a _little_ sketchy, if it had been anyone except Tommy. She gave his middle an experimental squeeze with her forearms. “Oof, squashy,” she mumbled into his shirt. “Have you been stress-eating?”

Tommy showed his indignation — not by jumping away — but by keeping an arm wrapped around her shoulders while he pinched her nose, making her laugh. “ _Rude_. I’ll have you know that Oliver’s been in a chronically worse mood than usual. Hand to god, he’s acting like there’s an even bigger steel rod shoved up his a—”

“This wouldn’t have something to do with the computer he crashed, would it?” Felicity guessed, giving him her version of the piercing look over her lopsided glasses.

“Sure,” Tommy said, sounding like he’d meant something else. “Not the fact that he misses his girl Wednesday.”

“ _Friday_ ,” she corrected out of reflex, and he grinned.

She whacked him in the chest with her tablet, and pulled away to find herself a chair, gesturing for him to take the spare one. As per usual, Tommy opted to plant himself on the corner of the table instead, hands on his knee like they were about to have a serious _conversation_. “So do I have to ask?” he said, looking around at the blinking server terminals behind glass cases. “I know why _I’m_ hiding, but why are you setting up camp in the bowels of the IT department?”

“Why are you hiding?” she asked, distracted.

Tommy pointed a single finger at the ceiling. “The magazine sent a woman with whom I may or may not have had a semi-romantic relationship with. No, it did not end well, and yes, I am most _definitely_ choosing to be a coward. Or, as I like to call it, a proud pacifist.”

After what Oliver had mentioned, _and_ knowing Tommy, Felicity wasn’t all that surprised. “Define _not ending well_.”

Tommy sniffed. “It’s a little too dirty for your innocent little ears, but long story short — it ended with a headboard and some handcuffs —”

Felicity made a gagging noise, hands over her ears. “Ew, _Tommy_ —”

“—and before you assume anything, _I_ was the one in handcuffs,” he concluded, with an air of extreme magnanimity.

“She dumped you?” Felicity — in spite of her disgust at hearing about a quasi-family member’s sex life — was mildly intrigued, and maybe a little disappointed that the ending hadn’t been more incendiary. “Good for _her_.”

“Thanks.”

“Not like that — I mean, McKenna’s good for you, but you weren’t always…so nice,” Felicity trailed off lamely. “You’re nice _now_. Definitely meet-the-parents material.”

“Mm-hm.” Tommy clearly had too much of a sense of humor to be offended. “Anyway, did you ditch the nerd to help us with the bomber?”

“Tommy.”

“Sorry, _explosive technician_.”

Felicity rolled her eyes, too used to his blatant side-taking to nitpick. “I was keeping an eye out for new information about our bomber, FBI, CIA databases — you know, the usual suspects — and I saw what he — the bomber, I'm assuming he's a _he_ , I've just never really heard of a female bomber, just like you only ever hear about one-man company frauds with _literally_ the one man —"

“ _Felicity_. Not open mic night at the Coffee Bean.”

"Right, sorry. Anyway, the bomber took credit for his handiwork by uploading his manifesto. I read through it on the train, and it's literally a novel in anti-government dogma. It's even longer than _The Chamber of Secrets_."

Tommy glanced at her over the tablet, as if she’d just threatened to bite him. "You read all of this?"

"What? I like to read. Not that I _like_ to read written contributions from incendiary whackjobs — literally, in this guy's case — but sometimes it pays to know who you're dealing with. Learned that from movies and TV, something I _also_ like to do.”

“Mm-hm,” Tommy said, sounding very unconvinced. “Because I _swear_ I heard Oliver say the same thing — not about movies and TV, the other part — about knowing who you’re dealing with.”

She studiously ignored his head-tilt and carried on typing.

“It’s _cute_ how much you sound like each other. Granted, I wish he’d try to fix computers less, because thanks to him I lost my Call of Duty high score on the Foundry terminal —”

“—you’re using a military-grade CPU to play a stupid murder game?”

He shushed her mid-sentence. “Anyway, why aren’t you telling all this to him yourself?”

“Did you miss the part about me hiding?”

“No, I forgot it on purpose so you’d have to tell me the whole story.” Tommy waved at the door. “Make that _us_. Where’s your man-child, dude?”

Diggle had appeared at the door — seemingly out of nowhere — and chuckled in appreciation at the Oliver-poking joke. It’d been so long since Felicity had seen him in her old office that it seemed like a miracle that his shoulders managed to fit through the narrow door, much less the reality that the boxy little IT corner could accommodate two of her boys. “You didn’t tell us you were coming back,” he said, accepting Felicity’s greeting hug.

“Caught the first train out,” she said. “Unexplained bombings have a way of altering your priorities.”

Diggle — like Tommy — seemed happy to leave an arm around her shoulders. “Hopefully that means things’ll get back on track here,” he said. “I need help keeping them in line.”

Felicity laughed and gave him another squeeze around the middle. “How bad were they?”

“ _Terrible_ ,” he whispered, very loudly.

Tommy gave them both a thumbs-up. “Screwup at tech and proud of it. Did I tell you about picking up archery? Oliver's coaching.”

“Speaking of,” Felicity glanced around the room, as though expecting the missing link to pop up in the door too. “Where is he?”

Tommy pointed a single finger at the ceiling, which — given Oliver’s self-destructive habits — could have meant _many_ different things, but fortunately Diggle elaborated. “Answering pointed questions for the magazine,” he said. “How he looks like that with three hours of sleep and not a shred of makeup, I’ll never know.”

“I have some foundation and moisturizer you could use,” Felicity said, very seriously. “They take _such_ good care of all the lines.”

Diggle snorted. “So are you gonna tell me why you acted so weird upstairs, or am I gonna have to rely on my instincts?”

Felicity peeled away to sit back at the desk, watched by Tommy and Diggle with hawk-like vigilance. “Hm?” she said innocently. “Weird? What weird?”

Tommy’s eyebrows went all twisty. “God, you were just _the_ worst spy in your past life, weren’t you?” he commented.

“Actually, I feel like I was a scientist who died of radiation poisoning, because I have this recurring dream —”

Diggle tipped his head to one side, interrupting her mid-sentence. “Whatever it is, it’s messing with Oliver’s head already. He saw you duck back into the elevator just now — if you don’t tell him why, he’s going to assume the worst, which _I’ll_ have to deal with.”

“ _Or_ ,” Tommy said, emanating evil-genius-thought vibes, “you could _not_ tell him, and watch Volcano Queen explode.”

Even Felicity made a face at the poor choice of words, which was saying a _lot_ , considering her knee-jerk reaction to an awkward situation was to babble, full stream of consciousness-style. “I’m not going to do… _that_.”

“Well, _that_ really wants you to do it, but what do I know?” Tommy said, blasé as ever about innuendos. “So what happened?”

Before Felicity could condense the story — in her detour-filled, roundabout way — into something she could tell in the least embarrassing terms possible, there was a tap on the door, and they all turned. “Felicity,” Brie said, a little flushed because of the Merlyn factor. “The lab just called — there’s something they want you to look at.”

“ _Great_ ,” she said, shooting out of her chair. “I’ll be right over.”

“Felicity —”

“Make sure you fix that — um — meeting, okay?” she said, purposely avoiding eye contact (and Diggle’s amused stare), bumping her knee into the desk corner in the process. “With the friend and the other — _ack_ — friends.”

“ _Unbelievable_ ,” Tommy said, as she departed at high speed.

* * *

Of all the inconveniently-timed press appearances, an in-depth interview with an intelligent, unfortunately no-nonsense reporter ranked near the top of the list, because it wasn’t the kind of thing he could get away with by faking a hangover. Suffice it to say that between the unexpectedly long telephone call with Felicity and the subsequent firefight, Oliver hadn’t really had much time to think over his answers.

Not that it had presented much of a problem, since Isabel seemed happy to take up most of the questions, as calm and collected and uncharacteristically _light_ in a way that screamed of prior coaching. Even the way she sat in the leather armchair seemed deliberately poised between relaxed and sufficiently serious, which didn’t help — because Oliver ended up making the unnecessary comparison against Felicity’s easy laughter and… _realness_.

With her, a chair was just a chair. Not some kind of stage prop.

Oliver forced himself to focus on the questions, well aware that he was being scrutinized by both women, albeit in differing ways.

“So how would you characterize your partnership?” Vale asked, her right foot bobbing in time to her pen, which tapped gently against the scribbled notes. “I understand Stellmoor was attempting a complete takeover of Queen Consolidated during the last stock offering, but somehow the company ended up with two CEOs. That’s got to be an interesting story.”

Isabel laughed, adjusting a stray curl as she did. “I know movies and TV shows make M&As look very glamorous, but the real story was a lot less…colorful. Oliver offered his strengths to a partnership, and I conceded that — despite _past_ appearances — he was serious about doing his part for his family’s company.”

“So it’s still his family’s company,” Vale said, as though the perfectly practiced answer hadn’t surprised her at all. “No plans for rebranding?”

“The Queen name still has an enduring legacy in Starling City, one I wouldn’t want to harm by pushing for a rebrand,” Isabel said smoothly.

Oliver — for all his distraction — didn’t notice the metaphorical spotlight until it blinked into his eyes, in the form of laser-sharp scrutiny from the stranger sitting across from him. “You’ve been very quiet, Mr Queen,” she observed. “Penny for your thoughts?”

Vale seemed to be teasing him.

“Well, having _Queen_ in the name works better for press conferences,” he said lightly. “Otherwise investors might end up wondering what I’m still doing here.”

The leather creaked as Isabel shifted her weight, as audible as a sigh. She could sense that he’d dangled Vale an unintentional line, which she latched onto without a second’s hesitation. “Don’t they already?” she asked. “College dropout, sporadic — if at all existent — history with the company run by your father, and subsequently your mother…that’s quite a record to challenge, wouldn’t you say?”

“Miss Vale —” Isabel began, a telltale note of warning in her voice, but Oliver cut in.

“Someone as capable as Isabel Rochev wouldn’t have just let me stroll into a seat on the board if I hadn’t answered those questions,” he said. “Of course, they’re absolutely valid. I didn’t graduate from college, and I’m _very_ late to a career in business, but I don’t believe that’s the only way to prove I’m serious. Learning on the job is something we all do, and Queen Consolidated has no shortage of talented people to strengthen our partnerships. It's always been a family company, but we’ve been consistently strong at incorporating Starling City’s adversity into strategies for success — as you can see with our cybersecurity push following the Glades disaster, and initiatives towards healthcare technology that may end up better serving a city we owe so much to. Our focus has always been how we can help Starling City, and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

It probably wasn’t all that flattering, given how Vale looked both taken aback and impressed. “How do I know you didn’t practice that in front of a bathroom mirror?”

Oliver smiled, feeling like the playing field had changed, if only a little. “Where would I find the time?”

* * *

“Meeting’s fixed for an _indecently_ late hour, so that’s my good deed for the day,” Tommy said, slipping his phone back into his pocket.

Diggle had excused himself to ask some old contacts (i.e. Lyla) about bombers on the shadowy, ever-sketchy ARGUS radar, but Tommy Merlyn had absolutely no intention of wandering off from the safe zone, not with Victoria Vale still in the building (those handcuffs really _hurt_ ). Which meant that he’d been waiting for Felicity when she got back, halfway into a box of animal crackers he’d found in the desk drawer (oops).

Not that Felicity seemed to mind; he’d already gotten her used to having him lazing around in the background while she worked, like a Greco-Roman painting of a nude guy on a long couch, but better-looking — and not breaking public indecency laws.

Thanks to the Totally-Avoidable-But-Kinda-Funny-Computer-Crash-of-Last-Night, Felicity was still digging through the Foundry backlog (it was amazing how things could get backed up when a certain caveman went smashy-smash on the tech), and made a vague sound in response. “Good, make sure they’ve — um — looked at the —”

“— _kangaroos_ ,” Tommy prompted.

“Wait — ugh — no.” Felicity’s eyebrows went into a cute little knot as she mentally backtracked, trying to trace her last thought. “Explosive device, I meant the actual explosive. Not kangaroos — though exploding kangaroos doesn’t make me as sad as hearing about hypothetical detonated fuzzy animals. Does that make me a bad person?”

“TBD. Anyway, Quentin knows the deal — he’ll do his homework for the Arrow.” Tommy nudged her leg with the side of his foot. “So…how’s Barry?”

Given the fact that he’d childishly— religiously — avoided the use of the Science Geek’s actual name in front of her, said name made her look up, like _serious stuff_ _alert_ , and just as quickly back at her computer with a shrug. “He’s…the same. They don’t know when, or _if_ he’ll wake up — I mean, how many coma patients get struck by lightning after a particle accelerator blows up, and _then_ smash through a shelf of dangerous chemicals?”

“Well, there’s this lady down the street…” Tommy said, in an effort to cheer her up. “Sorry. I guess you guys never got that date, huh?”

Felicity’s hands didn’t stall, but her eyes were still fixed on the same spot. “No, we didn’t.”

Against the glow of the screens and the dark room, the shadows under Felicity’s eyes looked even more pronounced, the veins in her hands and neck showing against her pale skin. Going back and forth between Starling and Central City, not to mention juggling a full day’s workload — not to mention a nighttime shift — _had_ to be draining her.

Tommy tried, he _really_ did. It was stupid, and she wasn’t going to like it, but with Tall, Dark Hottie hanging around the building and still interested in someone who probably hadn’t called him since Thanksgiving, he owed the cosmic powers that be (and the romantic deities) the effort of saying something.

Anything.

“Felicity,” he said, seriously. “I mean — I know I’m not exactly the impartial observer here, I mean Barry saved Oliver’s life, but Oliver let me cut his hair when we were six and I couldn’t figure out whether I was left- or right-handed…”

“ _Tommy_ —”

“You’re beat from visiting a guy who’s still… _sleeping_. People need you here — I mean, you should have _seen_ Oliver without you on the comms — I could get him killed.”

“So I’m back now,” she said, with a slight edge. “What’s the problem?”

Tommy made a noise that barely encompassed the depths of _where to begin?_ “Are you sure Barry wants you to wait around for him to wake up?”

Felicity didn’t say anything for a while, but from the way her hands were balled in fists beside the keyboard, he knew that she wasn’t happy. “I guess no matter what I do, I always end up waiting for a guy who’s unavailable,” she said, not quite meeting his eyes. “Emotionally, or literally.”

In classic Tommy Merlyn fashion, he experienced a flash of insta-regret at not having phrased it better. “Felicity, that’s not what I —”

Her head jerked up. “I have a lot of work to get through,” she said. “My office is going to be empty for the whole day, if you want to hang around up there.”

Fair enough, she was kicking him out — couldn’t blame her for that. As though she sensed what he was about to say, to salvage the situation, she interrupted.

“I know you’re worried that I’ll end up meeting some new guy — or James Olsen, if he actually figures out I’m not an EA called Olivia _No-Last-Name_ — or anyone who isn’t Oliver, but I’m not the one who hasn’t moved for the last year, okay?”

Tommy hung back at the doorway. “You deserve to be happy too,” he said, lamely. “That’s all any of us want.”

“ _Happy_ isn’t black and white, and I think it says something that the guy in a _coma_ has a better shot at making me happy than the guy I spend most of my time with anyway.”

Felicity let the glass door swing shut with Tommy on the other side and turned the away, leaving him with the unfortunate sense that he might have created a bigger problem than he’d meant to.

 _Crap_.

* * *

Tommy was going to hell in a hand basket, whatever that meant. He felt like Jerry in the whole cat-mouse situation, except he wasn’t a cartoon and had _zero_ regenerative abilities that he knew of. Against his better instincts, he’d gone straight up to the top floor of Queen Consolidated despite knowing who he’d probably run into, because he had a plan.

A plan-ish.

Plan-adjacent.

It made a lot more sense in his head than when he rehearsed it out loud. Now, if only he could find the strapping young man he was looking for. Not in a creepy _personals_ ad kind of way, or the murder-you-in-a-bathroom way either.

Though — if all went according to Plan Z — Oliver would probably end up wishing he’d drowned Olsen in a urinal.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” said a familiar voice. “ _Tommy Merlyn_.”

He turned gingerly on his heel, and sure enough, there she was. Victoria- _just-call-me-Vic_ -Vale, cutthroat investigative reporter and _spectacular_ breaker-upper. True to form, she still had the classic red lips and the navy trench coat, barely work-appropriate high heels, and the glossy silent movie-star curls — all present and accounted for.

Basically, she looked the exact opposite of how exes were supposed to look, in an ideal world. Like they’d gotten on just great, and thrived. Wow, he must have been a douche.

“Don’t I get a kiss?” she said, turning her cheek slightly.

Manners didn’t fail Tommy just because the words kinda did, and he did the obligatory polite greeting. “Vicki,” he said, only belatedly processing that the nickname annoyed her. “You’re…here.”

“A-plus for noticing,” she said. “I’m also alive, and surprised to see you too — oh, but wait, Oliver Queen’s your best friend, and nightclubs aren’t open during the day. If you’re here to pick him up for a coffee date, you’ll have to wait in line — I’m not done with him yet.”

Even though Vic’s default mode was _flirtatious_ , Tommy felt like he had to metaphorically wave the burning sword — or chastity belt — in her face anyway. Which was a little hard, considering he couldn’t exactly make up a mutated STD without seeing it splashed across the shiny magazine article the following week.

_Oliver Queen, CEO of Queen Consolidated and scion of Starling City has a secret — he has Mega Herpes._

Brushing _that_ unfortunate line (and the mental image of his own subsequent funeral) aside, he switched gears. “I’m not sure Oliver’s really that available,” he said. “Y’know, emotionally, physically, spiritually…verbally. He’s busy with work.”

“Work?” Vic looked like she was about to laugh. “Wow, I forgot how bad you were at lying. Just like that time you ‘ _fell asleep_ ’ when you were supposed to have dinner with me on my birthday. Who’d you end up meeting?”

He’d actually ended up having a drink with Laurel, but Vic probably didn’t need to know that. Not that it looked like she wanted to, though she did step a little closer, making him hold his breath — the way people about to get punched tried to tighten their gut first, whatever that meant. “Relax,” she breathed. “I’m not interested in Oliver, but I _am_ interested in her name — whoever she is.”

“Come again?” Tommy said blankly. “My girlfriend? Why — do you want to handcuff her to a moving train?”

Vic laughed for real. “You’re very cute, but I already know who you’re seeing — _congratulations_ , by the way.”

“Thanks, I guess. So who —”

“Only the person Oliver’s busy thinking about, instead of parroting out his answers like Queen Stoneface over there,” Vic said, her casual jab at Isabel reminding him how much he used to like her sense of humor.

“Uh, does Queen Consolidated count as a person?”

She patted his chest, not gently either. “Nice try. I know what being in love looks like, and he is _far_ gone. The only question is — what’s her name, and what’s her story?”

Tommy looked down at her, a slight tilt to his head. “No idea,” he said, relishing each syllable.

Vic’s eyes narrowed, and Tommy had the irrational (though somewhat backed up by evidence) hunch that she might bite him. Fortunately —

“ _Vic_ ,” someone said, as a broad hand descended on her shoulder. “What did we say about manhandling interviewees?”

“ _We_ didn’t say anything,” Vic returned, releasing Tommy with an eye-roll. “ _You_ just decided I couldn’t. Besides, Tommy and I go way back.”

Tommy — in the process of regaining his breath — shook James Olsen’s hand, wondering if the sticky situation was the reason why he looked even better than Tommy remembered (no wonder Felicity always looked so turned on when Oliver got back to the Foundry after Arrow duty), or he was _just_ that tall and smiley. “Hey, man. Nice to see you again.”

“Likewise.” Olsen had a smaller camera hanging around his neck, like he’d been going around the building to test out the angles, or whatever. “Just been to the rooftop — I couldn’t miss getting a few shots.”

“Fair enough,” Tommy said. “All I do is go up there to throw cans at pigeons.”

“Any sign of her?” Vic asked. “Rochev wouldn’t give me anything, tight as a clam."

Olsen shook his head. “She’s in Central City for business,” he said. “I spoke to her assistant this morning.”

“ _Damn_.” Vic snapped her fingers. “I wanted that profile. Under twenty-five and already Chief Technology Officer of a Fortune 500 company? That’s —”

“Felicity Smoak,” Tommy finished, only just realizing who they’d meant. “Wait, you want to interview Felicity?”

Vic raised her eyebrows at the obvious first-name-terms. “Well, I won’t be able to — not if she’s six hundred miles away.”

Tommy did some very quick thinking. Sure, he’d just meant to send the extremely good-looking James Olsen down to the fifteenth floor like a Fedex package, but magazine interviews meant sit-downs with journalists, and magazine _articles_ meant photos.

“No, she isn’t,” he said. “She’s back.”

Olsen looked confused. “No, her assistant said she’d be gone for a couple more days.”

“Who, Gerry? That kid’s a moron.”

He shook his head again. “I spoke to Olivia — isn’t she Felicity’s EA? Blonde, glasses, ponytail —”

Tommy almost snorted out loud, because what were the odds that Felicity’s made-up name of choice was a super-subtle variation of _Oliver_ , as though it had been the first thing that jumped into her head.

Seriously, the in-love-ness of those two would have been irritating, if it wasn’t so cute.

“Have I got the surprise for _you_ ,” he said, patting Olsen on the shoulder.

Once again, hell in a hand basket. Pre-meddling, maybe a nice sports bag, or a decent suitcase. Now? Scratchy wicker, or a mothball cat carrier from the back of a grandma's closet.

Worth it, though.

 _Probably_.

* * *

Felicity had been muttering to herself for the last thirty minutes, mostly scattered comebacks to the last conversation she’d had with Tommy, played on a continuous loop.

So _what_ if she hadn’t actually gotten through the actual start of _anything_ relationship-adjacent with Barry? It didn’t have anything to do with Oliver, ever the immovable mountain of emotional unreadiness, whatever sexy sandpaper-y voice he had because they were still on the phone at two-freaking-AM. Whatever he looked like shirtless...on the Salmon Ladder.

“Waiting around…” she said, viciously tearing a simulated computer virus attack an _extremely_ new one. “None of your _goddamn_ business, Tommy _Trust Fund_ Merlyn.”

Her phone buzzed with another emoji sad face from Tommy, who was either back at Verdant or still wandering the halls of QC, which she continued to ignore. He could offer to buy her sushi _all_ he wanted, she was going to stew and mutter angrily to herself in a tiny dark room, because she deserved to be irrational every now and then, especially while operating on _low sleep mode_.

Another text alert blipped at precisely the same time as the tap on the door, and Felicity looked up while wearing something of a murderous expression, fully expecting a handsome bartender-slash-evil-mastermind waiting for her.

 _Oh_.

“Hi again,” said James Olsen.

As in the Tall Dark Stranger who’d walked in on her by accident, as in the James Olsen who was noticeably — indisputably — handsome and had been looking for her while she pretended to be someone else. “You’re not really called Olivia, are you?”

Felicity cleared her throat — awkward levels shooting _high_ — and shut her laptop carefully, because that seemed polite, given the deception and subsequent avoiding. “No,” she said. “But I’m also _not_ the weirdo who took her shirt off in an office made _completely_ out of glass — I’m her rational, slightly less attractive, and _super_ normal identical twin sister. Who’s also called Felicity Smoak, by the way.”

Olsen laughed again, and the sound filled the cold little room with a rush of unexpected warmth. “I figured,” he said, playing along. “How about we start again? I’m James.”

She stared at his outstretched hand, and ended up taking it, because why the hell not. Her fingers and palm were completely dwarfed by his, but his grip was surprisingly gentle. “Hi,” she said, trying not to show how she’d creepy-observed everything about his bodily appendage (gah, dirty). “I’m Felicity. Smoak. But you already knew that. Well, you didn’t — not really — I mean, I was Olivia for the last three hours — not that I was counting, or anything — _ah_ , doing it again. Unsolicited talking. What I _meant_ was: nice to meet you. And sorry I lied to your face.”

“Given the circumstances, I can understand why,” he said, unfazed by the word vomit. “I should have knocked.”

Felicity belatedly let go of his hand, letting it drop back to her side before she reconsidered, folding her arms instead. “So — um — Mr Olsen —”

“James,” he prompted.

“— _James_ ,” she corrected herself, “what — uh — can I do for you?”

Her phrasing seemed to amuse him. “Well, I know it’s a little off protocol to look for a girl who never answered the last two messages you left her, but since the magazine was going to be at her company, I figured — why not?”

“Magazine? Oh — _magazine_ ,” she said, the pieces clicking together a lot slower than they should have. “ _Doi_. Tommy said you were a photographer, right?”

“Photojournalist,” he said, pointing at the ceiling like that was where his gear was, upstairs. “ _The Journal_ hired me to help out with the Queen Consolidated piece.”

“That’s…great. Wow, you must be really good. And busy, so don’t let me keep you from…” she gestured vaguely at him “…work.”

“Well, actually, I _did_ have an ulterior motive in coming down here,” he admitted, adjusting the strap of his bag. “Vic — she’s the one interviewing Miss Rochev and Mr Queen — she actually wants to interview personnel outside of the CEOs, make it more of a real look into the company. Off the top of my head, one of the youngest executive members in Queen Consolidated history, like Felicity Smoak — in charge of their most successful department to date. And please don’t make up an identical twin sister for _Olivia_ the secretary.”

Felicity flushed at the recap, her nerves going haywire at the prospect of having to get up in front of a camera and talk to an actual reporter about what she did. In words. Articulate, nonexistent words.

Uh, _pass_.

“Um, I don’t think that’s a good idea — I mean, Isabel and Oliver have the whole _press_ thing to a T — I’d just crash my way through, so maybe not. Thank you, but not. Very, _not_.”

“I don’t think you understand how determined Vic gets when she has a lead,” James said, in a hushed whisper. “She can be _very_ persuasive.”

Between Tommy’s bondage-happy ex-girlfriend and Isabel’s tiger glare, Felicity didn’t quite know which one was worse. Until she had an absurd — and unwelcome — flash of his story involving the breakup and handcuffs. God, _worse_ , so much _worse_. “Somehow, I don’t find that hard to believe,” she muttered.

“Fantastic.” James held the door open for her. “We’re all ready for you upstairs.”

* * *

“ _Finally_ , some time alone,” Vale said, pushing the conference room door closed. “Since your co-CEO has a habit of micro-managing interviews, I'm guessing you must be one lucky guy at those board meetings, huh?”

Oliver bit the inside of his cheek to suppress the unwilling smile at the accurate assessment of Isabel’s character. He was standing in the empty conference room, wires and lights all set up for the photographs — they were just missing the photographer.

He didn’t like to think why.

Vale folded her arms, her head tilted at a slight angle. He glanced down at his gray suit and dark blue tie. “Something wrong?” he asked.

“Not really,” she said. “Shouldn’t be surprised that what you wear to work on a normal Wednesday beats anything we have in wardrobe. What is that? Calvin Klein?”

“No idea,” he said honestly.

Vale made a sound under her breath, slipping her phone out of her blazer pocket. “ _Great_ ,” she breathed, reading the text. “Sorry — Mr Queen, do you mind if someone else goes before you for the photos?”

Oliver glanced around, having been under the vague impression that Isabel had made sure to get her photographs done first. “Sure, but —”

“We’ll go next door into your office for some follow-up questions, and swap the both of you out after that, okay?”

“Of course, but —”

Vale was already striding towards the doors behind him. “There you are,” she said. “I thought you were trying to get me to walk down eighteen floors, or murder everyone in wardrobe for taking so long. Hi, Victoria Vale — nice to finally meet you.”

Oliver stared in surprise, a look that was neatly mirrored by the expression on Felicity’s face. She was in an unfamiliar knee-length red dress, just the right amount of form-fitting and sleekly elegant, something she’d never wear to work but it suited her anyway. In response to his staring, she reached up to touch her hair self-consciously, and he guessed that someone else had done it for her, twisting the thick curls off her neck and pinning them behind her head.

Oliver would have told her not to worry — because she looked beautiful.

“Felicity Smoak,” she said nervously, shaking Vale’s hand.

It only just hit Oliver that James Olsen was at her elbow, as though he’d accompanied her all the way there. A twinge of annoyance, partially because Felicity seemed to have been avoiding him all morning — neglecting to mention that she was back in town — and the first time they were seeing each other, she had someone else with her.

But he kept his expression blank.

“I didn’t know you were interviewing my CTO,” Oliver said lightly, still seeing the way Olsen had touched her arm.

“I didn’t know either,” Felicity blurted out, eyeing the door like she was considering her escape routes.

“Your CTO is a _perfect_ example of the partnerships you were talking about — the ones that make the new Queen Consolidated stronger and better, right?” Vale interjected, quoting him without hesitation. “Can’t believe she almost slipped under the radar. Isabel should have mentioned something.”

Oliver and Felicity shot simultaneous looks at each other, the both of them unsurprised at the omission on Isabel’s part, but just as quickly looked away, like it was something they weren't meant to be doing.

“James, take care of her for me, okay?” Vale said, prodding him in the chest. “We need to have a _long_ talk later.”

It didn’t escape Oliver that Felicity gulped.

“Will do,” Olsen said, and gave Felicity a gentle nudge in the back, guiding her towards the middle of the floor. “Take care of Mr Queen — try not to bite.”

“ _Will do_ ,” she answered, and gave Oliver a teasing pull on the necktie, leaving it askew.

Oliver adjusted his tie without thinking, but out the corner of his eye he saw Felicity’s head turn quickly the other way, as though she’d seen.

There was an uncomfortable sensation gnawing at his insides, nothing to do with hunger, more…strangeness. Something he couldn’t quite explain, except that it bothered him.

“See you later,” he said.

“Right,” she replied.

Both of them pretending nothing was the matter, even though they might have been remembering the phone call, the startling closeness of it, in stark contrast to the distance that seemed to have expanded like a sea in the span of minutes.

Not the best start to the morning.

* * *

“Not a big fan of photoshoots, huh?” James guessed, as he clicked through the camera’s memory.

Felicity fought the urge to adjust a nonexistent bra strap, and ended up doing an awkward little shoulder wiggle instead, perched on an armrest-free stool that looked like it belonged at a bar, not as a seat for a somewhat-clumsy IT expert in a borrowed ( _pretty_ ) dress.

“Too many bad experiences with yearbook photos,” she said. “I didn’t have spinach in my teeth, but I _did_ have a lot of unfortunate personal style choices.”

Instead of returning the camera (AKA the receptacle of the disaster photos) to the tripod, James slipped the strap over his head and balanced it in his hands instead. “Really? You don’t seem like the type,” he said conversationally. “Smartest kid in class?”

“I guess,” she said, preoccupied with eyeing the camera lens like it wanted to murder her for her skin.

“Don’t worry about the camera, Felicity,” he laughed. “I’m just trying to get you to loosen up. That’s kind of my job.”

“Really?” Felicity shot an unwilling glance towards Oliver’s office — visible across the sea of black cables and lightbulb umbrellas — where he was currently getting re-interviewed (that was the official story, anyway). By a smart, talented reporter who looked more like an old world movie star than someone who wrote for a magazine. “What’s hers?”

The last part slipped out by accident, and Felicity almost kicked herself for being crystal-clear. Not in the good way. “I didn’t mean it like that,” she said, in a small voice.

James nodded with a lot more understanding than she’d expected, not at all like he’d just picked up a choice piece of gossip. Which was all kinds of weird, considering how they were supposed to have gone on a date at some point in the previous year, only she’d cancelled last-minute and subsequently forgot to answer the messages he’d left her — an omission that would have been A-okay if the messages had been Buffalo Bill-creepy, but they’d been courteous, not presumptuous at all, and friendly.

Which made her scatter-brained, indecisive, and a not-very-good prospective date.

Still, she sat a little straighter on the stool when James walked up to her, smiling nervously under his intent stare. “Sorry about the date — the first one. I mean, not to sound presumptuous or anything, because who’d want to go out with the girl who ignored him for two months? — but I’m not in a great place right now, which is a long, _long_ story you didn’t ask for, and it involves a guy in a coma and another one with mega-issues —”

James nodded, his arms folded while she blabbed at full speed.

“— anyway, you seem like a really nice guy, and you deserve better than _all this_ ,” she finished, gesturing at herself (and narrowly avoiding a backhand to his crotch).

“Is that really what you think? That you’re not good enough?” he said, not unkindly.

“Collective opinion seems to point that way,” she muttered, carefully avoiding another glare at the CEO’s office. For all she knew, it was going to be another Moscow situation with the gorgeous reporter in the enviable black heels, where Oliver did his magical bedroom schtick to get the company some good press.

But what if he actually liked her?

“Victoria is a _very_ good journalist,” James said, interrupting her thoughts, and she froze as he reached past her face with his long arms, relaxing in about two seconds because she figured out that he was just fixing her hair. “Everyone has their methods to do what they do. I like to talk to the people I photograph, and she has a theory that flirting with the people she interviews makes them more…honest. Uninhibited. But as far as being interested in them — I’ve never seen her mean it.”

In a truly ironic display of nonexistent _timing_ , Vale laughed at something Oliver said, the two of them smiling at each other in their respective sex-appeal-heavy ways, evidenced by how much Felicity wished she had a fire hose.

“Thanks,” she said, more in a _nice shot_ kind of way than anything resembling feeling better. “So is this how you get your photographees all relaxed? Be their therapist?”

James made a face as he considered it. “Sometimes with lions it takes a straw hat and a bit of distance,” he said. “But they’re a little pickier in the Serengeti.”

“You’ve been?” Felicity said, flashing back to all the wildlife documentaries narrated poshly by faceless British people (favorites for weekend nights with cookies and some hot tea). “No way.”

“Way,” he said, teasing a curl loose from the general pinned-up-ness of the rest. “And you?”

Felicity shook her head, thinking about all the years of computer camp she’d never gotten a chance to go to. “I didn’t have a lot — growing up. Single mom, Vegas…I’ve been to the Taj Mahal casino, if that counts. But no, not much of a traveler. Love to, but time and tide…”

“We have that in common, I guess. Didn’t get my first passport stamp until I got my first job — Kyrgyzstan, ‘06. Nobody wanted it, so they gave it to the kid, which happened to be me. Got a stab wound —” he tapped the left side of his shirt “— right there. That’s when I knew I wanted to do this for real.”

Felicity — in a classic display of manners and personal boundaries — reached out and touched his side, residual reflex from patching up bleeding injuries on attractive men. “Sorry,” she said, pulling back. “Got carried away. Not that I'm saying I grope random guys when they tell me about their injuries, you just seem really nice, and I wanted to make sure the six-year-old stab wound isn't still — y'know — _stabby_.”

James blinked away the surprise and managed to chuckle. “I think that means it’s safe to try again,” he said, holding up his camera. “Now, nice and easy —”

Felicity saw his smile and felt one spread across her face to match it. Just like that.

 _Click_.

* * *

“So how does a CEO juggle work and his personal life?” Vale asked, leaning forward. “Must make it hard to have that special someone, I’m guessing.”

Oliver knew where this was headed — not that she’d been subtle in the least. “I don’t have a girlfriend,” he said, his hands clasped in front of him. “No time.”

“I didn’t say _girlfriend_ ,” she emphasized. “I said someone special.”

He laughed — as though it didn’t matter — even though he felt his attention drift to the photoshoot happening in the next room. “Is this for the magazine, or yourself?”

Vale uncrossed and recrossed her legs, the tip of her shoe almost in contact with his leg. “Can’t it be both?”

Oliver decided not to take the bait. “The only priority in my life right now is Queen Consolidated. It wouldn’t be fair to her, or my family’s company. I prefer to focus my attention on one thing at a time. My personal life can wait.”

Either he was a terrible liar, or Vale was determined to get a straight answer. “You’ve consistently — annoyingly, some might say — topped the lists for most eligible bachelor, and you’re telling me that you’re staying… _celibate_. For the company’s sake.”

He gave her a look that said _nice try_. “I’m single, Miss Vale.”

“Victoria, please,” she said, and proceeded with her line of questioning.

There was a laugh from the next room — a man’s — which Oliver was fine with ignoring, but there was a more familiar one after that, at which point he lost track of his answer.

“Mr Queen?” Vale said.

“Sorry — sorry — it’s been quite a day, what was the question?”

“I’m asking about your home life. Does your mother take an active role in advising you?” she asked.

“She —”

Another laugh, and Oliver half-turned his head to see what was going on behind him. Felicity was on her feet — in that _red dress_ — trying to keep a straight face as she faced the camera, but Olsen’s lips moved and she laughed again, just as the lights went off with a flash.

“Don’t worry, you’ll get to have fun with James,” Vale said, tapping her notebook to call his attention back to where it should have been. “Now — you were saying about Mrs Queen?”

“Right,” Oliver said, momentarily trying to trace the last thought. It was surprisingly hard with the image of her laugh — for someone else — stuck in his head. “She’s…always close, but she respects that I’m trying to do this on my own.”

"Interesting. Now, about your company's recent cybersecurity push..."

His fingernails dug into the leather side when Felicity laughed again, but he forced a smile in Vale’s direction, all the while thinking:

_Goddammit._

* * *

Felicity was _so_ late. She downed the rest of her cold coffee and turned back to check that the office computer was shutting down like it was supposed to. Between the magazine article she’d almost literally been roped into doing and the regular shedload of work waiting at her in-tray, office hours had overrun into Foundry time, and she was supposed to have been at Verdant thirty-odd minutes ago.

Judging from the missed call, she guessed that Oliver was already there (they never left the office at the same time, a hypothetical situation that would _explode_ the office gossip mill), which begged the important question — when the chronic latecomer beat her to punctuality, something was _definitely_ off. That being said, a part of her was a little bit relieved he hadn’t left with Victoria Vale after all. This she knew for sure because Vale had stuck around the office all afternoon, interviewing board members and doing her general journalistic schtick, while Oliver had left with Diggle’s reassuring security-personnel presence.

Felicity shuffled through a few reports waiting on her desk corner, and didn’t look up when she heard a tap on the door. “Just finishing up here, Gerry. You can head home f—”

“Gerry hasn't been here for the last forty minutes,” James said, leaning into her office. “Hi — just getting off work?”

The sight of him in the door reminded her of the unfortunate morning incident, and Felicity glanced hastily at herself to make sure that her clothes weren’t imaginary. Just in case. “That’s the idea,” she said, leafing through the pages to make sure they were something she needed to take. “All done for the magazine?”

“I think we have everything we need,” he said. “I’ll have to go over layouts with my editor, but I’m feeling pretty good about today.”

“Good.” Felicity returned his smile, and gestured jokingly at her office. “So — my natural habitat. What do you think?”

James had already seen her office, but he lingered in particular at the view of Starling from her windows, skyscrapers and slowly blinking lights and glittering gold — pretty spectacular, if she was being honest. There was something calm and meticulous about the way he took in a view, like he had all the time in the world and a lens in his hand, waiting for just the right moment.

“It suits you,” he said, finally. “You’re at home in the light.”

For some reason, the answer took her slightly aback. Being mid-winter, the sun had gone down hours ago, and the literal way of looking at the current UV situation was _dark_. She brushed nervously at her hair, still in the ridiculously sophisticated configuration of pins and curls she hadn’t had time to take off alongside the dress (gorgeous, but safely returned to _The Journal_ ).

“So,” she said. “How long are you in Starling? I’m guessing you have a new assignment already.”

James inclined his head as she joined him by the windows, the two of them standing side by side in front of the seamless pane. “I leave Friday night — Morocco.”

“Casablanca?” she guessed, because why not.

He chuckled, as though he got the reference. “The old gin joint.”

_Of all the gin joints in all the world…_

Felicity blinked at the sudden — and random — recollection of Oliver making a _Casablanca_ reference over drinks at the office holiday party, when it had just been the two of them, laughing and toasting and maybe, just maybe, flirting a little bit. Otherwise known as simpler times, before the whole Mirakuru mess had spiraled out of control and the thing — _her_ thing — with Barry had flicked his sanity dial to _low_ , and this… _whatever_ they were now, wasn’t late night phone calls going nowhere and fast trains gliding smoothly out of Starling Central.

Her fingertips were on the glass, her gut feeling all wistfulness and longing, which wasn’t exactly what she’d planned — standing with a kind stranger she might have dated if things had turned out slightly differently.

Well, maybe not a stranger.

But everything she’d said to him still stood. It was a godawful time for her, personally, and she didn’t think she could handle another potential relationship, even if the guy in question wasn’t comatose and just a long flight away.

“I know people don’t usually do this, _ask_ , I mean, but would you…maybe — like to be friends?” she asked, realizing mid-sentence that it sounded like a question better suited for a preschool sandbox.

James laughed quietly. “I’d love to. And do friends go for drinks sometime?”

True to awful timing, Felicity’s phone started vibrating in her hand, but she looked at him with complete sincerity as she answered, “absolutely.”

“You should get that,” he said, and slipped a card from the side of his bag. “Give me a call when you have a night off.”

She nodded, and he smiled at her in the half-shadow as he left the room, walking to the elevators while he hummed something soft and slow under his breath.

Felicity swiped to answer the call. “Hey,” she said, swinging her bag and coat off her desk chair. “Sorry, work ran long. I’m on my way.”

* * *

“Not that either of you are going to listen — but I don’t think this is a good idea,” Diggle said, unwrapping his knuckles while the boxing gloves sat on the table beside him.

“It’s fine,” Oliver said, his bare chest rising and falling with each carefully measured breath. “Tommy knows what he’s doing, and I remember how to catch an arrow.”

As soon as he spoke, the arrow sank into a steel pipe, releasing a slow hiss of damp steam. Tommy resisted the urge to cringe, not least because he’d porcupined pretty much anything south of his aim radius, including a side exit and an unfortunate spare Wing Chun practice dummy. To the point where Oliver — ever the exemplary teacher — decided to stand shirtless in front of the target, for some unknown reason except a possible death wish.

Maybe his love life really _was_ as dismal as Tommy guessed.

“So remind me again how this is supposed to teach me to — _gah_ , sharp — shoot?” he asked, fumbling mid-sentence with the wooden practice bow.

“This,” Oliver said, “is supposed to get you to focus your aim.”

Tommy sighed. “I told you archery isn’t my thing,” he answered, painstakingly (emphasis on the _pain_ ) fitting another arrow to the string. “Fencing, maybe. Tennis, probably. Water polo, sure. I could beat your ass at that.”

Diggle snorted, loudly and unhelpfully.

“Water polo,” Oliver repeated, clearly failing to suppress his sarcasm. “Because the first thing any kidnapper or assassin would do is throw you into a swimming pool and toss you a ball.”

Unfortunately, Tommy was vaccinated for irony. “Hey, a guy can hope,” he said nonchalantly, drawing his arm back in preparation to shoot. “Maybe I’ll get some _nice_ kidnappers with a hot tub.”

Oliver shook his head and twitched his hand in a gesture that said _do your worst_. “Go ahead.”

The arrow pinged noisily off a light fixture, blowing out a fluorescent tube with a shower of sparks. Oliver gave a small noise of frustration while Tommy fiddled around with a fresh arrow.

“Fantastic,” Diggle said. “Anything else breakable we can move downrange?”

“More importantly, _I_ know why Oliver’s teaching me archery,” Tommy said, in a sing-song voice meant to irritate his best friend. “Because Felicity’s busy with James Olsen and you’re j—”

“Just shut up and shoot.”

Tommy held up his empty hands to show he was all out. “They’re all over the Foundry, honest.”

From the look on Oliver’s face, he was probably contemplating the serious possibility of murdering Tommy, but paced away instead, shooting glances at the staircase and door. “She’s late.”

“You could have driven her here from the office,” Tommy pointed out. “You _work together_. That’s one of the perks, dinkus.”

“We’ve been over this. It’d give everyone the wrong idea if they saw Felicity leaving with me. Diggle’s my bodyguard and personal chauffeur — what possible reason would he have to drive my colleague around?”

“What — the fact that she’s your work-wife and object of adoration isn’t reason enough?” Tommy said bluntly.

“Nice,” Diggle said.

The upstairs door banged open as Oliver shot Tommy a particularly dangerous look, and Felicity raced down the staircase, her photoshoot red dress swapped out for a more workwear-ish combination. That being said, workwear for Felicity was nothing to sniff at, what with the neckline of her blouse showing just the right amount of collarbone, and her skirt being pencil-shaped in all the right ways. Putting that together with the obviously-not-self-done hairstyle was coming loose, wispy curls escaping here and there…Tommy thought it spoke _volumes_ that the shirtless man-god was the one who looked more turned on in the whole situation.

 _Success_.

“Hi,” she said, doing a double-take at the unorthodox placement. “Were you standing in front of a target?”

Tommy pointed the bow at Oliver. “His idea,” he said, taking the acceptance of her standard cheek kiss as a sign that she wasn’t peeved with him anymore. “How was work?”

“Long, weird, busy — but I’m here now,” she said, rolling into her desk chair. “I did most of the reboot off-site, so hopefully the computers won’t slow us down.”

“Can you fix them?” Oliver asked, and Tommy gave him a look for unnecessary sharpness.

“Of course.” Felicity gave him a strange look, putting in her earpiece. “Everything okay?”

“There’s a bomber on the loose and we haven’t caught him,” Oliver answered, reaching for his shirt ( _no good_ sign). “I think it's safe to say everything’s not okay.”

Felicity looked a little taken aback by the sudden brusqueness. “I told the guys about the manifesto at the office —”

“—they told me.” Oliver was barely looking her in the eye, and Tommy wondered if he was a teensy bit peeved that he hadn’t been the one to see Felicity first, post-Central City. “Is that all?”

Felicity’s eyebrows contracted, and she turned back to the computers, now alive and scrolling with the signs of a reboot. “That’s all for now,” she said. “Don’t you both have a meeting to get to?”

Tommy and Diggle exchanged looks behind the (not-so) happy pair’s backs. _Uh oh_.

* * *

“So let me get this straight,” McKenna said, while Tommy rooted around in the Big Belly bag he’d brought for residual curly fries, “you told Photographer Man —”

“—Olsen,” he mumbled, around a hot-and-spicy curly.

“— right, him, where Felicity was because _that_ would make Oliver jealous, but Photographer Man is still better than the one who’s in the coma,” she said, the same way he talked when he was trying to understand a confusing movie. “How does that make sense?”

Tommy jumped up and down a little — not because he’d bitten into a jalapeño — but because it was real, freaking cold in the middle of January, and they were on a _rooftop_. In the middle of the freaking night. Sometimes he wished Oliver had come up with a better alter ego who didn’t exclusively operate in the worst times of the day, all weathers and temperatures, totally independent of _suck_.

Which maybe explained why his best friend was the hero, not him.

“Makes sense when you think about it,” he said, latching shamelessly onto his girlfriend for bodily warmth (which involved holding on like a jellyfish).

McKenna didn’t look particularly impressed, but to be fair, he didn’t really know anyone who could make venomous spineless undersea creatures the stuff of pinup calendars. “Wouldn’t it make more sense to try and get them to _talk_ to each other, instead of running around behind the scenes and having all your plans backfire?”

Before Tommy could answer her (maybe) valid question, there was a bad-tempered interruption. “You know, there’s not usually this much talking on the rooftop,” Quentin said, sounding a smidge above his usual level of irritated. “Did you really have to tag along for a date?”

Tommy shook the half-empty bag at Quentin. “I offered you a burger,” he said, “not my fault you wanted to look all cool over there.”

“Yeah, well, with my heart the way it is — avoiding that much grease and salt’s probably a good thing. Either that or I might actually have to do some exercise,” he said darkly.

“Or eat a salad,” McKenna suggested.

Quentin grumbled something incoherent under his breath, but even Tommy had to admit that Oliver was a little later showing up than usual. He’d still been at the Foundry when Tommy set off for the rooftop, but he assumed it was something to do with the Arrow’s love for dramatic entrances, not the man-sulking at Felicity being late.

Which was unlike her.

On the other hand, Oliver hadn’t been happy, and he’d been determined not to show it. Which was _very_ much like him.

Sometimes these two made Tommy’s tiny little brain hurt, and he blew out a long breath, watching it turn opaque in the cold. At least it was just a straightforward handover — intel and crime scene evidence. What could possibly go wrong?

* * *

Everything was out of place, and if Oliver had to pinpoint exactly where the incongruity had started — it would have been the first night they’d had to operate without Felicity. Back when he’d told himself that the absences were temporary, that he’d started out alone, with much — _much_ — less than he had now. It was why the thought of being short-handed, _vulnerable_ , just because one of their own had taken a night off…it bothered him, more than he could say to anyone.

Especially not her, because she clearly didn’t feel the same way. Why would she? Felicity had signed on temporarily for Walter Steele, but she’d stayed because of Diggle and himself, because they’d become friends. Just friends. For reasons too obvious to state, her connection with Barry took precedence, and that was fine. She was entitled to live her life — Oliver's personal choices were the exception when it came to that.

Tommy had McKenna. Diggle had Lyla. Felicity had…someone. If not Barry, James Olsen looked like a potential choice — he made her laugh, after all. Felicity was someone who loved to laugh, and lately, all Oliver felt he could do for her was to wave her off with a forced smile.

Or snap at her, which he’d done before setting off, easily the worse of the two options. Tommy Merlyn would always have something to say, if (most likely _when_ ) he managed to force the story out to his best friend. But Oliver was tired of getting his hopes up after each determinedly positive spin, only to have them come crashing back to earth when reality set in.

Bottom line — Felicity was better off without him, and she knew it. They were friends, that was all.

 _End of story_.

Her side of the comms had been mute for the last five minutes, and she only reappeared when he pulled up in front of the building, where the detectives and Tommy were waiting.

“Sorry,” she said. “It was STAR Labs — I asked them to keep me updated about Barry’s condition.”

Oliver felt a muscle in his cheek twitch in irritation, though he did his best to smooth down the signs. “I see,” he said, tersely. “Do you need to go?”

“No, I don’t. It was just a call.” She’d always been good at sensing his mood, and her voice took on a strangely tight note as well. “And you? Sure there’s nowhere else you want to be?”

“No,” Oliver landed on the fire escape with a clang of metal. “You know me — I put my city first.”

He hadn’t intended for it to come off so fierce, but it did, and it seemed like a long time before Felicity spoke up again.

“I thought Victoria Vale would have asked you to dinner, or something,” she said. “Which would have been _fine_. You deserve a night to yourself.”

“What about James Olsen? You two really seemed to hit it off. He didn’t invite you out for drinks?”

“He did, but just as friends.”

Oliver made a disbelieving noise before he could stop himself, at the assertion that all James Olsen wanted — bearing in mind that he’d teased her, not to mention taken photos of her all day — was to be friends. “So go,” he said, unable to keep the sarcasm from his tone. _If you believe that_.

“Maybe I should.”

“Why not?” Oliver’s answer was a snap.

The ensuing silence stretched on, the absence of words making the ones they’d already said sound all the more out of place. Oliver felt strangely on edge, like he was bracing for a sudden swing from behind, like he’d lost the sense of security at having someone watching his back, even if from afar.

“I see them,” he said, emerging onto the rooftop.

“Copy that,” she answered, and went quiet.

Oliver tapped on his collar to activate the modulator. “Hello detectives,” he said, in the Arrow’s low voice. “Did you bring what I asked for?”

He ignored Tommy waving at him from behind McKenna’s back. Quentin looked at him with a mixture of wariness and the usual sarcasm. “What’s with the mask?” he said.

“Gift from a friend,” Oliver said, experiencing the habitual twitch of annoyance at the implicit mention of Barry.

“You have _friends_?” Tommy said, ostentatiously playing along with the charade that they were strangers to each other.

Again, Oliver ignored him. McKenna reached into her pocket and held out a paper envelope. “That’s a sample of everything we have,” she said, and Oliver took it, hearing something rattle inside. “Bomb fragments — shrapnel, wiring, trace evidence of nitroglycerine, which means —”

“—he’s not an amateur,” Felicity said, talking over the detective. “That’s not good.”

Oliver had to agree. “Where are we with suspects?”

“Unfortunately, we’ve hit a brick wall there,” Quentin said. “Nothing in SCPD databases, and you know how slowly the federal system moves. Well — I’m guessing your IT help does, anyway. Send my regards, by the way.”

“Noted,” Oliver said. “I’ll ask her to look into the records. Thank you, d—”

A shiver went through the concrete beneath his feet and stopped him short, a fact that hadn’t escaped the others. Confused but instinctively wary, they all turned in the direction of the tremor, just in time to see the night sky explode, a cloud of orange flame and black smoke erupt from somewhere downtown.

Tommy swore. McKenna and Quentin had their radios out, responding to the garbled codes rapid-fire. The information came together in fragments, but —

“He’s hit the municipal building,” Felicity said. “Unknown casualties —”

“I’m on it,” Oliver said, dropping onto the fire escape. “Get me a direct route.”

“Got a better idea. I’ve locked onto the detonator signal. He used his phone to set off the bomb, but the frequency’s _way_ higher than anything from normal use, so I backtraced it to his last location. He’s moving fast, some kind of getaway vehicle — which, luckily, you _also_ happen to have.”

“Copy that.”

“Oliver?” Felicity said, and her typing momentarily stalled. “Be careful.”

He nodded, even though she couldn’t see, and took the last few steps at a run.

* * *

“You’re sure these are abandoned?” Diggle said, as Oliver’s bike careened across clouds of dust and old concrete. “I didn’t even know Starling went this far underground.”

“They crisscross with active subway tunnels, but I’m assuming the bomber has a pretty good sense of self-preservation, since he placed himself _way_ out of the blast radius when the explosives went off. He’s smart — I’d be able to track him by satellite if he stayed on street level, and traffic cameras would have picked him up in a heartbeat.”

“Which is your way of saying…it’s safe,” Diggle suggested.

“As safe as speeding on a motorbike while firing arrows can be,” Felicity answered, matter-of-factly. “Oliver, stay on the van — he’s just five hundred feet ahead of you.”

“Copy that.” Oliver bent low over his bike, upping the acceleration as much as he dared, riding on rough terrain. He thought he'd seen a flash of yellow headlights, from a van taking the underground network at high speed. “Where’s he going?”

“No clue — I think you spooked him. He wasn’t expecting anyone to follow.”

Diggle made a sound of dark amusement. “He’s in for a _big_ surprise then.”

With all three of them like this, it was easy to forget the discomfiting exchange just minutes before the bomb went off, easy to think that nothing had changed at all, even though he knew better. But the pleasant moment was short-lived, because there was a flash of orange ahead of Oliver, and he steered out of the way just in time to avoid the massive chunks of steel and concrete raining down onto the tunnel floor. Black smoke billowed from the cracks, faint embers still smoldering where the miniature explosive had hit. He pushed up his helmet visor, scanning the darkness for exit points, but even he could see that the collapsed wall had effectively blocked his route. “He collapsed the tunnel,” he said, his head turning left and right. “Where do I go?”

“Hold on — hold on —”

The seconds crawled by. “ _Felicity!_ ” Oliver snapped.

“The signal died for a second, I needed to get it back,” she answered, just as fierce as him. “Okay, backtrack and take the first left. You’ll come out in front. _Go_.”

Oliver turned in a cloud of dust and took off down the tunnel. He could hear the vibrations of a passing subway train, maybe in another tunnel below, but he didn’t have time to consider it. Roadblocks during high-speed chases weren't unheard of, which was why he had to rely on someone at the computers to reroute and follow. Whirring and whirring inside his head — persistent as a wound — was the knowledge that she’d done it countless times before, and she’d never slipped up like this, not ever.

She was distracted, and he’d lost time because of it.

He emerged into the new tunnel, the roar of the bike’s engine and sharp headlights slicing across the solid dark. It was wider than the last one, big enough to be a main road, and filled with a faint hum, something constant. The light reflected off the smooth walls, off the tracks at his feet.

“I don’t see him, Felicity,” he said, his voice echoing strangely in the cavernous space.

“What?” She sounded confused. “No — his signal’s heading straight for you.”

The ground beneath Oliver’s feet began to rattle, and he turned just in time to see a blinding white light explode across his vision, along with the deafening shriek of an oncoming train.

He swore and kicked the bike back into high gear, screeching off the active train tracks just in time to avoid a high-speed collision with the commuter train. His heart pounding a frantic staccato, Oliver could see his reflection in the lit windows as the train hurtled past, the velocity-sharpened air cutting across his skin and reminding him just how _close_ it had been.

The lights of the train vanished down the tunnel, leaving his ears with a ringing silence in its wake.

“Oliver — Oliver?” Diggle’s voice abruptly cut back in. “Thank god, are you all right?”

Felicity’s quickly followed. “Oliver, I’m so sorry. The — the signal must have been scrambled by the explosive. Are you hurt?”

“No,” he said, yanking his helmet off in disgust. “But the bomber’s gone.”

* * *

Diggle was waiting for Oliver at the foot of the staircase when he got back, and he raised his hands as though he meant to put them on his shoulders. “That was a close call, man. You good?” he asked, warily.

Oliver ignored the question. Behind Diggle, he could see Tommy braced protectively near Felicity’s workstation, where she now sat with her hands pressed together, like it was the only thing to stop them from shaking. Her face looked incredibly white, but Oliver found it hard to focus on anything except the strange burning sensation in his chest.

“What happened?” he asked.

Felicity blinked, pale but otherwise relieved at the question, and half-swiveled her chair towards the monitors. “Bombs release an EMP signal when they detonate — that’s an electromagnetic pulse, a short burst of waveform disturbance. Usually it’s not strong enough to scramble the signal for long, but you were underground, and it was all happening so fast —”

The excuse — whether she was even attempting to make one — was beneath her, and Oliver knew it. “You’ve done better in worse circumstances,” he said, bluntly. “I’m asking you what happened out there.”

“I just _told_ you,” she answered, gesturing at the screen. “I lost the signal.”

“My point exactly. It’s unlike you, and —”

“Hey, man —” Diggle attempted to block him, but Oliver brushed straight past, striding across the room until he was at the computers, and she had to arch back to look him in the eye.

“What the hell was that?” he said.

Felicity stared at him like she still didn’t understand. “Excuse me?”

“ _Oliver_ ,” Tommy said. “Enough.”

“Felicity, the reason why you’re here is because you can handle situations like this. I go into the field with a bow and arrow, and I bring in dangerous people who want to hurt this city, like the bomber who killed… _god_ knows how many people in two explosions. But I can’t do that if I have to second-guess your abilities on those computers while I’m out in the field — because your head’s somewhere in Central City.”

Felicity’s arms tensed on the chair, and she pushed herself up — abruptly, defensively — the way boxers pushed themselves off the ropes to the center of the ring, standing up to him.

“I’m going to pretend you didn’t make a crack about Central City, and get straight to the point. You’ve never second-guessed my abilities before,” she said, her voice like iron. “Why now?”

Oliver almost laughed from pure frustration. “Why now?” he repeated. “People are dying, Felicity, and you let a dangerous bomber get away.”

“After _you_ didn’t catch him the first time!” she retorted. “We all make mistakes in the field, and I’m sorry that I almost got you hurt — trust me, I am — but you’re not being fair right now.”

“I’m being _very_ fair,” he said. “With what we do, there are _always_ consequences, and they’re life and death. So I’m telling you to take responsibility for the fact that you were unfocused, and distracted tonight. Don’t let it happen again.”

Felicity’s eyes narrowed, her jaw clenched tight, and Oliver — his veins buzzing with the adrenaline — braced for the possibility that she might slap him. There was a strange, almost too-bright gleam in her eye, something naked and dangerous like a live wire. But when she spoke, her voice was low and unexpectedly controlled.

“You can’t tell me what to do, and you _cannot_ take your temper out on me just because I’ve done something in my personal life that you don’t happen to like. So I’m going to get some air, and when I get back, we’ll act like this never happened. See you in a minute.”

She stalked off in the direction of the back staircase, the one that led to the alley. The door slammed, and everyone except Oliver seemed to wince.

“She almost ran me into the L-train,” he said, to nobody in particular.

Diggle pinched the bridge of his nose, and shook his head at the ceiling. “You know, Oliver, one of these days, you are going to _have_ to learn how _not_ to lose your temper for the wrong reasons. Like a nonexistent issue with Felicity and Barry Allen, or the photographer who made her laugh for about two seconds.”

Oliver stared at Tommy’s _I told you so_ face for a burning instant before he slammed his bow into the steel table with a deafening crash, and turned to follow her.

* * *

Note to self: when stalking out of underground basement lairs with a head full of steam and a blazing feminist desire to punch-fracture picture perfect jaws, it was probably smart to bring one’s coat. In her dramatic (albeit silent) exit from the Foundry, Felicity had unfortunately neglected to stop by the coatrack to grab any kind of outerwear. Although, to be _entirely_ fair, it kind of deadened the symbolic _done_ -ness if she stopped to dig through everyone’s jackets for her trench coat and scarf, _before_ slamming the door behind her.

Which left her standing in semi-darkness, smack dab in the middle of Verdant’s back alley, shivering while the January night drizzled a light fuzz of cold rain onto the streets.

Because _principles_.

She'd pulled the pins out of the ridiculous magazine shoot hairstyle, leaving her hair to hang loosely around her face and shoulders in heavy waves, but she was still freezing, now with the added benefit of damp hair. Music seemed to thud straight through the brick walls, punctuated by sporadic drunken hoots from people enjoying themselves on an ordinary weekday evening, not standing alone at the back of a nightclub doing yoga breathing exercises, having been reamed out in front of her friends by someone she — until that moment — used to feel warm and fuzzy about.

Felicity breathed in so deeply that she felt her sides sting, as she replayed the same mega-pissed off words Oliver had practically hissed through his teeth. Dark, and thorny, and angry — with her. She blinked, and reached up to feel her face, as though she expected tears.

Not a drop.

So…just the fiery rage then.

The door creaked open behind her, and she knew it had to be someone from the Foundry. She glanced briefly over one shoulder — saw who it was, silhouetted in the door — and strode away, further down the alley to put as much distance between herself and Mr Jackass from downstairs.

As though _that_ wasn’t enough of a hint, the door still banged shut with him firmly on the wrong side (i.e. _out_ side), which made Felicity scoot even further away, splashing through puddles in her high heels.

“You know, you’re the _only_ person I know who interprets ‘I need some air’ as ‘please, follow me out into the smoky alley so we can shout some more’,” she said, throwing the words over her shoulder like they were as sharp as his arrows (if only). “In case you missed that class — which you _probably_ did — I don’t want to see you right now.”

“Felicity,” Oliver said, still in the same _pissed-but-let’s-pretend-I’m-being-righteous_ growl. “We’re not done.”

“Yes, we _really_ are — so go back inside, Oliver.”

Because it was him, and every day was opposite day with the inhumanly stubborn vigilante, he was directly behind her now, still in his stupid Arrow suit like he couldn’t even take the time to change out of it, if it meant _not_ getting the last word in a fight. Though he was missing the mask, probably because he’d had the foresight to remove all throat-level objects with strangling potential.

Disappointing.

Felicity resolutely gave him her back. “ _Go away._ ”

“Why?” he asked. “Because I’m saying things you don’t want to hear?”

Felicity whirled at that one, drenching both their feet with a spray of water. “Because I don’t like you when you’re being a jealous asshole,” she said, in a furious voice that _carried_. “Except this time, it’s even worse, because I don’t know what the hell your problem is.”

Oliver’s eyes were moving all over her face, as though he couldn’t find a point of focus. Or the guts to sustain eye contact. “Barry’s in Central City — you’ve been going to visit him, and now you’re…what…moving onto someone else?”

_Someone else?_

Felicity stared at him in a moment of dumbfounded speechlessness, except she was far from _dumb_ in the stupid sense, she was just at a temporary loss for words at the incredibly — ridiculous — turn this whole incident had taken.

“Let me get this straight,” she said, past her pinched hands (the urge to punch was going incredibly strong). “You’re not happy because you think there’s something going on between me and James Olsen — which isn’t what you think, just by the way — but since the only person who _might_ have a valid reason to be jealous is Barry because we almost dated, you’re…being jealous _for_ him. Is that what you’re saying?”

Oliver made a non-verbal noise partway between a dismissive _chuh_ and an exasperated exhale. “That’s not — I mean — the implication with jealous being —”

Sentence fragments. Spectacular.

Felicity threw up her hands. “I don’t have time for this. Look, I have the adulting skills to leave you to do your own thing — whether it’s sleeping with Isabel Rochev, Ice Queen and Day Terror of the corporate world, or flirting with gorgeous reporters from successful magazines. You’re allowed to be as moronic as you like, I’d just appreciate it if you didn’t assume that I have the same deficit of judgment as you do, okay?”

There was a moment where _OS X Oliver_ seemed to have hit a processing snag. Cue prolonged thought-pause. “Victoria Vale?” he said, with a certain level of incredulity. “You think I’m interested in _Victoria Vale_?”

“I’m sorry, was I _not_ supposed to notice the fact that she was practically sliding her foot up the inside of your leg during the interview?” Felicity snapped, maybe being a smidge more defensive than she should have been. “Oh, my mistake, she was probably showing you that party trick where she counts the spare change in your pocket.”

“It’s actually not that impressive,” Oliver said, in a supreme example of a _non sequitur_.

Felicity felt her face turn to granite. “Not — the — point,” she answered through gritted teeth, trying _not_ to visualize Oliver, rolls of quarters and a parade of female toes.

“Then what _is_ the point?” he demanded. “The fact that James Olsen practically had his hands in your hair during the photoshoot? Or was I not supposed to notice that too?”

“ _What?_ ”

“What?” Oliver snarled back.

Felicity’s brain had gone completely blank. Actually — more accurately — it was so full of firing synapses and comebacks and petty insults that it was impossible to just pick _one_ out. All she knew was that Oliver had followed her into an alley, that they were alone, sniping at each other in a very un-friend-like way, and very, very close.

Physically speaking, anyway.

They were both breathing very loudly, chests rising and falling nearly in sync, and Felicity felt Oliver’s eyes flick very quickly over her face, just as she did the same. His suit smelled like smoke and gas, but the open collar and his exposed neck gave off the scent of his skin, the tang of sweat along with the fainter traces of sharpened steel, and something else wooded and green. He was taller than her — which she’d always known for a fact — but it was another thing entirely to have his shoulders nearly level with her chin, the broadness of them almost obscuring the glare of the Verdant sign behind him, his head tilted down by necessity to speak — but mostly argue — with her.

It was a combination that set off a wordless pang inside her chest and belly, a reflex to curl her fingers into him and not let go, to do something impulsive she’d quite possibly end up regretting.

Gauging, guessing…

Wanting.

Felicity dragged her stare away from Oliver’s mouth, and their eyes met with a shiver of mutual awareness, something unspoken that they’d both laid bare. Some invisible reserve — the same wall built up over months of categorical and emotionally stilted denial — still seemed to be holding them back, keeping their hesitations strong and in control. But whatever just happened, and probably had _been_ happening for the last few weeks, the wall looked like glass to Felicity now, and she could feel the cracks beneath her fingertips, all it would take was…

A push.

At which point she vividly remembered thinking to herself: _screw it_.

Maybe they moved at the exact same time, but whatever the sequence of initiation, their bodies still slammed into each other, all hands and chests and unsteady footing, and at the end of it, Felicity Smoak was somehow — intentionally, fiercely — kissing Oliver Queen.

* * *

After years of chasing down criminals and outrunning the many and varying dangers trying to hurt him, Oliver couldn’t catch his breath. He had Felicity in his arms, in something that wasn’t a dream, and he was kissing her without a shred of reserve, the same courtesy she’d extended to him.

Because it wasn’t as if he’d just leaned in on his own. She’d moved too, mirroring him almost exactly, until their lips crashed together with absolutely nothing of gentleness and everything of uncompromising honesty. They’d wanted to kiss each other — touch each other — and that was exactly what they’d stopped trying to fight. For this.

He could feel her hands twist in his hair, a far-from-unpleasant shock and a gesture of surprising possessiveness, to have her reciprocate as furiously — maybe even more so — than himself. Her breathing was in short gasps, angry breaths stolen between kisses, and Oliver pressed as hard as she pressed him, even though he could already feel his lips tingling from the utter lack of anything resembling restraint.

They’d gone from teetering dangerously in the middle of the deserted alleyway, damp from a steady drizzle and shivering from the winter cold, to backing unsteadily towards the brick wall, still entangled with each other, _in_ each other, until —

Oliver felt his head collide with the exposed brick wall, a solid _thud_ hard enough to make him see stars, if he hadn’t been too preoccupied to let it faze him. Felicity was running her hands down the front of his suit like she was fumbling for the zip, and Oliver felt a sinuous shiver run the length of her spine like a surge of electricity as he put his mouth on her neck, making full use of the wide collar to explore her bare skin. He could taste her perfume — faded from a day’s wear — but it was bitter on his tongue and sharp with her sweat, and he raised his head in search of her lips again, something to sweeten the taste on his tongue.

Felicity’s mouth opened under his with a harsh breath, and he felt her arms tighten instinctively behind his neck as his hands followed the contours of her body from thigh to hip. The dampness made her shirt cling to her like a second skin, her cheeks slippery and ice-cold in contrast to the heat of her mouth and kiss. He'd barely begun figuring out the mechanics of getting through the row of tiny gold buttons on her shirt when she twisted suddenly, swapping their positions so that she was the one pinned to the bricks, and it was only after one of the buttons went flying into the dark with his hands were twisted into the collar — parting it further still — did Oliver realize what they were about to do. What they wanted to do.

Whether they might have gone any further was an open question, one Oliver was relatively sure Felicity could ascertain for herself given their physical proximity, but a door burst open somewhere behind the dumpsters, and he pushed her further into the shadows.

The gesture was unceremonious, even a little rough, but he was still in the Arrow suit, and despite the circumstances, he had no doubts whatsoever that it would leave very little room for argument as to why Oliver Queen was dressed like the city’s vigilante — even if he was in an alley with a beautiful woman. Felicity went very still, her face pressed against his throat as they listened to the person — probably someone working at Verdant — toss a trash bag that clinked heavily when it landed in the dumpster. Oliver didn’t say a word, his forehead resting on the wall beside her head, his torso and shoulders screening her from view as far as he could. In his current state, he could feel his pulse throbbing behind his eyes, the shallowness of his breathing, and the not-unpleasant rush of sensations that accompanied being this close to the woman he —

Not that word. Not yet. His fingertips were braced lightly on the wall, flanking either side of her hips, and he turned slightly at the tentative sensation of her fingers brushing his, fanning out beside his own. Her chest — already flush against his and hammering with a rapid heartbeat — pressed even harder when she took a deep, silent breath, as though to steady herself.

The door slammed again, and it was like a gunshot that shattered the fragile dream. Felicity gave a strangled gasp and wrenched her way free of him, lurching unsteadily in her heels as she walked very quickly to the end of the alley and into the main street, all without a backward glance.

Oliver raised a hand to his mouth, which felt hot and strangely numb all at the same time, and opened his fingers to the light rain, knowing for sure that he hadn't imagined it all.

Which was _precisely_ the problem.

_What the hell were they supposed to do now?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, hopefully everybody enjoyed that. Of course, there's going to be some fallout, because it's them, but eh. THEY DID IT.  
> Credit to Bruni, who goes by @pillow-mountains on Tumblr (go say hi!) for nudging me towards the idea that maaaaybe I should have them "snap" a little sooner, despite my very sloooow and dull plans for the eventual Olicity get-together. This way's better. Thank you, you're a genius. Never change, you perv, never change.  
> Ha, I just realized the title's a bit punny. Cuz rain, and men...never mind. I listened to the song a lot while I was writing this.  
> Side note: 5x01 reminded me how much I love Anatoly. The flashbacks are (hopefully) gonna be awesome!


	20. Spark, Ignite (Blast Radius, Part III)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PHEW. Thanks for the response from last week's update! Glad people mostly seem to be optimistic about Oliver and Felicity going forward (or just making out furiously in dark places). ANYWAY, this week's also pretty long, but enjoy!

It was a longstanding, tried-and-tested theory in Felicity's life that there was no problem immune to being solved by wearing a pair of comfy pajamas and climbing onto the couch with a glass of red wine. Not that it was actually even a problem in Felicity's case, because she was a grown woman perfectly entitled to kiss whoever she wanted.

Even if that person was someone she’d been shouting at two seconds earlier, in an empty alleyway. Even if said person also had emotional issues and a trauma-based instinct to repress and regress. Even if it was practically _guaranteed_ a not-great ending, which would suck for a whole lot of reasons — the biggest being the fact that they saw each other day and night, and the stakes usually went a whole lot higher than the average friend-to-friend spat.

In summary: god, what a _bad_ idea.

Felicity’s whole mouth felt tender to the point of chapstick being out of the question, and she pressed them to the cold wineglass in lieu of an icepack, staring sightlessly at the random movie playing on a random channel.

It probably wasn’t fair to make the comparison, but Barry hadn’t kissed her like that. She was pretty sure nobody had. Though to be fair, _she_ hadn’t kissed anyone like that before either. Angrily. Rough, almost to the point of being careless. Proving a point while also doing _exactly_ what she’d wanted to do, deep down, for a very, very long time.

Barry’s kiss felt like the brush of something soft, like walks in the park involving some kind of big golden dog with a huge wagging tail, and sunlight, lots of it.

Oliver’s kiss felt like it could burn her up from the inside, like they could have gone straight from the alley to the bedroom (and based on what she felt when he was pressed up against her, they most _definitely_ could have), and done the kind of very adult things that might have ended with a _very_ broken bed. No inhibitions, and nothing but raw clarity.

Felicity flapped away the thought and took a long sip of her wine, feeling her sore lips warm the smooth glass. _Nice boys don’t kiss like that_ , she mouthed to herself, a line from a movie that was totally and extremely inapplicable to her less-than-ideal personal situation. Nice guys weren’t meant to kiss you until your lips felt like they were had their own throbbing pulse.

Nice guys didn’t kiss in alleyways. They didn’t get jealous after _they_ were the ones who decided not to make a move. They didn’t come with a list of reasons to _not_. They also didn’t make a habit of taking on the city’s underbelly in a more violent real-life version of the Robin Hood story.

But they weren’t Oliver Queen.

“No,” she said, firmly and with feeling. “ _No_.”

* * *

In Oliver’s head, kissing Felicity wasn’t an event that would end up being followed by a mandatory movie night with his family. He could still feel the cold water from his shower, dripping slowly onto the collar of his hoodie, and the uncomfortable sense of pressure pretty much everywhere else. It wasn’t exactly the first time he’d had to keep himself from thinking about Felicity — and the corresponding problems that accompanied pointless wanting — but none of those incidents had been triggered by something _real_ , as real as having her mouth under his and her hands on his body.

“ _Ollie_ ,” Thea said, like it wasn’t the first time she’d called him, and he absentmindedly raised a hand to catch the pillow she tossed in his direction. “Choose a movie.”

Oliver blinked at the options, his mind completely and unquestionably elsewhere. “Um…the _Diary_ one.”

“Mom,” Thea called, prodding Oliver’s leg with her foot. “Ollie picked ‘ _the Diary one_ ’!”

“Aw, bless his heart,” Tommy said, reappearing with Moira from the kitchen, bearing two gigantic bowls of popcorn. “He likes Colin Firth.”

“Who?” Oliver said, while Thea claimed one big bowl of buttered popcorn for her own.

Moira paused briefly at the arm of his sofa, and her hand felt his cheek gently, as though checking for a fever. “Are you all right, sweetheart?” she asked. “You seem…distracted.”

“Nah,” Tommy said, around a handful of popcorn he’d stolen from Thea. “He’s just excited to watch the movie.”

But he tossed a blanket across Oliver’s legs anyway, giving him a private look that was mostly concern. Though he knew very well they couldn’t say anything in front of the others. “Don’t hog the popcorn, Thea, _jeez_.”

Oliver smiled at his mother to reassure her of his relative state of normality, and held the fixed expression until everyone else had their eyes on the TV screen. He propped his head on his hand, his arm resting on the back of the sofa, only absently aware of Thea and Tommy having a near-silent kicking match during the opening credits.

Was that really how Felicity kissed?

He’d always imagined her being more gentle, almost shy with her affection. Maybe that was it — _affection_ , something they’d both been short of in the brief but furious alleyway fight, and the completely unexpected kiss — _kisses_ — against the wall.

It had been…startling, to say the least.

Felicity looked so small in comparison to the Diggle and Tommy that it had been something of a shock to actually _feel_ her in his hands, the surprising solidness to her build and the softness of it at the same time, pressed up against him and holding him tight. Her nails scraping against his scalp and neck, her lips hard against his own.

She couldn’t be like that with the people she actually liked. Anyone but him, maybe.

Oliver’s hand balled itself into a fist, because it was his fault. He had plenty of experience with what it could be like when they disagreed, much less when they fought. The electric feeling of going head to head with each other, and the inexplicable pull that drew them close despite a flaming difference of opinion. He shouldn’t have followed her into the alley, and he shouldn’t have been alone with her, so soon — with them both so angry. They’d said things probably better off unsaid, but it was too late now.

They’d lost control, and it was a one-time thing, but he drew a line at calling it a mistake.

A mistake implied something he regretted, and Oliver didn’t regret kissing Felicity in the heat of the moment. It felt like it had been a long time coming, after all.

But.

As long as it was just the one time.

* * *

Felicity checked her reflection in the spotless QC elevator doors, wishing she’d worn a gigantic pair of sunglasses and soft flats instead of heels. A by-product of being almost religiously single and invested in her Netflix account meant that she was generally pretty good at the whole _drinking alone_ thing, in that half-finished bottles of wine usually went into the fridge, not emptied into her glass, but last night had been an exception.

Though to put things in perspective, last night had turned out to be _the_ glaring exception for a lot of things.

She had zero doubts whatsoever that a red wine hangover was to the tamer (and therefore _lamer_ ) side of problems she could possibly have at the moment, but there was a gigantic pack of ibuprofen in her bag and a squeeze-bottle of water clutched tight in her hands (at least it had been, the last time she’d checked), to dilute the cabernet-sauvignon-merlot mix currently swishing around in her veins instead of hemoglobin. Not to mention pale lipstick carefully — _gingerly_ — rubbed all over her lips to hide the fact that she’d woken up with a noticeably more swollen mouth. And the chafing. She didn’t even want to _go_ into the effects of stubble-beard friction.

The elevator _dinged_ when it got to her floor (setting off a string of teeth-gritting bells inside her head), and she gingerly stepped onto solid ground —

Only to run smack dab into Tommy Merlyn, lounging in her office like a disturbingly lifelike Greek statue, evidenced by the envious double-takes from passing female co-workers (most of whom probably assumed she was dating the office’s more attractive version of the stray cat). He raised his sunglasses (damn him) to gave her an appraising look.

“You,” he said, “look _great_. Did you make the lifestyle choice to become a vampire since I last saw you?”

Felicity cleared her throat and carefully nudged the door shut behind her, visualizing clear, running water while she inched determinedly towards the safety of her desk chair. “I decided to reacquaint myself with the highs of my wine cabinet,” she croaked, collapsing into the seat. “And now I regret everything.”

“There wasn’t even tequila in there?” Tommy said, dragging a chair over to her desk (ow, ow). “God, Smoak. Party fail.”

Felicity glared at him over the rim of her water bottle, because dragging plus chair legs equalled _loud_. “Can I help you?”

“Not really,” he said, keeping a spare paper cup of coffee _just_ out of reach. “I just wanted to check on you. After, y’know — the _thing_.”

The emphasis on the last word made Felicity’s inner alarms go on the warpath. “Thing?” she said, nervously. “What thing? There was no _thing_.”

Tommy eyed her like she’d gone cuckoo. “Uh, yes there was. Digg and I were both there, remember?”

“Oh, you mean the _thing_ -thing,” she said. “Right. Of course. Thing…thing.”

“You okay?” he asked. “I’m guessing the — uh — vampire-in-daylight look has something to do with my best friend being a gigantic anatomical male part. Frontal and backal, if you get what I'm saying.”

Felicity shrugged. “Not the first time.”

“Yeah, but —” Tommy looked apologetic “— doesn’t make it okay. But Oliver went after you — you didn’t see him?”

She shook her head. “I…caught a cab home. He didn’t…he didn’t say anything?”

Tommy raised an eyebrow. “You mean after he let me brush his hair and we gabbed about what he _really_ thinks about his Arrow suit and Digg’s love life?”

“Good point,” she conceded. “So he’s…normal. _Fine_ — is what I’m saying.”

Tommy seemed to think about it. “I don’t know, was Oliver _ever_ normal?”

Felicity laughed a little, immediately regretted it because of her head, and settled for popping an ibuprofen. “Did you come here just to check on me?” she asked, around a swig of water.

“Actually —” Tommy went into a highly creative pose while he dug around in his pocket, before producing a slightly wrinkled envelope “— Sebastian Blood’s campaign office wants to run an event at Verdant tonight. Some kind of campaign-event-slash-announcement.”

The thought of a nightclub made Felicity want to ralph all over again. “Oh — no — no booze, I’m going straight back home to put my head in the sink, peppy mayoral candidates notwithstanding.”

“C’mon, it’ll be fun — first time Verdant hasn’t been the seedy weird cousin in the nightclub family. Political event means we’re going legit. Or the Blood campaign office is trying to make a point about how poor they are, in which case it’s probably about a donation, but then _again_ —”

Felicity flapped her hands. “Okay, okay — if I go, _will_ you stop talking?”

Tommy put the envelope between her thumb and forefinger and pinched them together with a grin. “Cross my heart. So I’ll see you there?”

“Right — right.” She checked the time — wincing — and slid out of her chair with the armful of briefs she needed for the board meeting.

“Forgot something,” Tommy called as she passed, and deposited her tablet computer on top of the stack.

Felicity looked at him through one eye. “I could kiss you right now — if I wasn’t —”

“— on the brink of death?” he finished, helpfully clearing a path for her from the office and through the people. “You really weren’t much of a partier in college, weren’t you?”

“The extent of the experience began and ended with an accidental pot brownie, yes,” she muttered, fumbling for the elevator button.

Tommy chuckled through the whole elevator ride, taking her through the highs and lows of making a nightclub a respectable — if slightly unorthodox — choice for a political event, all in his usual unflappable way. Felicity nursed the cup of coffee he’d brought, and was partially rebooted by the time the elevator doors opened to the top floor.

“Please tell me you’re bringing McKenna,” she said, before Tommy was momentarily sidetracked by a gaggle of giggling secretaries. “I hate standing by myself at party things.”

“What about me?” Tommy sounded hurt, or maybe just distracted (extracting himself from adoring fans was hard work). “What am I — chopped liver?”

At the risk of inflating his already larger-than-average head, Tommy was too genetically good-looking to be anything _chopped_ , ever, but Felicity — for her part — was busy wondering if there was a roundabout way to say that Oliver would most likely be where his best friend was, and after the…thing in the alleyway, suffice it to say that she’d be putting ample distance between herself and her boss-though-not-really-friend-vigilante-partner.

Just thinking about all those classifications, and how he didn’t fall into _any_ of them, not really, made Felicity’s head hurt. Again.

“No reason,” she said lightly, “you’ll just be busy doing your whole party host thing, and I’ll be b—”

The rest of Felicity’s sentence went unfinished because she rounded the corner and walked straight into Diggle, and — slightly more troublingly — _Oliver_.

Who looked…

Not-hungover, for starters. By-product of having some truly inhuman genes was the inability of his general handsomeness to reflect the exact amount of sleep he’d had the previous night, which either meant he’d slept _super well_ (she didn’t even want to think why), or he’d slept about as fantastically as she had, which was to say _not at all_. But for all intents and purposes, he looked every inch the part of the unruffled CEO.

 _And god, so good_.

Felicity jumped back like she’d been zapped, clutching the files and computer to her chest with a shaky laugh. “There I go again,” she said, carefully and determinedly keeping her eyes off the general region of Oliver’s mouth. “Almost spilled coffee all over my boss. _Not_ — that I’ve spilled coffee on you before, or anything else, _anywhere else_ …phew, good thing HR isn’t around here, right? _Not_ that I’m saying HR has any reason to be sniffing around, I mean I’m pretty sure the whole office thinks I’m dating your best friend, which is not only incorrect, just BTW —”

“— did you _break_?” Tommy interjected, in the middle of her tangential spin.

“— but also totally unnecessary, because _I_ haven’t broken any rules. No rules broken. Nothing — is — wrong,” she finished, belatedly.

A lengthier pause than usual followed the end of her random spiel, during which Diggle and Tommy both stared at Felicity, with varying but surprisingly in-sync renditions of _W-T-F_.

Oliver, on the other hand, just looked nonplussed. “Good,” he said, awkwardly. “And you’re — I mean — how are you?”

“ _Great._ ” A pause. “And you — how are you?”

“Great,” he said, too quickly. Were those her fingernail marks on his neck? “How are you?”

Tommy looked mystified. “Did _you_ break too?” he said, waving a hand in front of Oliver’s face.

Felicity averted her gaze, though not quickly enough to avoid the brush of eye contact as Oliver’s eyes darted towards her — tellingly, furtively — in response to the question.

 _Oh for frack’s sake_.

“Sorry,” Oliver said, more quietly this time, like he meant _we need to talk_. “It was a long night.”

Felicity managed a smile, aching lips notwithstanding. “Really? Barely noticed,” she answered, her way of declaring — unequivocally, firmly — _there’s nothing to discuss_. Because there really wasn’t. “See you in there.”

She slipped past the boys — her boys — and marched towards her seat in the conference room, well aware but choosing not to think about the fact that all of them were watching her with varying degrees of speculation, and in one glaring case, total and complete awareness.

But that didn’t matter, because there was nothing to discuss.

_Not even a little._

* * *

So there was death and destruction (Starling City being terrorized by an unknown bomber, for starters), _weird_ and _weirder_ (Oliver and Felicity both acting like they’d been bodysnatched in the last twenty-four hours), there was a _phalanx_ (funny word) of reporters corralled restlessly on his club’s dance floor, just waiting for the next sensation in the never-boring political life of the world’s most unpredictable city —

“—but at least there’s always tequila!” Tommy said, sloshing said magic juice into a series of shot glasses. “Drink up, my man. We’re gonna need it.”

Diggle opted for his — _wait for it_ — water instead. With a cube of ice. “On duty,” he said. “As long as Mr Queen’s wearing his regular suit, I’m in charge of his security — which means, no booze.”

Tommy puffed out his cheeks at Diggle. “Mud — there,” he gestured grandly at the floor, then a hand wiggle back at Diggle’s face “stick — _you_. See how that works?”

Diggle chuckled, which he didn’t even hear because of how loud the music was (something peppy and campaign-song-appropriate), and leaned back on the bar surface. Oliver was with _Bossy Mode_ Thea near the temporary stage, and Felicity still hadn’t showed. “So what do you think’s wrong with the two of them?” he asked.

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but my best friend can be kind of a dick,” Tommy shouted, because screw beating around the bush (not like that).

Diggle shook his head. “I’ve seen what it looks like when they fight, but there’s something… _off_ this time.”

“Apart from the green-eyed monster hitching a ride Oliver’s back?” Tommy said. “C’mon, a year ago they didn’t even know they were on each other’s romantic — relationship _whatever_ — radar. ‘Course it’s more complicated.”

Diggle still didn’t look entirely convinced, but he rapped on the bar in a businesslike way. “Your guess might be as good as mine, but I’m gonna leave you to it,” he said, and added, by way of explanation: “your girlfriend’s here.”

Sometimes Tommy was so used to being single and at risk of being eaten by Alsatians that he forgot the girlfriend detail — namely _the_ girlfriend. Who’d shown up in a red dress to put all red dresses to shame, her hair on the right side of blowdried (not that he cared either way) and in the strappy heels that looked like they could murder someone (oo). “Hey!” he shouted over the music, and McKenna leaned over the bar to kiss his cheek. “You came!”

“Of course I came,” McKenna laughed, over the music. Her perfume momentarily drowned out the slightly less savory smells of the nightclub — disinfectant and the kind of stuff he regularly set Roy Harper off to clean with a steel-bristled brush. “The club looks _great_.”

“Thea gets most of the credit,” Tommy admitted, eyeing the _Blood for Mayor_ banners and appropriately-themed balloons. “I just stood on chairs to hang things up.”

“Well, you’re _very_ good at that.”

Tommy nuzzled at the back of her neck for the sarcasm. “Can I get you a drink?”

McKenna — in one of the more surprising moments — picked up one of the waiting tequila shots and downed it with zero fuss. “I got it,” she said, reminding Tommy how _cool_ it was to date her. “Not my first time at a party.”

Tommy briefly contemplated how fast he could get under the bar (without breaking anything) to make full use of _Fun McKenna_ showing up to the boring campaign event. “Do I have to keep my eye on you, Detective Hall?”

“Please, Merlyn,” she said, with a mischievous grin. “I’m the one who should be keeping an eye on you.”

“Is that right?”

McKenna crooked a finger to get him closer, and after he’d extricated himself from bar duty, draped an arm easily around his shoulders. “Victoria Vale,” she said. “I passed the press corp just now and she stopped me for a…chat.”

“Oh god,” Tommy said, downing a tequila shot in preparation. “What did she —”

“Handcuffs, huh?” McKenna was grinning. “And here I thought you were diehard vanilla.”

“You’re not mad?”

Tommy had the presence of mind — AKA the boyfriend-ing skills — to duck out from beneath the bar top, at which point McKenna gave him a kiss on the mouth, light and teasing. “Just means I’ll have to watch your back all night.”

“ _God_ , yes.”

* * *

Felicity wondered if she should have taken James up on his offer of a drink, instead of showing up to Verdant in some bizarre Devil’s deal with Tommy Merlyn. There were red and blue streamers trailing across the entrance, and she felt the ends of them catch on her dress as she ducked through. She felt stiff and unlike herself, dolled up in a gold dress she hadn’t worn for a year, not to mention a tights-suspenders combination she’d only put on because everything else was in the wash, clutching a wrinkled invitation between her fingers, when what she wanted to be was a computer geek in sweatpants on her couch, a laptop on her legs and the world at her fingertips.

Not this hideous, _all-encompassing_ uncomfortableness. Verdant the club was Oliver’s space — it felt like his space, absentee management aside — and the Foundry too, even with her island of computers and perpetually whirring monitors and lab equipment. Oliver’s second home was here with the Arrow, and Felicity felt…more out of place than ever.

She wished she _could_ wish that she hadn’t kissed him. But regret was in short supply, in favor of something that made her throat feel tight and her legs feel like they were on something less steady than solid floor.

She still wanted him, and he was firmly, _unequivocally_ out of reach. Part of that was her own doing, and the other part (she hoped) was because _he’d_ suddenly recalled how to exercise the part of his self-control mechanisms that had gone on an _epic_ fritz in the alley.

End of story.

A waiter passed her champagne almost immediately, just before Felicity heard the ripple of applause and the breathless hush that preceded the swivel of a bright spotlight, and sure enough — Oliver emerged onto the stage with no cue cards and a glass of his own, smiling at the crowd with one hand high, stepping up to the mic to give his toast.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, while Felicity leaned on one of the festooned pillars, watching him from afar and — very importantly — out of sight. “Thank you for coming tonight.”

* * *

It felt like a long time since Oliver had stood up on a stage with a glass of champagne in his hand, fully sober and not pretending to be otherwise, preparing to make a speech for a purpose that didn’t involve getting escorted off by a pair of heavyset security guards.

“I know I’m not exactly the _authority_ on making good choices,” he said, and heard a ripple of amusement in the audience. “When I got back to Starling this summer, Sebastian gave me a hard time, and he _absolutely_ deserved to. I wasn’t doing my part for my city, not a city that was suffering from a devastating tragedy — and still is.”

There was quiet now, and Oliver turned slowly from left to right, even though the lights in his eyes turned the crowd into a blur of darkened faces.

“Starling City’s had a rough time,” he continued, and there was a murmur in agreement. “ _Two_ bombings in the last week. Our police department is short-handed, our hospitals working overtime, and city hall is struggling, which is why we need someone like Sebastian— because _he_ is the person this city needs, because _he_ is going to change things for the better. So please, everyone, raise your glass to the man who deserves your vote for mayor — Sebastian Blood!”

A surge of applause, and Sebastian came up the steps with a broad smile and a wave. Oliver stepped back to give him the floor, mirroring his raised arm in a toast. But as he moved back from the glare of the spotlight, his eyes drifted across the faces in the crowd — without meaning to — and alighted on a familiar face near the back.

Felicity had a flute of champagne in her hand as well, and he tilted his arm slightly in a silent — second — toast, holding her gaze longer than he should have. God, he shouldn’t have. A slow, dark flush spread across her cheeks and throat, and Oliver barely tasted the champagne on his lips, in favor of the remembered tang of her sweat and perfume and her soft, open mouth. Like it was still happening.

“Oliver’s been a good friend to me,” Sebastian said, breaking his concentration. He turned, and saw that the alderman had turned towards him with a grin. “We got off to a rocky start, but getting to know him means that I can see how he’s also been a good friend to this city — so good that I’m just glad he isn’t running against me for mayor.”

Oliver laughed, shaking his head around the glass of champagne, and descended the steps to let Sebastian continue on with his speech. He was almost immediately enveloped by the crowd, when he’d intended to slip towards the edges of the room.

Sebastian was still speaking, the attention of the room focused on him and the pool of warm spotlight. But Oliver’s focus was somewhere else. Felicity was _just_ visible through the heads and shoulders, a gleam of dark gold (hadn’t she worn that dress before?) in the half-light, and Oliver found himself following the familiar gleam from halfway across the room.

“Oliver,” said his mother, completely out of nowhere. She was standing with Thea and Tommy, himself arm in arm with McKenna. “That was a lovely toast for Sebastian.”

Thea and Tommy snickered disloyally, while McKenna half-smiled. “What she means is — _isn’t it nice when you go up on stage sober_?” Tommy translated. “Good toast, buddy. Gold star for articulate… _ness_.”

Oliver smiled at the compliment, but his attention was on Felicity, now climbing the steps from the club floor to the office, a hand trailing behind her on the banisters. Her hair was loose and straight around her shoulders, waving just slightly at the ends and swinging hypnotically in time to her movement. The dress — the precise shade of gold that made her glitter like a distant star — had an undisputedly short skirt, and the movement of climbing the stairs made the hem rise a little further, revealing a glimpse of bare skin above her dark tights and what looked to him like suspenders.

In that moment, he would have given anything to be climbing those steps with her, to take her hand and pull her into a quiet, private corner and pick up where they’d left off.

But they hadn’t even spoken, not really. Not all day.

So that left him with a tight throat and nothing to say, until Felicity turned the corner and vanished into the dark.

* * *

 _Hiding out at in a deserted corner of a party_ , Felicity thought to herself. _That_ was a new low. Then again, she’d never had much of an appetite for politics, no matter how cute the candidate was. She’d propped her ankles on the open bottom drawer of Tommy’s desk, figuring he wouldn’t mind, not to mention her adjusting the height of his chair. Not the lumbar support, though. _That_ would have been plain rude.

At least she’d tried not to snoop. Emphasis on _tried._ What the box of condoms was doing in an office, she did _not_ want to know.

What she wanted to do was duck into the Foundry and work, work her way through the numbers and scrolling code, the complex problems and one-zero answers, but the Foundry was too _non-neutral_ , especially if Oliver happened to do what he always did at parties, which was slip away to the persona he was more comfortable with.

The Arrow.

Them, alone. _Nope_.

Felicity put a hand to her temple, feeling the onset of another headache, and breathed: “ _Frack_.”

The door banged open, making her retract her feet from their impromptu resting place and sit bolt upright with a yelp. “Jesus,” she said, to the silhouette in the doorway, “don’t you knock?”

The shadow was too petite to be anyone male she knew, so it wasn’t exactly a surprise to hear a lady voice. But it _was_ a surprise that she recognized the lady in question. “Funny,” Victoria said, kicking the door shut with her foot, something glass clinking in her hand. “Didn’t know you owned shares in Verdant. So technically, we’re both trespassing.”

“I…wait, what?” Felicity said, watching her flick on the desk lamp and settle herself on top of the desk with complete ease. “What are you doing?”

Victoria swung one perfect leg over the other, setting a bottle of expensive-looking champagne in front of the desk phone. “Having a drink,” she said. “Care to join?”

Felicity blinked at the very French label. “Where’d you get that?” she asked.

Victoria snorted rudely. “Dress up a nightclub all you want, but sleazy guys will _still_ buy bottle service if they think they have a chance of sleeping with you. Or maybe I stole it from Tommy’s stash, in which case you’re _very_ free to tell on me, even though you probably already know I can take him.”

As though to emphasize her point, the champagne cork flew out with a gigantic _pop_ , and Victoria filled two glasses, her crimson lips curved in the kind of smile that made it easy to imagine how she’d gotten the free champagne.

“Are you…flirting?” Felicity asked aloud, remembering what James had disclosed about Victoria’s interview techniques, and the noticeable lack of gender discrimination when it came to her subjects. “With me — I mean.”

There couldn’t have been a way to make it sound lamer.

“Is it working?” Victoria said, and laughed at the expression on Felicity’s face. “Relax, I’m not here as a reporter. We’re just two girls having a drink.”

Still no touching the champagne, no matter how gold and fizzy it was. “I don’t think I should believe that,” she said, frankly. “I mean, you seem very nice, but — I don’t think I’m supposed to be talking to you.”

Victoria rolled her eyes with something like affectionate irritation, and hopped off the desk to peek through the blinds. “Sweetie, you’re not the story tonight. Your friend-of-a-friend Sebastian Blood just announced that he wants to have a unity rally in the city square tomorrow evening — which is most _definitely_ campaigning, and is probably going to end in one of two ways. Either a ratings boost for him, or —”

“— mass suicide,” Felicity muttered, her fingers tightening around her drink. “I have to go.”

“What’s the rush?” Victoria said, a quizzical tilt to her eyebrow. “Politics will still be politics, give or take some champagne.”

Felicity hesitated. Not that she could admit this to anyone who wasn’t part of the Foundry team, but they’d pretty much slammed dead-on with a concrete wall when it came to the bomber. All they had were some bomb fragments that she was still trying to piece into something more identifiable, and an increasingly awkward situation that was only guaranteed to get worse.

“So who is he?” Victoria asked, after a pause.

Felicity’s head turned so fast that her neck cricked. “What?”

Victoria gave her a vaguely coquettish look from over her shoulder. “The one you’re busy thinking about, working yourself up in knots over. _The_ guy.”

Felicity had to laugh, because the accurate answer was a faceless explosives enthusiast with every intention of an encore performance. And Oliver, but she was deliberately omitting that from consideration. “Um…there’s no guy.”

Another snort. “Okay. Jimmy’s going to be _bummed_ , but I’m assuming you two did the whole… _better off as friends_ -spiel. You could do a lot worse than Jimmy Olsen, you know. Sure, he’s not around a lot, but he’ll treat his girlfriend like a freaking _queen_.”

“I just have a lot going on,” Felicity said, before she could stop herself. “And not in the self-flattering _wow-she’s-got-a-lot-going-on_ -way, but the _in-a-relationship-with-my-work-phone_ -kind of…business. But I shouldn’t be telling you that. So I’ll be shutting up…right now.”

Victoria laughed again. “He sure knows how to pick the cute ones, doesn’t he?” she said, remaining vague on the specific _he_ in question. “Mind if I give you some advice — about this nonexistent guy?”

Felicity’s answer was to take a fortifying drag of champagne, just in case she decided to make another attempt at blabbing.

“Just have _fun_ ,” Victoria said, with a shrug. “You’re young, you’re gorgeous, you have…one _hell_ of a career ahead of you…life doesn’t stop with a boyfriend or a ring on your finger. If he can’t make up his mind, drop him. At least you had a good time.”

Even if Felicity pretended that the advice was applicable in the context of Oliver, in that kissing him — touching him, and letting him touch her — hadn’t been anything short of _good_ in terms of raw feelings, the _after_ part of it was…a little sucky. Because he still wasn’t ready, and she’d told herself she wasn’t going to wait around for that to happen.

At the same time, no one was Oliver Queen except — well — _Oliver_. Not James. Not Barry, for all his sweetness and uncomplicated-ness (pre-coma, anyway). It wasn’t fair to make the comparison — not at all — but it wasn’t as if stubborn thought trains and emotions were the type to do what they were told. Not to mention the reason why she’d decided to ignore the _Feelings_ (uppercase for emphasis, even mentally) was because she’d been sure that Oliver wouldn’t make the move.

If anything, the night before had proved that he was definitely okay with taking a step. Just…not as much as she’d hoped.

Which left her with…what?

The fact that she _Felt_ something for him. She got jealous at the idea of him dating Victoria Vale, and that wasn’t even _considering_ the whole Isabel debacle. She still wanted him, and not in the _break-the-bed_ sense (though that too), but the… _first-thing-in-the-morning-last-thing-at-night_ , gooey, embarrassing kind of way.

The only issue being…it took two to clap, and one furious makeout did _not_ mean she and Oliver were on the same page. Knowing them, they most probably weren’t. Like, at all.

“Thanks,” she said to Victoria, thoughtfully. “I think.”

A wink that reminded her how glad she was for the non-existence of mind-reading. “Anytime.”

* * *

The steel bar clanged into the next rung, and Oliver pulled himself up to rest his weight on his palms. “Sebastian won’t stand down — not to me, or the Arrow,” he said, as a bead of sweat rolled down the furrow of his spine. “I can’t stop him from going ahead with this unity rally, and we have to assume that the bomber’s going to take it as a chance to strike.”

“Felicity’s been running the bomb fragments for the last day, Oliver,” Tommy pointed out. “Still nothing.”

Diggle looked up from the computers, which he had the vague feeling his friend had been trying to decipher for the past few hours. “There’s a reason we work as a team, not solo,” he added. “Felicity’s expertise runs in tech, and yours is thinking like the guys you’re trying to bring in. The team doesn’t work if two crucial parts won’t even look at each other.”

Oliver dropped and swung again, yanking himself through the momentum. “I haven’t stopped her — from getting — to the Foundry,” he said, pushing harder, faster. “I’m still here.”

“But you aren’t _talking_ ,” Tommy said, “which, call me crazy, might be the problem, since the last time you saw each other, it was with the yelling voices.”

He jerked his head in denial. “Not true, I see her at the office.”

Even preoccupied with the exercise, Oliver could feel the magnitude of the eye-rolls in the vicinity, and Diggle clapped Tommy’s shoulder. “We don’t have time for this. Just get it over with,” he said flatly, and loped towards the alley exit.

Oliver assumed it meant a lecture, or in Tommy-terms, a stream of consciousness rant incorporating a few relevant concepts until the subject (him) conceded from sheer irritation, just to make it stop.

As though to confirm his suspicion, Tommy stood directly beneath the salmon ladder with a wave. “Me again. Now is there… _any_ chance you can work this out like a normal human adult?”

Oliver landed with a thud, straightening up and frowning at the question. His tone made it sound like a precursory inquiry, like a formality he was obliged to go through. “What?”

“Thought so,” he sighed, and beckoned for Oliver to follow him. “There’s something you need to check out. You know how I’ve had my eye on Harper since he got shot up with the Mirakuru? I saw him go into the supply closet the other day, and — well — it’s a little hard to describe. I haven’t touched _anything_ since he was in there, but I’m a little freaked —”

Tommy paused to hand Oliver a shirt, which he yanked over his head without much thought, his mind running through the endless scenarios that involved the Mirakuru side-effects.

“Has Roy been acting out of character?” he asked urgently, while they climbed the staircase to the club. “Where is he right now? Where’s Thea?”

Tommy shook his head in a tired kind of way and pulled the door open as though to let Oliver through first, which he did, except —

The door crashed shut behind him, and before he could so much as turn, he heard the computerized _blip_ of the system re-arming itself.

“Tommy?” Oliver said, assuming he’d let it shut by accident. “You okay?”

The access code got a red light and a flat sound of denial, which made Oliver stare for all of two seconds. Then it hit him.

Tommy had changed the codes, and the only way to reboot the system was —

In the Foundry.

Oliver hammered on the door. “Tommy?” he repeated, in a highly different tone of voice. “What the hell are you doing?”

As though in answer to his question, he heard a door open to the front of the club. Oliver walked out from the back corridor without thinking, and went to a dead stop at the familiar click of high heels, along with a voice.

 _Her_ voice.

Felicity was looking over her shoulder at the door she’d come through. “Digg, I don’t see T— Digg?”

She turned back just as the front door — their last exit — shut with another deafening crash, followed efficiently by the ominous sound of something heavy dropping into place across the frame.

Which left them staring at each other from opposing sides of the club floor, completely and utterly motionless.

They were both surrounded by the decorations from the previous night’s campaign event, red and blue balloons shivering forlornly in corners, confetti scattered across the floor like snow, banners heaped on top of the gleaming bar, and a burgeoning, swelling silence that seemed to be an actual physical sensation pressing hard on his chest.

From the looks of it, she’d been lured into the club space just as much as he had.

And here they were.

“Tommy?” she said, like it explained everything.

It really did, and Oliver nodded, hands on his hips. “ _Tommy_ ,” he agreed.

 _Goddammit_.

* * *

Felicity had been studying the corners for the last twenty minutes, puzzling out the security camera configuration in Verdant, a fact she was relatively sure Oliver already knew by heart, and probably would have told her.

If they’d been speaking, which they weren’t, not actually. She’d used the cameras to keep an eye on the club before, but it was one thing to be behind the computers watching, another to be the fly under the microscope and trying to remember which left was _surveillance-left_ , and which corner was camera-corresponding.

There were only so many ways to pass awkward silences, and she’d been entertaining herself with gloriously vivid images of sticking Tommy on a spit and roasting him like the ogres tried to in _The Hobbit_ , with — well — a hobbit and a bunch of dwarves, a trivia tidbit that was precisely neither here nor there.

But _god_ , this silence was getting hideous.

“So,” she said, knocking her fist nervously against her open palm, “I’m guessing Tommy’s offer of free margaritas — my choice of flavor and funny straw — was a complete and flaming _fib_.”

She was sitting at the bar while Oliver continued his pacing around the club walls, marked by the occasional peering at something she couldn’t see, and the muffled crash from out of sight that usually ended with him stalking back into view, wearing an extra bad-tempered rendition of his grumpy face.

Oliver glanced at her briefly, like he’d just noticed she was around. “Can’t you override the Foundry door from your phone?”

“And what’s that going to do?” she said. “The goal is to get out of Verdant — you think they won’t just shut us up inside the basement and block the alley door?”

Oliver considered her counter-suggestion, nodding slightly. “No,” he said, with admirable neutrality, “the goal is to get my hands around Tommy Merlyn’s neck so I can _kill_ him.”

Felicity grunted, because she was finding it incredibly hard to disagree with Oliver. “Even if I could use my phone, there’s a security option on the Foundry terminal that blocks remote access to the lock, which Tommy just needs to press a button to activate, and spoiler alert — he has.” She waggled her phone for emphasis, showing the hacking interface stuck firmly on _Access Denied_.

Oliver exhaled in a way that struck her as somewhat incredulous. “And why the _hell_ would you install something like that?”

She bristled. “See — when _I_ set up the protocols, it didn’t occur to me that bad guys would _want_ to barricade themselves into our hideout, much less your childhood best friend with the problem _minding his own business_. The priority was to secure the Foundry — you’re welcome, by the way.”

“I didn’t say _thank you_ ,” he reminded her, icily.

“You never do, so I extrapolate,” she fired back.

Oliver threw a hard look over his shoulder, crouching now to look at one of the screwed-in vents meant for pumping dry ice mist — or garlic bread fumes or pheromones or whatever clubs used these days — onto the main floor. “Tommy locked us in here because he knows we’re not talking,” he said, giving it an experimental pull. “I’d apologize for my best friend, but I’d rather finish dealing with whatever else he has lined up and do it in bulk.”

Felicity blinked, swiveling to look incredulously at one of the cameras behind the bar. “He knows?”

For a moment, it seemed like Oliver was doing _The Thinker_ pose in a full crouch, but then it became clear that he was doing the bridge-of-nose-pinching thing, reserved for times of supreme aggravation.

“Felicity, I think we can admit to ourselves that neither of us get A-pluses in deception,” he said, tiredly. “Of course they know something’s not right. But the — specifics of — the situation —” (he was kicking the vent now) “—I’m planning to keep — _vague_ —”

She jumped when he gave the vent a solid, resonating punch. Which didn’t work, because that was how steel was supposed to function. By not bending to emotionally constipated men taking out their tempers on it, just for a lack of something better to do.

Cue Oliver swearing, not at all softly, but with plenty of feeling.

“Great,” Felicity said, indicating the solid steel ventilation hardware with the palm of her hand, “so you’d rather _shred_ your hand open than talk to me. Message received. I guess we’ll just sit here and starve unless Mr Mystery Bomber decides to hit Verdant — right now — to save us this whole, balls-to-the-meat-grinder-awkward… _Thing_ …which would be, let’s honest, doing us _both_ a solid, so just —”

Felicity realized she couldn’t make her point without something dramatic, and fumbled behind the bar for something non-breakable to throw in his general direction, a process that made her skip several thought trains to the neural expressway.

“Is that what you really think?” Oliver said, on his feet now. A balloon she’d kicked at him went spinning into the side of his leg and was otherwise ignored, and Felicity felt her cheeks flame.

“You’re the one who walked away from _me_ ,” he said, like it was important. “You _ran_.”

“I didn’t _run_ ,” she answered, all while thinking, _I’d like to see you try to run in heels_. “But why does that matter? I mean…should I have stuck around to hear what you were going to say?” She lifted her shoulders a little, her hands up and open, even managing one of those _kill-me-now_ laughs. “It was _obvious_. You pretty much covered the subject when we were in Moscow. I just fast-forwarded to the part…after.”

Oliver’s expression, already a familiar-ish variation of _kill-me-now_ , shifted instantly at the single word, the _disastrous_ country name that stood a pretty good chance as a codeword for FUBAR (which was also a codeword, weirdly) in their respective lexicons.

It was like she’d kicked a puppy, and Felicity didn’t like thinking about kicking small, furry animals. She liked the idea of hearing the rest of Oliver’s unfinished alley speech even less, but it felt like the equivalent of an allergy shot for her. Eyes shut, over in a second, then it was business as usual.

“Felicity,” he said, in a very different voice, low and rough. “You’re very, very smart, and almost always right, but that wasn’t what I was going to say.”

She gave a _ha_ noise of pure skepticism, twirling a streamer attached to a red balloon around her finger, just to have something to do with her hands. “Here it goes,” she muttered, and for the sake of adding to the record, “I mean — you kissed me too. You — you — big, _dumb_ — I guess now you’re going to tell me that you’re sorry and it was a _mistake_ —”

“I don’t regret what happened two nights ago,” Oliver said, so suddenly that she went still, lifting her head slowly to look at him. “That’s what I would have told you, if you hadn’t walked off.”

He was looking right back, for what felt like…the first time. In ages.

“You…don’t,” she said, and before she could stop herself: “why?”

Oliver took a step forward and hesitated, staying where he was instead. He shook his head slightly, obviously at a loss for words. “Because…because I wanted to. I’ve _been_ wanting to, and I just thought — I didn’t think —”

Sentence fragments aside, Felicity knew the feeling. God, she knew the feeling.

It just really helped to know that he did too.

But — first. Places. Positions ( _not like that_ ). Bottom lines.

Felicity laid her palms flat on the bar surface.

“You said that because of the life you lead, you couldn’t be with someone you really cared about,” she said, quoting him in the flattest voice she could muster, which still — somehow — didn’t end up being all that flat. Crinkled, still, emotions too stubborn to get ironed out.

Oliver nodded. “I know I said that.”

“So…what?” she asked. “What now? You kissed me — I kissed you — we kissed each other. A lot. Angrily and a lot, and some other stuff too.”

Oliver cracked a smile at the accurate yet incomplete description of the alleyway, and Felicity wanted to mirror it, but the thought of them going back to normal, like nothing had happened…even if it was within the realm of human _possibility_ , she didn’t want that.

Maybe it was selfish, but she didn’t want that at all.

“I can’t control myself around you, and I know this sounds like self-flattery, but I don’t think —” she smiled nervously, well aware of how stupid she sounded “— I don’t think you can control yourself around me either. But I know what you’re afraid of — I mean — not the specifics. You don’t really talk about the island, or the Bratva, or the Mirakuru. Bad things, not a lot of happy stories…right?”

Oliver inclined his head, silently acknowledging the truth of it. Felicity hesitated, running over how it would sound, but at this point, most things that applied to one of them probably applied to the other, too.

She made a fist in front of her stomach. “What I know, right now, is that watching you with someone else — even thinking about you with someone else…it feels like getting a punch to the gut,” she said, softly. “Not that I’ve had the experience, but I’m guessing. It feels like _crap_ , and if kissing you — touching you — feels this good…it can’t be a bad thing, right?”

Oliver looked briefly at his feet, and back at her. “I don’t know,” he said. “You’re right — but I don’t have the answer to that.”

Felicity almost bit back the words, but honestly — at this point — who were they going to hurt?

“Unless the answer is _screw it_ , and we just go for… _whatever_ this is,” she said breathlessly, and it felt like releasing a pent-up gasp she hadn’t even realized she’d been holding in.

_Thank you, Victoria Vale._

_I now officially sound insane._

The words hovered between them, evidenced by the look on Oliver’s face (stunned, probably, railroaded, most likely), but before either half could dig themselves into a bigger hole of _totally-screwed-ness_ , Felicity’s phone buzzed.

She shook her head (and herself) and turned the screen over to check. “It’s — um — the scan I’ve been running on the bomb parts,” she said, reading off the results a little slower than usual, like she’d been thinking in another gear. “I think we have something.”

* * *

Tommy felt like he was pacing outside an operating theater, but without the benefit of horrible hospital coffee and a _lot_ more heavyweight security on all the entrances. Not the best analogy, since Verdant was probably one of the less sanitary places to be compared to an OR, and he was pretty sure there was no surgery on the planet that could treat two full-grown adults suffering from full-blown denial-itis.

“Didn’t think you were a nail-biter,” Diggle commented, not very helpfully. “I thought you were the cool type under stress.”

“What gave you _that_ impression?” Tommy said, inspecting his thumbnail. “I run around in the field like a chicken with its head cut off. I am _zero_ percent cool under pressure.”

“So…just the forty-five minutes it takes to set up an evil plan, then.”

Tommy finger-gunned at him. “Yep.”

They both went back to watching the monitors, showing the various angles of surveillance on the club floor. A somewhat risky option, given the unlikely chance — but still a chance — of them deciding to bang the whole thing out and Tommy getting scarred by the sight of Oliver’s ass, but Diggle (ever the voice of reason) had pointed out the practical impossibility of it.

Namely, how it was _so_ much more likely that they’d find a way to kill _him_.

The cameras had been pretty uneventful for the whole trap scenario, unless he counted Felicity kicking a balloon at Oliver as fireworks, which he didn’t, not really.

“At least they’re talking,” Tommy said, watching Oliver’s mouth move. “I don’t lip-read. Do you?”

“Not one of my strengths, no.” Diggle pointed at the screen. “But I _do_ believe that is them walking over to the secret Foundry door.”

“Oh.” There was a gigantic bang on the door. “ _Oh_. Who is it?” he called.

“Tommy,” Oliver said. “ _Open the freaking door._ ”

Only he didn’t say _freaking_.

There was a faint scuffle outside, as though Felicity had pushed Oliver out of the way. “Tommy, we have something on the bomber,” she said, in a much more calming voice. “Let us in. We’re running out of time on this.”

“You two worked it out?” Diggle said. “And I can’t believe I’m saying this — you promise?”

“ _Promise_ ,” she answered, followed more unwillingly by Oliver.

Diggle shrugged at Tommy. “Good enough for me.”

Tommy wanted to agree, but when Diggle got the door and their friends descended into the Foundry, Tommy noted the matching expressions of homicidal-ish intent on their faces, and made sure to put a table between himself and the power couple who were so married they even fantasized murder in sync.

“ _He-ey_ ,” he said, ready to dodge either way. “At least it worked.”

Surprisingly, neither of them made the beeline straight for him, opting instead to cluster around Felicity’s workstation. “Mm-hm,” she said sarcastically. “Last time I ever listen to you about free margaritas.”

Tommy gingerly walked up to them. “So…you’re all good? Talking again?”

They glanced at each other, briefly. “I’ve said my part,” Felicity said, quietly.

Oliver nodded, but there was something in the look that struck Tommy as significant, something he might have pried into, if Felicity hadn’t made a fist and punched his chest.

And it _hurt_.

“ _Ow_ ,” he said, while she went back to logging into her computers. The guys raised their eyebrows at him. “She punches really hard. _Gah_. My boob.”

“You don’t have a boob,” she pointed out, very validly.

“How come Digg doesn’t get a punch?” he said indignantly.

“Because he was just trying to help,” Felicity said fondly, exchanging smiles with her friend. “You — on the other hand — take advantage of that gorgeous face to do _evil_ things.”

Oliver snorted under his breath.

“You think I’m gorgeous?” Tommy asked.

“ _Anyway_ ,” Oliver interrupted, not so amused anymore. “What did you find about the bomb parts?”

“I ran the components and their makeup through databases logging bombers and their MOs, but I came up with squat. Because the wackadoos in question aren’t the type that end up in FBI databases — they post their designs _online_.”

Diggle grunted. “Jesus.”

“My thoughts exactly,” she said, showing them the website in question. “Belongs to a civilian militia group called _The Movement_ , lots of similar themes to our Crazypants’s anti-government manifesto, and they have a very active — _very_ hackable comment section. Always avoid the comment section, BTW. Goes for evading the law, and avoiding internet trolls. There are a _lot_ of angry weirdos on the internet.”

“Felicity,” Oliver said, in a not at all _married_ way. “What do we need to know?”

“Right, thank you.” She pointed at him. “One of their most active commenters — username _Shrapnel_ — has an IP address tracing back to Starling City. It’s a toyshop on 22nd, owned by a guy called Mark Scheffer, who may or may not be Mr Bomber. Maybe the Arrow can knock and see if he’s home?”

Diggle glanced at the time. “The rally’s in two hours, and you need backup.”

“I’ll hit the shop,” Oliver said. “John — I need you on the ground looking for the explosive. Tommy —”

“— Thea and Moira are both showing up for the rally,” he said, showing him the texts. “McKenna’s on perimeter, but I’ll stay close.”

Oliver nodded. “Felicity —”

They shared another one of those loaded looks.

“—talk me in,” he said.

She nodded back, and it was like the gears were whirring smoothly back in place, everything as it should have been.

Maybe Tommy Merlyn _wouldn’t_ be going to hell after all.

* * *

Oliver felt steadier than he had in days, despite the fact that a part of him was still reeling from what Felicity had said to him.

But now wasn’t the time.

“Where are you?” she asked, as he observed the shop’s darkened windows from the fire escape.

“Outside the shop,” he answered. “You?”

“Parked near the unity rally. Traffic was a nightmare,” she said, making him smile in her infallible way. “You okay?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Never better. As long as you don’t mind me doing this from my tablet, not the Foundry terminal.”

Oliver wondered if it was a veiled reference to when he’d questioned her abilities with computers, landing on his feet and starting to handle the front lock, using a flechette as a lockpick. “Felicity, you can do more on that tablet than anyone else I know. I trust you.”

The resulting pause sounded surprised. “You need a little work on your apologies,” she managed. “In more pressing news, I took down the burglar alarm remotely. You’re in the clear.”

Oliver nodded, and turned the knob with a faint click.

The shop smelled musty and cold, something pale and unoccupied about it, despite the displays being spotless and stacked meticulously by the owner. Shadows crisscrossed the floor, strange shapes in the dark.

“I don’t think he’s here,” he said, taking another step forward.

He froze, not just because he heard something mechanized whir to life, but because of the red laser beams converging around him like a web.

His second trap of the day, except he had a feeling this one was a higher level of _lethal_.

“ _Surprise_ ,” said a pre-recorded voice.

* * *

The voice filled the inside of Felicity’s car, _Crazy_ pouring from the speaker like acid fumes.

“I wouldn’t move if I were you,” it continued, while felt a cold sweat build on her palms and at the back of her neck. “You’ll want to see the show. It’s _very_ hard to rig a perimeter with explosives if it's city plaza, but fifty pounds of RDX high explosives can be _very_ spectacular when observed from the right distance. On the ground…not so much.”

“The bomb must be motion activated,” she said, already running through the possibilities. “Are you standing on something? What do you see?”

“Lasers,” Oliver said, very quietly, like he was trying to stay as motionless as possible. “At least a dozen beams, no visible explosive anywhere, probably in the walls or the furniture. I’m trapped, Felicity.”

“Believe it or not, that was probably the idea,” she said, wanting to kick herself in frustration. “I shouldn’t have let you go in through the front door. He was _expecting_ us to check — _frack_ —”

“The explosives have to be hooked up to something, right?” Oliver said. “He needs a power source to trigger the blast.”

“Right. _Right_.” Felicity rooted through the city planning database for something in the way of electrical plans she could use, well aware that she was in a tiny red car, albeit with a high-performing tablet computer which had seen far worse. But they were running out of time, and she couldn’t go running back to the Foundry now. “Okay, assuming that he’s using the store’s power source to power the bomb, _not_ an independent outlet like a car battery — unhelpful, I know — you need to blow out the fuses.”

“Would I do that by shooting at a fuse box?” Again, too calmly. “I can see one at the back of the shop.”

“Theoretically, yes, but —”

“Hold on,” Oliver said, and she heard the tightening of a bowstring.

“ _Oliver!_ ” There was a _snap_ and a roar of sound in Felicity’s ear, and she sat frozen for the longest minute, waiting to hear…something.

“Oliver?” Her voice cracked at the last syllable.

The channel hissed and his side reopened with a _pop_. “Sorry, I lost the signal for a sec—”

Felicity hunched forward over the steering wheel — hitting her forehead on the horn (ouch) — hands over her mouth. “Don’t _do_ that again,” she said furiously. “Don’t just —”

“— risk my neck?” Oliver finished. “I thought that was something you liked about me.”

It took a second for her to realize that he was probably making a joke. And that she had something in her eyes. “So besides apologies, we really need to work on your jokes too,” she said, wiping at them with her sleeves. “Are you hurt?”

“No. I’m heading to the rally now. Shrapnel said he rigged the perimeter — you need to warn the others.”

“I will.” Felicity fumbled for the door handle and shoved it open to a blast of freezing night air. There was snow on the streets and a _lot_ of people in a place that was literally about to blow. “I’ll look for the guy in green.”

* * *

“Oh _hell_ ,” Tommy said, exclusively for the benefit of the open line. It wasn’t the first time he had an earpiece, and he'd learned from the last experience not to touch it while in public (ha, that sounded wrong). “Do you see how many people there are? It’s like fish in a barrel, but with a _lot_ more TNT and a total violation of league rules. Not that I’m saying there’s a Fish in a Barrel League, but what if there were, I mean —”

“Blood’s popular,” Diggle said, from somewhere along the fringes of the city square. “Just keep your eyes peeled for anything that looks like a trigger. Felicity said it’d be on the perimeter.”

 _Perimeter_ was a deceptively easy word, especially when the city square in question was big enough to fit an army of elephants, maybe even a hippo or two. Tommy was eyeing the press gaggle surrounding Sebastian Blood and the stage when he caught sight of a trigger — albeit of a different kind, taking pictures and probably annoying his security with her questions.

“Victoria Vale,” he muttered to himself. “Of course.”

“Tommy,” said a voice behind him, and he turned to find McKenna with the rest of his family. Plus Roy. “They’ve been looking for you.”

“Sorry, sorry —” He kissed Moira on the cheek, hugged Thea, and managed a weird spasm in Roy’s direction. “The crowd’s insane. Maybe you guys should turn back, head somewhere else. I’ll represent.”

“I’m inclined to agree,” Moira said, eyeing the crowd with some worry. “But we’re already here.”

Tommy winced. “Literally _the_ worst reason to do anything, ever.”

“He’s just being a hypochondriac,” Thea said, looping her arm through Roy’s. “Let’s go — I think Sebastian’s about to start.”

Moira smiled back at McKenna (a gesture of approval that Tommy didn’t _quite_ have time to celebrate) and followed her daughter, leaving the two of them to hang back, scanning the sea of heads with a growing feeling of helplessness. Plus profanity. “Please tell me that thing in your ear has something to do with the Arrow being on this,” McKenna said in a low voice.

Tommy reached up to his ear without thinking. “You can see that?”

McKenna gave him a look. “Does he know who we’re looking for?”

Conscious of the crowd, Tommy had to bend closer to McKenna’s ear to prevent being overheard. “We think he’s called Mark Scheffer, goes by Shrapnel when he’s posting anti-government crap on some crazy-town group’s website. Oh, and there’s a bomb. Which ups the ante. I think.”

She nodded. “Yes, it does. Sergeant Lance is around here somewhere. I’ll tell him to run the name —”

“Why so serious, you two?”

Victoria Vale raised her eyebrows at them, camera in her hands. “Aren’t you gonna listen to the alderman’s speech?”

Tommy had already grabbed McKenna’s sleeve in a protective gesture, because Victoria could be…slightly enthusiastic. “Shouldn’t you have a photographer trailing you? Where’s Olsen?”

“Packing for his next assignment. This one I’m doing solo,” she said, and beamed at McKenna. “Hi. Nice to see you again.”

“And you,” McKenna said politely, keeping a pretty good lid on the stress levels. “The SCPD doesn’t have a comment for the magazine, I’m sorry.”

“You should probably go,” Tommy said to Victoria, feeling concern in spite of the less-than-ideal way they’d broken things off. “It’s not safe around here.”

“Safe enough for a date,” Victoria returned. “Then again, you always did like the danger. Where’s Oliver? Thought you two were usually attached at the hip. Is he with a woman?”

Tommy had a brief and unwanted thought that _technically speaking_ , Oliver _was_ with Felicity, just as the Arrow and the tech whiz respectively. “I don’t see what Oliver’s love life has to do with anything.”

Victoria wound the little clicky wheel thing on her camera. “I can multi-task, just —”

A gunshot rang out across the space, triggering a wave of screams, and McKenna grabbed Tommy by the collar and dragged him down, her other hand on her weapon. “Stay down,” she said, her head turning left and right. “Vale — _Vale!_ ”

Tommy looked up to see that Victoria — contrary to popular instincts — was _not_ on her knees to avoid getting shot at, but very much standing and taking a series of photos rapid-fire.

He tapped on the earpiece. “Guys, what’s going on? Where’s the — _oh_.”

Victoria was facing the very edge of the city square, where a dark motorcycle had just pulled up in front of a perimeter marker and two people, one of whom was on the ground and looked vaguely familiar.

The Arrow. Diggle. Felicity.

“Shit,” he swore, and would have started running, but McKenna grabbed him again.

“Don’t!” she said fiercely.

She probably had a point, what with the non-stupid reporter standing next to them. The shooter wasn’t anywhere Tommy could see, and Felicity — identifiable by her blonde hair — was bent over Diggle, half-supporting him while she and the Arrow said something to each other (again, he realized Victoria’s camera was still going _click-click_ ).

There was a nod on the hooded, masked vigilante side, and said vigilante roared off in one direction, presumably to hunt down the whacko who’d made the unfortunate mistake of shooting one of his partners.

Bad enough that it was Diggle, but Tommy didn’t even want to imagine the carnage if the bullet had gotten Felicity instead.

“Got it,” Victoria said, with what felt like a supremely ominous level of excitement. “Looks like the Arrow might have made some friends.”

Tommy heaved an internal sigh, because _crap_.

* * *

Blood ran down the side of Diggle’s chest, a sight that drew similar gagging noises from Tommy and Felicity (as far as she was concerned, the only thing needles were meant to go into was fabric and a half-knitted Christmas scarf), but nothing but stony stoicism from the soldier himself.

“So you didn’t kill him,” Diggle said, peering at Oliver’s suturing like he had half a mind to do it himself, bullet to the shoulder or not. “Gotta say that I have some mixed feelings about that one.”

“Handed him off to the SCPD,” Tommy said, patting Oliver on the back like a proud parent (which would explain _so_ much). “Not a single arrow wound in the whacko.”

“Right, because he only saves those for his friends,” Felicity interjected, earning a chuckle from Diggle and a narrow-eyed look from Oliver.

“Done.” Oliver snipped the last suture and let Felicity — who’d been hovering worriedly over his shoulder, dislike of blood aside — do the rest to patch up their friend.

“You shouldn’t have jumped in front of me,” she said firmly, smoothing the sterile gauze bandage across his shoulder. “I mean, there’s some _super_ karma points for taking a bullet for a tiny, blonde IT girl with glasses, but you shouldn’t have done that.”

Diggle rubbed her cheek affectionately. “Worth it,” he said. “Besides, you know me — I’ll walk it off.”

Felicity huffed in a reluctant laugh, and opened her arms. “Can I hug you, or do you need a couple extra pills for that?”

“I think we can risk it — _argh_ —” Diggle grunted in surprise when she took him up on the offer, rubbing her back in comforting circles like _she_ was the one who deserved it, not the other way round.

“You’re not driving yourself home, right?” she said, in full _sorry you got shot, let me make up for it_ -mode. “Where’d you put your keys? I’ll—”

“Already taken care of,” Tommy said, waggling the keyring. “Don’t worry, I’m a _very_ safe driver.”

Diggle snorted, ducking to let Felicity put the sling over his head. “I feel safer already.” He got to his feet and took his jacket from Oliver, but paused to give them both a speculative look. “Is it safe to leave the two of you alone down here, or do I need to send a babysitter?”

Felicity flushed, but Oliver only laughed, in a _that’s cute_ kind of way. One of those man-jokes that ran on a different wavelength, probably. “We’ll be fine,” he said. “Thanks to some unconventional methods.”

Tommy saluted them both. “Happy to meddle. Anyway — shall we, sir? I believe there’s a fuzzy blanket and a TV remote with your name on it.”

Chuckling, Diggle steered him the other way and they both headed up the staircase, Tommy chattering the whole time, right up to the door slamming behind them.

It was silence again, but a different one. Not as bad, though not _quite_ the same one she was used to. Something a little changed. Maybe it always would be, from now on.

Felicity’s phone — ignored right up until then — started buzzing in the pocket of her jeans, and she sensed Oliver turning away to mind his own business (a surprisingly rare occurrence around these parts) so that she could answer.

And it was the kind of call she needed to answer on her own.

Felicity ducked behind one of the cabinets, a location featuring a hissing steam pipe for company, and put the phone to her ear.

“Hi,” she said, a hand apologetically on her forehead. “I’m so sorry, work’s been —”

“—crazy,” James said, and she somehow guessed that he was smiling. “Yeah, I figured.”

There was a noisy steam pipe on her end, but she could hear people sounds on his side of the call too, along with the faint sound of a magnified voice, some kind of announcement. “Where are you?” she asked, already guessing the answer.

“Starling City Airport,” he said. “My flight to Casablanca’s in twenty minutes, but I just thought I’d call — tell you we’ll probably have to reschedule drinks.”

“I don’t know, I hear airlines these days are nice about people Skyping their coffee dates,” Felicity joked, and winced at the poor choice of words. “Not _date-_ date. Sorry. You don’t know me very well, but this happens a lot. This is why I try to avoid talking at funerals — and weddings. And christenings. Most places with people I don’t know very well, actually —”

“Felicity?” James was laughing now. “It’s fine, really. I’m not the kind of guy who thinks starting something before getting on a flight to halfway across the world is a good idea, and last time I checked, I said _yes_ to being friends.”

Felicity looked down at her feet, biting her lip as she leaned on the steel behind her, letting her head thud quietly against the hard surface. “I’m turning out to be a pretty crappy friend, aren’t I?” she sighed.

“I don’t know you that well, but you seem like the kind of person who has a good reason to do the things you do. You also seem like the kind of person who’s worth it — all of it — no matter how complicated it gets.”

“Are you still talking about being friends?” she asked.

James made a noise that signified _not really_. “A bit of parting advice, just in case I don’t get cell service in Casablanca. I think we both know that you have your eye on someone else, and that’s great. I just hope he realizes how lucky he is.”

The straightforward, no-nonsense honesty made Felicity blink hard. “James…”

“That would be my boarding call,” he said, and she heard the rustle of him getting up, bag over his shoulder. “I’d still love to get coffee sometime.”

Not for the first time, Felicity wondered how someone like James Olsen was still single. “I promise I won’t blank on you this time,” she said, meaning it.

“I’ll hold you to that.” A pause, a single breath. “See you around, Felicity.”

“Safe flight,” she answered. “James.”

Quietly, unobtrusively, the call ended, and she put the phone back into her pocket, not quite sure what to make of everything. It had been a _very_ strange day, between quasi- _Parent Trap_ scenarios, bringing in a dangerously explosive whacko, proposing a completely out-of-left-field option for herself and a guy who spent his nights on rooftops in green leather, and at the end of it — a new friend, who would shortly be in a completely different time zone and continental space.

“ _So_ weird,” she muttered to herself, stepping back out into the Foundry.

She paused, because Oliver was sitting at one of the tables, still in his vigilante gear, a series of arrows laid out in front of him while he worked, his hands deftly attaching arrowheads to shafts, quiet and dextrous and focused.

“Hey,” she said, lowering herself into her favorite chair, wincing slightly at the achy leg muscles (dangerous side-effect from running around all night). “Shouldn’t you be out on the streets, hunting for a guy in a skull mask?”

Oliver smiled briefly. “Not tonight,” he said, and held her gaze for a second, almost entirely by accident.

A second was all it took to remind her of what she’d said — what she’d suggested — that afternoon, about _screwing it_ and so on, and the absolute lack of a response on his part.

Felicity turned back to her computers, resolved, in the merciful absence of a rejection, to run a quick check on her systems, just in case the Tommy Merlyn factor _had_ meddled a bit more than she’d expected.

She’d forgotten how quiet Oliver could be, until she caught sight of his reflection in the monitor. Somehow, she wasn’t surprised at all, and maybe dreading it, just a little.

Still, she turned around, and looked him in the eye, mentally steeling herself to hear the answer.

“Can we talk?” he asked.

* * *

Oliver knew this was the time. Now or never. He was acutely conscious that Felicity was watching him warily from her chair, as though she already expected the worst, and that he was having trouble choosing words that didn’t make him sound completely and utterly inept.

But that was how she made him feel, unpracticed and exposed and…vulnerable. It was a rush of danger, a risk he wasn’t used to taking, and here they were. On the precipice of something else.

If only he could find the words for it.

“I’m sorry…for snapping at you,” he said, awkwardly. “I _was_ being jealous, about you and James Olsen. And Barry Allen. You’re right — I can’t control myself around you, and it _does_ feel like getting punched in the gut when I see you with someone else, but —”

Felicity sucked in her breath, the way someone braced for a blow. Another reminder of how easy it was for him to hurt her, because that was how she was around him. Unashamedly open, vulnerability worn like a strength, thoughts showing on her face like she wanted him to know them.

So different, the two of them.

“—what I said in Russia, I said it because I wanted to protect myself…and you. I told you before that nothing good happened on Lian Yu. That wasn’t all. Shado, Sara…they were both people I've loved, and _horrible_ things have happened to them because of me. Sara still has the scars from the island, and Shado…”

He inhaled, sharply, seeing in front of his eyes the black forest and the searing white light, the flash of the gun going off and the soundless whip of her dark head as blood sprayed the leaves, the body landing silently between the trees.

“Shado is in a grave on Lian Yu, because she was shot in the head, right in front of my eyes.”

Felicity removed her hand from her mouth. “It wasn’t your fault,” she said, defending him without qualms, always so willing to see the best in him.

Oliver made a sound of disagreement, because absolving himself of guilt wasn’t the issue here. “My point is — I don’t have happy stories, and you, Felicity, you’re as close to a happy story as someone like me has any right to have, even if we’re just…the way we are. Right now. That will still be the happiest I ever hoped to be, and I just don’t want to…to lose all of it, if the worst happens. I don’t know what I’d do.”

A second’s pause, as the words sank in. Oliver winced as Felicity’s chair scraped across the floor, from her pushing out of it, turning the other way with her hands on her head.

“Oliver, what we are — right now — it’s…it’s _suspended_ ,” she said, the agitation plain in her voice. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but we’re stuck in limbo. Two years, _months_ of all the back-and-forth, you getting jealous, _me_ getting jealous, the _almosts_ and…this _wanting_ …aren’t you tired of it? Because I am, and two nights ago, I thought there was a chance we’d start moving forward, for real. But…but you’re afraid.”

“Of course I am,” he said, not quite a snap, and not quite at her. “Felicity, if you knew half the things I’ve seen, half the things I’ve experienced, you wouldn’t want to take that risk.”

Felicity clasped her hands together, holding them so tightly that her knuckles blanched white. “I understand,” she said, slowly. “I know that you have reasons to be afraid, but here’s the thing — we can’t go back. Two people can’t just be quasi-friends who… _make out_ sometimes in an alley when everything’s too much, it doesn’t work like that. We’re here, right now, and you either want to do this, or you don’t. What we have — what we _could_ have — is either worth the risk, or it isn’t, and what you just said is premised on one, _very_ important misconception.”

In spite of himself, Oliver had to smile. “Just the one?”

Felicity was in front of him now, and he unclenched his fists without her asking him to, feeling her palms slide against his like a shock of electricity, of inexplicable _rightness_. Only one of them had a habit of wearing masks, and Oliver had let his drop a long time ago when it came to her. He felt her eyes searching his face, studying him in her quiet, observant way. “You aren’t in this alone,” she whispered, because that was all she needed. “ _I’m_ taking that risk with you. Or I could be, if you decided t—”

Only she could say the simplest things and change his world.

Felicity never got to complete the sentence, because Oliver had already leaned down and kissed her full on the mouth. It was still a surprise, but unlike the alley, they weren't frustrated and breathless with anger at each other, though they were being honest — _finally_ — with what the other wanted, and admitting that they wanted it too.

It was like sprinting downhill without a second’s hesitation, like free-falling into unfamiliar territory, like taking a step towards something bigger, brighter, and better.

Their hands had been pressed between them at the start, but they’d somehow gotten free, and Oliver ran them up Felicity’s back and into her hair, the way he’d been wanting to for ages, feeling her arms curled behind his neck, lips curving in a smile underneath his own.

It felt like the longest time ago, him wondering how Felicity would kiss, if things had been different.

Now he knew.

“That had better be a _yes_ ,” she said hoarsely, when they eventually came up for air. “Otherwise things just got a _lot_ more awkward.”

Oliver ran his thumb down the side of her cheek, feeling something that defied description. “Whatever this is,” he promised, holding her face in his hands and wanting to be absolutely nowhere else, “I’m in.”

Felicity’s smile was a light of its own, and he closed his eyes to another kiss, long and slow, as though they had all the time in the world. Together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A couple of things:  
> \- Uh, I'm sorry if I'm ruining anyone's imagination, but they are NOT going to sleep together after this scene cuts to black. Honestly, even the _suggestion_ ;)  
>  \- Have some fun stuff planned for the Olicity dynamic, because I don't quite see them telling everyone that they're together so soon, I mean Tommy would just FLIP :D  
> \- Okay, so coming up is probably 2x13, which features Sara Lance! (And Nyssa al Ghul, which should be fun :DD) Any suggestions are much appreciated!!


	21. High-Functioning Happiness (Heir to the Demon, Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PHEW, thanks for the reaction, guys! It was great seeing everyone on board with Olicity kick-starting things a lot earlier. You're all the best :)

As far as board meetings went, Felicity counted one as a rousing success if it took place on a weekday morning, _and_ hit the tail-end mark with zero bloodshed. Especially if it involved any kind of presentation on her part.

“So, in summary,” she said, clicking to the next slide, “our partners at Mercury Labs have agreed to install up to 22,000 extra panels at their current location, which — if you’ve been paying attention, and hopefully you have, otherwise I’m doing a _terrible_ job —”

Cue a murmur of laughter that she hadn't been expecting, which made Felicity smile, a fact that had nothing whatsoever to do with one of the CEOs sitting at the conference table, who may or may not have given her a tiny wink.

 _Anyway_.

“— this means that we could save up to $106 million in biomass destruction, bypassing the major culprit behind the low economic viability of most biofuel projects. The use of genetically modified cyanobacteria in the reaction produces liquid fuel with _unheard of_ efficiency and cost-reduction. But how’s that going to work out? Well, in our test run with Mercury Labs, they were responsible for the bio-engineering while Queen Consolidated contributed the state-of-the-art collection system, and the yield went _far_ beyond what we need to make up for our shared cost margins. As far as R &D is concerned, it’s a highly viable project, one that _I_ personally recommend going forward with.” Felicity spun a little on her heel, holding her hands out by her sides, the heavily toned-down version of a _hallelujah_. “End of presentation.”

“Thank you, Miss Smoak,” Oliver said, getting to his feet to face the others. “I think I speak on behalf of the board when I say that we’re happy to continue the project. Isabel?”

Isabel smiled her usual tight smile from the head of the table, like Felicity had spit into her morning coffee — or whatever androids put down their esophaguses to keep the gears loose. Though if she had to guess, it probably had more to do with the recent magazine article on Queen Consolidated, which featured less of the controlled, dynamic company vision _a la_ Isabel Rochev, and more of certain other employees, of which Felicity happened to be one.

She _really_ didn’t want to know if Isabel had turned her copy of the article into a dartboard.

But this was real life and a high-functioning boardroom, and the two women smiled at each other from across the room. “I suppose we’ll have to leave it in your capable hands, Felicity,” Isabel said.

Felicity bit the side of her tongue to suppress a smile at the obvious sarcasm, and swore she saw a muscle in Oliver’s cheek twitch.

Post-biofuel presentation and obligatory whip-crack from their CEO, the meeting dispersed with relative quickness, with a few board members lingering to speak to Oliver as they always did. Felicity busied herself with dismantling the presentation gear and gathering up her binders, fully aware that Isabel was watching her and Oliver the way a snake watched someone inching a little too close to her eggs.

If only the stubborn rainbow circle of doom wasn’t insistently delaying her progress. Felicity tapped one finger on the table, deliberately not paying attention to Isabel sidling up to Oliver — now alone and presumably open for the kill.

“I’ve been meaning to ask about all those late nights you’ve been pulling at the office,” she said, in what Felicity supposed was meant to be a coquettish tone of voice (then again, she was _heinously_ biased on the subject). “Something I can help with?”

As oblivious as Oliver could be, he was incredibly good at not taking the bait when it came to inter-office flirtation with the _She-Witch_. “Just catching up on work,” he answered. “Can’t leave you to pick up all the slack in our partnership.”

“Well, you could always make it up to me with dinner,” Isabel said, and Felicity almost snorted out loud.

Instead, she piled her computer onto the armful of papers and turned to go, feeling like the seams of her dress were about to burst from the effort of keeping a straight face.

“Good work with the presentation, Felicity,” Isabel said, tipping her head to one side to see past Oliver’s shoulder.

“Thanks,” she said, and held up one finger (not the rude one). “Also — not to eavesdrop, or anything — but if you guys _are_ going to dinner, my date and I went to this _amazing_ fusion place on Fifth last week. Fair warning, you’ll need a microscope to find the food, but —”

Oliver cleared his throat. “I’ll look into it. Thank you, Felicity.”

“Happy to help,” she said, pushing through the glass doors to be on her way.

She waited until she was out of Isabel’s frame of view and returned the wink over her shoulder, as though she couldn’t see him shake his head at her in a distinctly unamused way.

If Oliver could survive armed gangs, he could get himself out of unwanted dinner plans.

Most likely.

* * *

The door shut with a slam, leaving them in the relative darkness of the print room. Not the best clandestine make-out spot, but it was between that, hacking an elevator (again), and the stairwell. Felicity’s heel nudged an open file, currently forgotten in a heap on the floor, squirming as Oliver’s hands went up the seams of her dress. “ _Fusion place with your date_?” he queried, and she laughed, leaning her head on the frame while he kept himself busy.

“Okay, that place was terrible, but at least you’d have something to take your mind off the dinner date from hell, with a she-demon who _clearly_ wants to get back in your pants —”

Oliver lifted his head from her bare shoulder with a faint (tingly) sigh. “You know that conversation we had about the ground rules?”

“Mm. _Vaguely_ ,” she said, nipping at his earlobe. “I thought the golden rule was that we weren’t gonna tell people until — uh — kingdom come.”

“Kingdom can’t come soon enough,” was his unashamedly frank answer. “Besides that —”

“— you mean the one about keeping it professional in public?”

“— not just that, but —”

“— oh, when we agreed no workout gear for me and no Salmon ladder for you if we’re not alone — _ah_ —”

The slightly embarrassing noise in question had been elicited as a result of Oliver’s stubble tickling her neck. “ _Fe-li-ci-ty_ ,” Oliver said, drawing out each syllable with a scratchy kiss pressed into her skin. “New rule.”

It was too early to let him know this, but Felicity could purr like a cat from good kisses on her neck. “Mm?”

“No bringing up Moscow unless it’s _absolutely_ necessary.”

“Define _absolutely necessary_. People make stupid mistakes and I reserve the right to use them as examples to discourage future repeats — which sounds pretty _necessary_ to me, I mean, in the interests of stopping you from landing on your face.”

“I never land on my face.” Another supreme example of Oliver missing the point.

“First time for everything,” she whispered, and he was smiling when he kissed her in the dark. “See? Definitions — _mmf_ — are — _important_.”

“That’s a very good point, Felicity,” Oliver said, while her hands slid underneath his suit jacket to explore the general region of his chest. “So what’s the definition that applies to us?”

“Oh no, I’m not labelling this,” she said, wondering if it was a terrible idea to unbutton his shirt in the current circumstances. “We are two adults who like each other — a lot — and are more than friends, and make out to prove the point — also a lot. See? Simple.”

“Mm.” She could feel his hands on the zipper of her dress, wordlessly teasing the possibility of going further than making out in dark spots, and other telling behaviors that came with being a couple (it was a continuing surprise to her that they hadn’t gotten there yet). “Go on a date with me.”

“ _Wait_.” Felicity pulled back to look Oliver in the eye. “We’re not dating?”

“You know what I mean,” he laughed, his hands chafing at her hips. “An actual date.”

Felicity’s face was deathly serious. “You think we’re ready for that kind of thing?”

Oliver looked confused. “Well — I mean — people and dinner —”

She stopped the adorable babble with another kiss. “Too — _easy_. And I’d say yes, but there’s not a whole lot of places a billionaire like Oliver Queen can go without being recognized. Unless you’re willing to wear a paper bag over your head to _Au Cheval_.”

Cue the sarcastic look. “A paper bag, really?”

Felicity nodded, holding up two fingers. “I’ll cut eyeholes in it for you, maybe even one for your _mouth_ if you play your cards right —” she cut herself off with a whoop, because Oliver had picked her up with zero ceremony and deposited her on the nearby table to continue their conversation.

“One of these days,” he said, as she pulled him closer with her fingers hooked into his belt, “I’m going to take you out on a real date, Miss Smoak.”

Felicity wondered if it was possible for her face to break from too much smiling, or if there was something off, weird, and fundamentally paradoxical about them — her and Oliver, _them_ — being this happy. “I guess I’ll hold you to that, Mr Queen.”

* * *

Oliver paused in his note-taking, the last sentence hovering unfinished, and stared at his left hand, open and streaked from the rays of sunlight falling across his desk. It was still a surprise to him how he could cup the side of Felicity’s face in one hand, how small she was compared to him, and how every time he touched her seemed to bring a new discovery.

Like the way she snatched breaths with her lips still against his, too eager to pull away for even a second, or the way she liked to link their fingers together and pull his hand palm to palm with hers, and the more than hilarious discovery that she couldn’t do a proper wink, not for lack of trying (and they’d tried, alone, and a lot).

A part of him wondered if it was tempting fate to be this at ease with the status quo — where his personal life was concerned, anyway — when there was a famously established trend of catastrophic downturns as soon as something started to go right.

Another part of him could give less than a damn, because it was Felicity, and that had to count for something. Not for his sake — but for hers.

She deserved better than whatever broken system his universe turned on, and Oliver was going to try his hardest to make sure that she got it.

 _Speak of the devil_.

Distinctly feeling the need for a modified expression, Oliver picked up his office phone to answer. “Hi,” he said, having memorized her office extension. “Did I leave something behind?”

“Besides your dignity?” Felicity laughed, and he could just make out the sound of her pen tapping on her desk. Teasing him. “No, I called because I have a _very_ important question for you.”

“Oh.” Oliver sat a little straighter in his chair. “What is it?”

“Boxers or briefs?”

Oliver gave a snort of laughter that made his assistant glance questioningly at him through the glass door, and he fought to keep his expression neutral, having no doubt whatsoever that anything else would trigger a flood of office gossip as to the CEO’s dating life. “Why — is that relevant?”

“Just wondering. I mean, I know we’re not officially dating — that would imply an actual dinner date, and we’re still working out the logistics on that one — but since we’re doing everything else —”

“—not everything else,” Oliver reminded her, as though it was important.

“— well, not _everything_ ,” the pen was most definitely tapping furiously at this point, “we’re not fast-forwarding that far, right? By mutual agreement…two weeks ago. Not that I’m counting.”

“Right,” Oliver said, just noticing that his assistant was trying to get his attention.

But more importantly, that Tommy Merlyn was walking into his office without preamble, and he couldn’t hang up — at that point in the conversation — without it seeming outwardly strange.

 _I’ll wait_ , Tommy mouthed, making a huge cross with his arms to indicate that Oliver shouldn’t end the call.

Oliver cleared his throat. “I can see how there’s a definite conflict of interest…in that — _merger_ — issue.”

“ _Merger issue_?” Felicity repeated. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”

“There’s another client present in the discussion,” he said, while Tommy stretched out on the leather chair, still very much within earshot. “And there’s a distinct benefit to keeping them in the dark.”

“ _Oh_ ,” she said. “Tommy’s there. Thank god, I thought you were trying to hint that you had some kind of office fetish, or something. Which would have been fine, but I don’t think my living room can fit a replica conference table, and all the walls around here are glass.”

Oliver had never wished harder for Felicity to be less funny. “That’s correct,” he said, in a voice that suggested he had a head cold. “Shall we discuss this in person?”

“I have a feeling we won’t be doing much talking,” she answered, very validly. “But sure. See you when I see you. Try not to blow the lid off the shenanigans — just refrain from blowing — _anything_ — I don’t know why I said that, though the dry spell may have something to do with it —”

“ _I’ll do my best_ ,” Oliver interrupted, before he lost his composure.

“You just get cute when you’re grumpy, you know,” she said, before hanging up.

Oliver put down the phone and forced himself to look less pleased. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Important call.”

“And you look _adorable_ when you’re being all serious and _CEO_ -y,” Tommy said, swinging his legs off the side with a certain gingerness (he’d been training with Oliver and the results spoke for themselves). “Before you ask me what the hell I’m doing here in your office, I came to check in on you.”

As a matter of instinct, Oliver looked down at himself to check for obvious bloodstains or physical injury. “Why?” he asked.

Tommy gave him the best version of the _please_ look. “Because you’re my best friend and I can tell when you’re acting weird. It’s been two weeks since you and Felicity made up, but since then, you’ve had time to beat the crap out of me every night — okay, _that_ sounded wrong, powering through — and not, I don’t know, _wooing_ the object of your affections.”

“ _Wooing_ her,” Oliver repeated, dryly.

Tommy either missed the sarcasm or chose to ignore it. “Someone told me that she’s dating. A _guy_ , Oliver, a _guy_.”

“Who told you _that_?”

He waved a hand dismissively, an action he clearly regretted from the sore muscles. “Heard it on my way up here. So who’s the guy, and how soon can you put an arrow in him?”

Oliver made an equally dismissive noise. “Felicity’s free to do what she wants. We agreed on that, thanks to your bright idea to lock us inside the club.”

“Seriously? That’s what you agreed on?”

He nodded. “We agreed that jealousy doesn’t bring out the best in me, and the best thing for us would be a supportive friendship.”

“A _supportive friendship_?” Tommy looked murderous. “What in actual hell is the _matter_ with you? If my hand wasn’t so stiff, I’d slap you right now.”

“But it is, and you know I’m right.” Oliver jabbed a finger in his direction. “I’m tired of fighting with Felicity, she’s tired of fighting with me, and the work in the Foundry’s too important to compromise with our personal issues. We’re all adults here, and Felicity’s seeing someone else. I plan to leave it alone.”

“But you —”

“Promise me you’ll stop meddling,” Oliver said, firmly. “Your last try already backfired.”

“Bu—”

“ _Promise_.”

Tommy narrowed his eyes at Oliver. “Fine. But for the record, I’m doing this under protest. Also because I can’t move my arms and legs fast enough to hit you.”

“Protest noted,” Oliver said, and picked up his pen again. “Anything else?”

* * *

Felicity was guessing, by the eight consecutive text alert in the same minute, that whatever glorious yarn Oliver Queen had managed to spin for the benefit of his best friend, it had either broken his ability to send texts normally, or driven him up the proverbial wall.

“Oh Jesus,” she muttered, finally skimming a long text she’d just received from Tommy. “What did you _tell_ him?”

By _you_ , she meant the CEO working one floor upstairs, who she was currently seeing behind closed doors and otherwise having one _hell_ of a time with.

But that was neither here nor there.

“Miss Smoak, you have a visitor,” said her assistant.

She frowned, clicking out of the biofuel project spreadsheets. “I don’t have anything on my calendar, do I?”

“ _Surprise_.”

Felicity looked up to see Victoria Vale standing in the door, only briefly, because she was already walking up to the desk and pulling out a chair for herself like she belonged there (huh, yet another similarity to her ex-boyfriend Tommy Merlyn). Her heels were bright red today, the same color as her fingernails and perfect-as-always lipstick.

“Hi — uh — Victoria,” Felicity said, stealthily putting her phone into a drawer. “By all means, make yourself at home — I guess. What brings you to this neck of the woods?”

“Besides visiting a friend?”

Felicity raised her eyebrows, and Victoria laughed, reaching into her bag for a brown envelope. “I need your help with a story, something I’m putting together for my editor. Think you can help?”

The brown envelope should have been warning sign #1, because no nice exchange had ever started with someone handing someone else a manila envelope, and Felicity stared at the pictures — polaroid-sized — for a long second, before looking back up at Victoria, who was still watching her.

“I don’t understand,” she said, even though she did, and was only hoping that she was wrong, even though she hardly ever was.

Victoria leaned forward and slid one of the photos towards her. Pen in hand, she pointed it at one of the three figures, specifically, the one with the green hood. “Arrow,” she said, and moved the pen to Diggle — on the ground and turned away from the camera — “stranger,” the pen was beside Felicity’s head in profile now “— _you_. Up close and personal with Starling City’s very own Robin Hood.”

“Oh. It was…the unity rally, right?” she said, her pulse hammering so loudly that it was a miracle Victoria didn’t catch it. “Yeah, the guy got shot by the — uh — Crazypants, but I didn’t catch his name. He was with friends and they took him to the paramedics, I guess.”

Victoria’s foot made a lazy circle in the air. “That’s interesting. Because surrounding hospitals don’t have records of any unity rally shootings, so that means he didn’t seek medical attention for a gunshot wound, which — let’s just say — you had no way of knowing. Anyway, what’s even _more_ interesting is how your first instinct is to talk about the civilian _what’s-his-face_ , not the vigilante, who you probably got a pretty good look at, right? I mean, you’re talking in the picture.”

“I can’t remember what I said, the adrenaline and everything was just — _gah_ —” Felicity lied, clutching her pen so tight it could have snapped. “He’s green. And he has a bike.”

“When Count Vertigo kidnapped you, he was there to get you out.”

“That’s kinda what he does, Victoria. He saves people.”

“The same person, more than once?” Victoria pressed. “That’s some _pretty_ big odds.”

“This _is_ Starling City,” Felicity smiled at her. “Crime on every corner? Wackos escaping prison? I wouldn’t be surprised that he repeats himself.”

Ideally, the pause that followed was for Victoria to process the logical deflection, which clearly didn’t happen. “That’s how you want to play this?” she asked.

Felicity lifted her shoulders. “I’m not playing anything. I didn’t see his face. He has a hood, and he wears a mask. Ask any of the lowlifes he’s put behind bars — the people he gets out of trouble don’t get perks of special access.”

Victoria chuckled. “That’s funny. Well —” she gathered up the photos, sliding them back into the envelope “— sorry to have wasted your time.”

“Um —” Felicity said, as Victoria stood to go. “If you don’t mind me asking, how’s my picture relevant to your story?”

“Oh, it isn’t, probably,” she answered. “Not even sure I’ll be running it. Bystander doesn’t see Arrow’s face? Not exactly new.”

“Right,” Felicity said. “Cool beans.”

A sentence she’d never used before, and it probably showed. Victoria winked at her and left, leaving a trail of something vaguely _Chanel_ wafting behind her. After making sure she was out of view, Felicity reached for her phone and called Oliver.

“Hey, it’s me,” she said. “I think we might have a problem.”

* * *

For Felicity, Foundry nights weren’t Foundry nights unless they started with some kind of brute force.

“Guys, it’s not a good sign if no one’s using a bow and arrow — but I’m _still_ more worried about serious bodily harm,” she said, half-expecting to see a loose molar flying past her workstation. “Seriously rethinking my application to join team training sessions. _Sexist_ , by the way, the fact that I’m never invited.”

For a guy who had sported some epic bruises for forgetting to _Block_ the right way, Tommy looked like he was reliving the best Christmas of his life, facing down his best friend with Diggle and a pair of rattan canes. “That’s probably a good thing — _whoa_ —” he ducked a swipe from Oliver, suitably teacher-like with a stick of his own and superbly distracting shirtlessness “— I mean, I’m a gentleman, but these guys’ll grab _anything_.”

Diggle brought down his cane to block Oliver’s attempt at disarming Tommy from behind. “Less wisecracking, more watching your six,” he said, pressing Oliver back with a suspicious grin. “I think someone’s fired up today.”

The teasing implication made Felicity look guiltily up from her work, something that thankfully went unnoticed, what with the street-fighting threeway happening on the main floor ( _not_ like that).

“Don’t get too comfortable,” Oliver warned, feinting a dodge that put Diggle’s arm in his grip, a small fact he used to send his friend flying across the floor with an impressive throw.

Which left Tommy in the unofficial ring, a state of matters that lasted about ten seconds before he was on his back and groaning.

Oliver shot Felicity a look over their sprawled friends, and she silently brought a hand up to cover her face. Nothing said subtle to the green leathered vigilante like martial-artsing the hell out of his friends if they so much as inched close to the _no-no_ zone of information.

Something he didn’t seem to get, crinkling his forehead in a show of total obliviousness. Which — as troublesome as its potential suggested — was still, incredibly _cute_.

Maybe it was because of how sweaty he was (Felicity liked that).

“Anything on Vale?” he asked, interrupting the unproductive detour her mind had taken.

Felicity faked a cough, just noticing the boys’ collective scrutiny, and brought up her research from the last half-hour. “She’s clean — not affiliated with any of our greatest hits — so if she’s trying to get a story out on the Arrow, it’s probably genuine, not some kind of stunt to draw you out.”

“Yeah, but _everyone’s_ done a story on the Arrow,” Tommy said, a towel slung behind his neck. “Even the tabloid that publishes inappropriate poems about goats. The whole R-rated Robin Hood-angle is totally played out.” He glanced at Oliver. “Sorry.”

“Probably means Vale has something else she’s not disclosing, _or_ it’s a bluff to see how much Felicity knows,” Diggle guessed. “I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that there’s a chance everyone here might be overreacting. All she has is a photo.”

“Felicity’s in the photo,” Oliver said, tapping the rattan staff against the floor like he couldn’t wait to get out on the streets. “ _If_ she publishes, and _if_ she makes it seem like Felicity's somehow connected with the Arrow, it’s only a short jump to going after Felicity Smoak as a way to get to me. I can’t let that happen.”

Instead of rejoining the discussion, Diggle just looked thoughtful, eyeing Oliver with folded arms. Felicity scratched her cheek uncomfortably. “I already told her I didn’t know anything — maybe she’ll leave it at that?”

The suggestion sounded implausible, even for them.

“Yeah, I don’t think that sentence exists in Victoria Vale’s vocabulary.” Tommy was reading off the screen over Felicity’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t even tell you what she did when she thought I was cheating on her.”

“But you were,” she guessed.

“Neither here nor there, Smoak.”

Good point. “And here I thought only Oliver’s ex-girlfriends were the troublemakers,” Felicity muttered, causing Oliver to clear his throat, loudly.

“ _Anyway_ ,” he said. “The Arrow can convince her to drop it. Felicity — talk me in.”

Their gazes locked for a second, just a second, and Felicity flushed, not just at the protectiveness — everyone was protective of everyone around here, violent sparring sessions aside — but the fierceness behind it, a new shade of intensity that hadn’t been there before.

“Interesting,” Diggle said, but he only smiled at her when she gave him a curious look. “Something’s gotten Oliver all fired up tonight.”

“Really?” she said, with supreme casualness. “Hadn’t noticed.”

* * *

Oliver paused, crouched on the roof of _The Journal_ ’s headquarters. “I have to _what_?” he said.

“You have to be more careful,” Felicity whispered. “John can see you’re acting… _off_. Be normal.”

“I _am_ being normal.”

“Chuh, you mean the alpha male vibes you were giving off back there?” she said. “I’m surprised you didn’t attract all the tomcats in the neighborhood. Or is that the other way around? _Anyway_ — as far as the others are concerned, the two of us? Just friends. Friends who are _not_ fooling around, _capisce_?”

Failing not to visualize the threatening look on Felicity’s face, Oliver dropped onto the fire escape. “Well, if we’re making suggestions, I think we should work on your excuses. There’s no way anyone’s going to believe you’re dating someone else if no one’s met him.”

“ _Lots_ of people don’t bring their dates to meet their friends,” Felicity said. “You're thinking about one night stands, which I unequivocally do not do — literally and metaphorically. Besides, it’s either that, or sticking with the _dating Tommy_ story, and at this point, I’ll probably have to kiss him or squeeze an ass cheek to make the story believable.”

Oliver gritted his teeth. “Can we please not discuss my best friend’s ass right now?”

There was a sudden gargle of static. “Anybody copy?” Diggle said, from his position in the van, currently parked in the alley. “The line cut out for a second there.”

“Really?” Felicity said, not altogether convincingly, in Oliver’s opinion. “God, must be those pesky steam pipes again. Sorry, they’re all patched up now.”

“Good to know,” Diggle sounded amused at something. “Anything to share with the class, Oliver?”

“About to make contact,” Oliver said, peering through the dusty window to the dimly lit office. “Am I in the clear?”

“Heat signature puts Vale in her office alone. Security’s one floor down, and might be asleep in a chair, I can’t really tell from the blob. Anyway — you’re green. _Ha_ , not really, but you get what I mean.”

Oliver sighed. Definitely, more work on her excuses.

For someone as immaculately presented as she was, Vale’s office was the opposite of what he’d expected. The walls were covered with cork boards, themselves covered with news clippings and old articles, some of the ones on the lower layers faded to the color of sepia. The shelves were stacked with old publications, the old-fashioned lamp on her desk a warm yellow. She was typing with her back to the window, and didn’t turn when Oliver unlatched the frame.

But his shadow stretched across the wall, as he intended, and her shoulders froze — briefly — before she whipped around, a taser humming in her hand.

“You’re really lucky this isn’t a gun,” she said, her eyes sweeping him from head to foot. “Can I help you?”

Unfazed, Oliver ignored her weapon. “You were there at the unity rally,” he growled. “Whatever story you’re planning on running — drop it.”

Victoria lowered the taser, crossing her legs again. “That’s funny, because I haven’t told anyone except my editor, and our office email’s encrypted within an inch of its life. So how’d you find out that I’m chasing a vigilante connection?”

“I have my sources.”

“ _God_ , you are just the worst at this, aren’t you?” she laughed, tapping her fingernails against her cheek. “I saw Felicity Smoak this afternoon, and here you are at cocktail hour, trying to needle me into dropping the story. Let me guess, she got on the phone with you as soon as I left, huh?”

“Wow,” Felicity said, in Oliver’s ear. “She _is_ good.”

Oliver felt as though a reminder of who Vale was dealing with was in order, and drew his bow, an arrow pointed towards her. “Felicity Smoak won’t appear in your story, are we clear?” he said.

“ _Oliver!_ ” Felicity said indignantly.

“Go easy,” Diggle warned.

About as unimpressed as he’d been at her taser, Victoria only propped her hands on the armrests, as though they were about to have a discussion. “Actually, I wasn’t planning on running an _Arrow_ story. I just wanted to prove a hunch, and I was right — as usual. I’ve been following your work, clearly you have friends helping you, and I like having friends.”

“Not interested,” Oliver said, turning to go.

“ _Wait_.” Her voice rang surprisingly loud for the small room. “Sebastian Blood — I don’t trust him. There’s something too clean about his record, even for a politician. Did you know that he was childhood friends with Cyrus Gold? The wacko responsible for abducting junkie kids in the Glades?”

To Oliver, this was an exhausted subject of a closed investigation. “Sebastian Blood isn’t my concern.”

“Oh? And what about Moira Queen?” Victoria challenged. “I have sources telling me she’s gearing up to run against Blood for mayor, but she can’t be trusted either. Offshore accounts, dirty money — one might be as bad as the other. Don’t you _care_ that this city might have a pathological liar running it after the election?”

“ _Easy_ , Oliver,” Felicity said.

“I care about cleaning up the streets, and neither Blood nor Queen are your concern,” Oliver said, just barely suppressing his anger. “But if you threaten Felicity Smoak again — you’ll have me to deal with.”

In spite of everything, Victoria laughed. “What’s a lucky girl got to do to get a vigilante like you under her thumb, huh?”

Oliver turned off his earpiece on purpose to answer. “Sorry — I’m taken,” he said, and dropped from the window ledge on a wired arrow, landing soundlessly in the street.

Diggle started the engine as soon as he climbed into the van. “You cut out before you dropped. What did you say to her?” he asked.

Suppressing a smile while he pulled off his hood, Oliver shrugged. “Just the usual.”

* * *

Oliver cracked his head against the side of a pipe, but he was smiling, because Felicity was the one backing him into a literal corner, running her hands up the sleeves of his suit with her mouth on his neck, unmistakably (but inexplicably) impatient to get him alone.

They were at the back of the Foundry, behind the closed door to the showers, only place that could conceivably allow some kind of privacy without it being suspicious, though Oliver figured their luck depended on Tommy staying upstairs in Verdant and Diggle believing that Felicity had gone home for the day, rather than entertaining idle speculation.

One was more likely than the other.

“Felicity,” he said, wondering if it was in the interests of their mutual agreement to stay complicit. “This couldn’t wait until after a shower? I’m —”

“—sweaty,” she finished for him, already halfway through with the front zipper. “I know.”

Oliver wasn’t exactly the most old-fashioned individual, what with his colorful and mostly short-lived romantic history, but he’d made the resolution to at least sit across from Felicity Smoak at a nice restaurant — enjoying and concluding an _actual_ date — before anything else was allowed to happen.

Maybe he was a little out of practice, but he had the gut feeling that said resolution wouldn’t last too long if Felicity continued her determined exploration unchecked.

Yet another thing he seemed to have gotten backwards — Felicity was more than comfortable with doing the initiating, something she’d made abundantly clear from almost day one.

“ _Felicity_ ,” he said again, catching her by the shoulders while absolutely failing to maintain a straight face. “What has gotten _into_ you?”

The only light in the room came from a pale bulb hanging off a loose wire, not the best or most ambient type of illumination, but it was enough to see that she was blushing. “I’m not comfortable telling you why, but for now, maybe _not_ use the word _into_ or _inside_ anywhere near a reference to me, okay?” she said, very seriously.

“Okay,” Oliver was laughing again, stroking a damp curl from her cheek. She was the worst liar in the world (something he knew from experience), to the point where he could read the thoughts straight off her face. “I thought you’d be mad at me after just now.”

Felicity was still flushed. “Not that I’m — um — advocating you threatening journalists with your Arrow voice,” she said breathlessly, while he waited, “but that was really hot. Like, _embarrassingly_ hot — for me, I mean, not you.”

“Really?” He was surprised, because it wasn’t exactly the first time he’d threatened someone with her on the other end of the comms. “Is it usually?”

“A combination of circumstances, people involved, and — um — us,” Felicity said, and Oliver tugged her against him to pick up where they’d left off.

Her hands were on his bare chest now, and they were both smiling, their breaths short and unbearably hot on each other’s faces, a confusion of limbs and direction except for the single purpose occupying their collective attention —

A door slammed somewhere, and footsteps got close — _very_ close — to the shower.

“Oliver?”

 _Tommy_. He nearly groaned out loud, while Felicity clamped a hand over her mouth with a muffled gasp of laughter. Carefully, silently, he reached past her for the faucet and turned it to start the water, letting it splash down the wall and onto the tiles, cold droplets splattering their legs.

“Yeah?” he called back. “What is it?”

“Nothing — just thought I’d check on you, make sure you weren’t out on the streets, scaring the living crap out of Felicity’s mystery boyfriend —” (Felicity’s whole body actually shook from the effort of staying quiet, and Oliver hastily added his hand on top of hers) “— but you’re just in the shower. Probably doing unspeakable things to that wall with your — never mind, am I bothering you? I guess it’s _super_ -unlucky you’re not using one of those super-sharp arrows on _What’s-His-Face_. Aaron. He sounds like an Aaron. Maybe a _Dale_.”

His footsteps were outside the door now, like he firmly intended to annoy Oliver out of the shower and into a hunt for Felicity’s nonexistent third-party boyfriend. “What do you think she sees in him?”

“Tommy,” Oliver said, firmly, “go _away_.”

“In a sec.” There was a thud, as though Tommy had planted himself against the door in a thinker’s pose. “Do you think he’s like — some kind of genius? Like he has some kind of secret talent? Maybe a _superpower_.”

The noise of the shower drowned everything out anyway, even some of Tommy’s rambling (though not as much as Oliver would have preferred). Clearly acknowledging that his best friend wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, Felicity quietly pulled Oliver’s hand from her mouth and put hers behind his neck, winding her fingers into his hair and pulling his head down to hers. “ _He does_ ,” she whispered, and Oliver was laughing again.

* * *

It was a quiet morning to visit the cemetery. The grass and trees looked greener in the rain, a light mist that collected on their umbrellas like dew, sliding down in droplets that looked like tears. Oliver met the others at the front gate, climbing out with Tommy and ducking under the welcome shade of Felicity’s umbrella.

The fact that she’d even turned up, knowing the history as she did, it made his chest flood with an unfamiliar — but welcome — warmth, resistant to the cold. The laughing and whispering between kisses in the shadowy corners was something surreally perfect about his present day, but it was times like these, the quieter moments he felt like a physical _ache,_ that made Oliver wish he could just take her hand without any questions asked, and tell her how much her being there meant to him.

But they’d decided to keep things under the radar for a reason — one of the reasons being near them at the moment — and he stopped himself before he bent to kiss her cheek, turning the thought into a friendly hand on her forearm, just a platonic gesture of greeting.

“I think this might be the one time the weather in Starling ever cooperated with us,” she said, making him smile.

Tommy had a bunch of white lilies in hand, water glistening on the petals from the rain. Oliver hadn’t had the bulk of the experience with funerals — especially since he’d missed his own — but he remembered Rebecca Merlyn’s memorial service, and the quiet funeral less than a year ago, both marking deaths in the family. Tommy still looked younger in black, more vulnerable, but he still had a faint glint in his eye that suggested humor, incorrigibly himself, even at times like these.

Some things never changed.

“Thanks for coming,” Tommy said, to Felicity and Diggle.

“We’re here when you need us,” Diggle promised, gripping his arm.

Felicity reached up to kiss his cheek instead. “Are you okay?” she asked quietly.

“Yeah,” he said, managing a smile. “Just…it’s like saying goodbye all over again.”

“But you’re not alone,” Oliver reminded him, and he nodded.

Tommy exhaled loudly. “About time we got this show on the road, huh?”

* * *

They all made the short walk down the gravel pathway, shoes crunching wetly on the stones, side by side. By virtue of their height disparity, it made sense for Felicity to let Oliver hold the umbrella, and they walked with their arms just touching, close enough to hold hands, though not quite. Maybe it wasn’t something pre- _together_ them would have done, but it was so, very much _not_ about that, and it seemed like an insignificant detail under the circumstances.

Oliver was a naturally quiet person, she knew that, and Felicity could be shy — verbal diarrhea aside — especially since she was a guest in what felt like a family affair. Tommy, Laurel, and Oliver. Childhood friends, with secrets and shared histories that no amount of Cliffnotes-ing could describe.

And he’d loved Laurel.

Felicity didn’t know if Oliver could sense the sidelong looks, but a part of her did wonder sometimes. They were so different, different to the point that the _how_ and _why_ made little-to-zero sense (depending on the alcohol intake at the point of consideration). On paper, he was the billionaire son of Starling, down to the birthright silver spoon and French lessons, while she was the Vegas girl raised by a single-mother cocktail waitress, down to her student loans and orange nachos at a glittering casino bar since before she could talk in complete sentences. Laurel had a cop for a dad, but she’d still been a part of _that_ world, the microcosmos of glittering parties and Sunday family brunches at the Queen mansion. _She_ could have played the part, no questions asked.

Felicity couldn’t even imagine putting her foot an inch past the door, much less join someone like Moira Queen on the same, even pedestal.

Oliver glanced curiously at her when she gave her head a shake, banishing the thought. “Everything okay?” he asked.

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” she answered, with a nervous smile. “Just… _stuff_ …rattling around up here.”

Oliver didn’t look like he believed her, but the others slowed to a stop in front of them, having found what they were looking for. A small gray stone placed beside a praying angel, shaded by a copse of trees.

_DINAH LAUREL LANCE_

_1985-2013_

_LOVING DAUGHTER AND SISTER_

Tommy blew out his breath at the sight of it, and Oliver did the same, just long and slow. Deaths of her nearest and dearest weren’t something she had the most experience in, thankfully, but Felicity knew what it was like to have invisible scars that didn’t fade. More than anything, Felicity wanted to put her hand in Oliver’s, without a word (because what else _could_ she say?), just to remind him that he wasn’t alone.

Tommy went on his knees and patted the wet leaves from the marble, the same gray as the rainy skies. “Happy birthday, sweetheart,” he said, laying the lilies at her grave.

The words made something in Felicity’s chest seize, her throat wound tight, and in spite of them not being alone, she slipped her fingers silently between Oliver’s, giving them a gentle squeeze.

A second of silence, and she waited. Then, like an acknowledgment of the message, Oliver squeezed back, holding just a little tighter.

They were under the same umbrella, standing in the same cold rain, but they weren’t alone at all. Their shoulders were touching, which was how she felt him turn, looking at something behind them, in the dark green trees.

It took her a second to spot it too. A glint of blonde hair and a dark cap.

“Sara,” he said, not loudly, as though she was standing right beside them. “We’re here.”

She emerged from her hiding place, shyly at first, like she wasn’t meant to be there. Small in comparison to her willowy older sister, blonde and freckled to Laurel’s dark hair and pale skin. Tommy looked surprised to see her, but opened his arms anyway, and she went into them without a second’s hesitation.

“Hi,” she said hoarsely, looking over his shoulder at Oliver. “I didn’t want to intrude.”

“She’s your sister,” Oliver said, simply. “How could you intrude?”

Sara smiled at them, rain on her cheeks, and knelt beside Tommy on the grass, pulling the cap from her head as she did. “Happy birthday, sis,” she whispered, touching the marble headstone.

* * *

The small, impromptu gathering dispersed as the pattering of the rain showed every sign of building into a full-blown storm. Tommy and Sara went under one umbrella, arm in arm and talking quietly, Diggle following in his steady way, leaving Felicity to walk behind everyone else with Oliver.

“You’re okay?” she asked.

“I am,” he said, with a small smile that felt like it was for her. “What about you?”

Felicity blinked at the question. “What about me?”

Careless of the others, even if their backs were turned, Oliver touched her forehead, neatly between the eyes. “I can tell when something’s bothering you,” he said, probably meaning a traitor wrinkle from her furious thought process. “What is it?”

Felicity debated the merits of telling him the truth as they left an unofficial memorial for one of his childhood best friends, especially given her qualms about fitting into his intimidating champagne-and-silverware world. “It’s probably nothing.”

“So tell me.”

It took Felicity a pause to choose her words. “It’s about your mother. Something Victoria said, it…it made me think,” she admitted. “Why bring up the offshore accounts?”

Oliver made a noise that signified dismissal. “People like us always have to deal with being accused of corruption, or money-laundering. It comes with the —”

“—massive family fortune?” she said, the single-mom-raised-Vegas-girl in her making the question sharper than it maybe should have been.

Oliver gave her a neutral glance. “I wouldn’t have phrased it like that.”

Felicity shook her head. “I’m sorry, I just…I hate mysteries and cryptic suggestions, and Victoria just pressed both those buttons. Now I’m thinking about the offshore account associated with Tempest — you know, the secret, evil organization behind the Undertaking —”

“—and my mother was involved with it, so?” Oliver said, with an undercurrent of sharpness.

They stared at each other, Felicity wondering for her part if this was where the secretly-together couple started a fight. “I’m not sure,” she said, slowly. “It’s just… _off_. It’s probably nothing anyway — I’m pretty sure the only other person who knows about it is Walter Steele, and I don't see how a magazine reporter could get that kind of financial information, so you might be right.”

Oliver looked like he regretted the turn the conversation had taken. “Felicity —”

She quickened her pace, hands deep in her coat pockets, rain on her shoulders, leaving Oliver to follow.

Probably nothing at all.

* * *

Sara twirled one of the knives off the cutting board, flicking it into the palm of her hand with a _swish_ that made Tommy bend his knees in a defensive crouch, simultaneously demonstrating why Oliver had laid out — in no uncertain terms, just BTW — that he was allowed nowhere near sharp weapons until he counted as _trained_.

“Whoa there, tiger, let’s not take off the bartender’s fingers,” Tommy said, dropping the sliced limes into their drinks (hence the knife and cutting board). “Drinks are still free even if there’s a severed pinky in the chartreuse.”

Sara returned the knife to a less threatening state of being — as far as knives went, anyway. “Sorry,” she laughed. “It’s the training kicking in — everything’s a weapon in my hands.”

“I thought the point of taking a long vacation was to reverse all that,” Tommy pointed out.

Sara stared down at the shiny blade, her expression rueful. “Some habits are harder to break.”

Tommy could toast to that one, and they silently raised their glasses to the picture of Laurel behind the bar. Sara’s first sip made her smile. “So you finally got good at making drinks that don’t suck,” she said. “Are you the same guy who used to mix Red Bull and Kahlua for parties?”

“Oh, hell no,” Tommy said, wagging his finger. “I’ve gone legit.”

Even if she was like a sister to him, Sara was too nice to rib him the same way Thea did, choosing to stir her drink instead.

“So where were you?” Tommy asked.

She shrugged. “Away. Can’t stay anywhere for long when the League of Assassins want my head on a plate.” There was a pause, and her eyes — a clear, summer blue — flicked over his face like she was speed-reading him. “And I’m not staying, Tommy. I can’t.”

 _Dammit_. “At least see your dad for dinner,” he said. “That Chinese place you like. C’mon, literally _everything_ happened while you were gone.”

“Really?” Sara’s nose crinkled when she smiled, the lines at the corners of her eyes deepening the way Laurel’s used to. “I might stay for some oolong and dimsum if I get to hear the gossip. Who’s it about?”

Tommy puffed out his cheeks, shaking out refills while he tried to find a non-profanity-filled description of the last two months. “Well, Diggle has a girlfriend now — who’s also his ex-wife —Thea’s still dating the pickpocket who moonlights as a nightclub waiter, oh and Oliver’s training him up to be Arrow Jr, Felicity’s been hit on by two perfect guys and only one of them’s in a coma from being struck by lightning —”

“— and you’re dating someone too,” Sara guessed. “Who is she?”

Tommy hesitated, and she reached across to take his hand, covered in fruit pulp or not. “Tommy, Laurel would have wanted you to be happy,” she said. “And I’m just glad you’re not alone.”

Tommy didn’t say anything for a second, staring at the picture of Laurel and her wide smile. It was old news — him dating someone else, someone pretty special — but telling Sara of all people…it felt like he was really, _bona fide_ moving on.

But it was way, way past time, right?

Sara was still watching Tommy when he turned back. “Do you remember McKenna Hall?” he said, and she grinned.

“You always did like girls who could kick your ass.”

Tommy flicked the table rag at Sara, making her rock back in her seat, laughing. “Shut _up_.”

Possibly, starting a game of let’s-throw-stuff-at-each-other was a bad idea when one half of the game was assassin-trained, but Tommy was saved from having to deal with the ramifications of his bad decision-making by a phone call to the bar’s landline.

Which never happened.

Rolling his eyes at Sara, he picked up the big red phone with two fingers and held it to his ear. “Welcome to 2014. You know there are cellphones these days, right?” he said, into the receiver.

What he heard next made him pause. Then gesture silently for Sara to get her stuff. “I’m on my way.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked, as he ducked out from under the bar.

“It’s your dad — he collapsed at work.”

* * *

“Aw, hell. What are you doing here?” Quentin growled, in response to Oliver walking into his hospital room. "Did the hospital call _you_?"

“Shhh,” Tommy said, patting his chest like he was a skittish family pet. “It’s just Ollie, not a jellyfish that washed up on your family holiday.”

Oliver was about to pull a chair out for himself, but Tommy nudged it aside with a shake of his head, so he settled for asking the obligatory question. “How are you feeling?” he asked.

“I’m _fine_ , you hear me?” Quentin barked, like Oliver had inquired as to his time of death. “Those doctors are crazy. My heart’s fine.”

Oliver and Tommy glanced at each other. “It’s his heart?”

Tommy shook his head. “The doctor doesn’t know, but to be fair, a middle-aged man was mumbling profanities the whole time and maybe _that_ triggered his performance anxiety. It wasn’t a heart attack or a stroke, and his blood pressure was fine. They’re still running tests.”

Quentin continued to grumble under his breath, and Tommy — while reaching for a plastic cup of ice water — jerked his head towards the corridor Oliver had just come from. _Outside_ , he mouthed.

As strange as the request was, Oliver didn’t need telling twice. He slipped out of the room and turned the corner to find a small figure standing in front of the windows, a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes.

“Sara,” he said, touching her shoulder. “What happened to your dad?”

Sara spun around, her face tight with worry. “I have no idea, but he collapses as soon as I’m back in town? It can’t be a coincidence, Ollie.”

“You can’t be sure,” Oliver said. “Your dad's a police sergeant. He must have been surrounded by detectives and officers all day, anyone who tried to get to him —”

“— _I_ know how I would have gotten to him,” Sara interrupted, fiercely. “People like me are trained to break out of any prison, slip inside any fortress, and kill anyone we need to. A League assassin could have gotten to my father.”

“Then they would have attacked by now,” Oliver said. “I was there the last time they tried to take you out — this is different.”

Sara hands were clenched stiffly around her arms, and she looked like she needed to be anything but standing still. Oliver knew the feeling, but he also knew that his preferred method of beating down the adrenaline was a night out on the streets as the Arrow, something Sara couldn’t afford to do as the Woman in Black, not with Quentin in a hospital bed.

“What can I do?” he asked.

She opened her palm, showing him a small vial of something red. “I swiped one of these from the nurses’s station. I know Felicity can run it.”

From the way she phrased her question, Oliver stopped himself from taking the vial, because he could guess that she wanted to see the results herself. “Go,” he said. “Felicity’s at Queen Consolidated.”

“Ollie, my dad —”

“I’ll stay with Quentin.” Oliver glanced at the door, reassessing the statement in light of his lack of welcome. “Out here.”

Sara nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered in his ear, and then she was gone, soundless as a ghost.

* * *

Felicity didn’t know why she’d done it. Although, if they _were_ cherry-picking examples, she didn’t know why she’d chosen to take Victoria Vale’s cryptic sphinx hints seriously, why she’d called Walter Steele to ask about the Tempest account, or what she was supposed to do now, staring at a piece of proof that she hadn’t intended to find.

And what she was supposed to say to Oliver.

There was a knock without a knock, a self-announcement in the form of a few confident footsteps. Felicity looked past her screen and found herself facing — in a prime example of unhelpful irony — Moira Queen.

“Hello, Miss Smoak,” she said, smiling her impenetrable smile. “It’s been a while.”

“Mrs Queen.” Felicity jumped to her feet immediately, making her visitor’s lip twitch just a little, like she found the automated deference amusing. “Are you looking for Oliver?”

Moira pulled off her gloves, folding them in one hand like she had all the time in the world. “Yes, and no. I don’t know if he’s told you, but I intend to announce my bid for mayor in a few days, and I arranged for my campaign advisers to meet us here for a strategy session. Both my children are meant to be here, actually, but they’re chronically late, I’m afraid. I thought you might walk me upstairs, unless you’re too busy, of course.”

Every word sounded like a veiled test to Felicity, or maybe she was just paranoid, given the invisible smoking gun in her hand. What a short walk up to the next floor would do in terms of conversation, Felicity didn’t know, but she had a feeling that Moira didn’t mean to be refused.

“Happy to,” she said, quickly making sure her computer was locked. “Let’s go.”

Moira didn’t seem bothered whether Felicity knew she was being studied, her blue eyes moving slowly from head to toe, and back again, always inscrutable, always watching. “I wonder if you’ve been keeping up with that favor I asked of you, back at the holiday party,” she said. “Then again, from what I hear, Isabel is still trying unsuccessfully to sink her claws into my son, so you must be doing a wonderful job.”

Felicity smiled stiffly. “Oliver’s very good at taking care of himself, I don’t usually have to say anything.”

“How difficult for you,” she observed, as the elevator opened to Oliver’s floor. “I always thought Oliver liked you because you… _chattered_.”

Felicity couldn’t quite decide if that was an insult, or if what she was running over in her head would turn out to be a bad idea, but they were already at Oliver’s empty office. “If you want some tea, I can get someone to help,” she said, while wondering what or where Oliver’s EA had gone.

“No, that’s fine, thank you,” Moira said, making no move to sit. “You look troubled. Are you wondering about the possible harms of my running for mayor on the company?”

“Not the company, no,” Felicity corrected, her heart pounding in her chest as she pulled the glass door shut behind her.

Moira eyed the closing door with interest, but said nothing, waiting for Felicity to speak first. She vaguely remembered reading something in a business how-to book that the first one to speak in a negotiation almost usually was the loser, but that part didn’t matter.

Because it was about Oliver.

“I don’t think you should run for mayor,” Felicity said.

Moira arched one eyebrow. “Oh? I didn’t know you had a degree in political science.”

“I don’t,” she said. “But I know what a potential scandal looks like, and I know campaigns can get dirty. If the other side — or someone — finds out about this and uses it against you, it won’t just hurt your chances to be mayor, it’ll hurt Oliver and Thea.”

Moira didn’t say anything, but the silence grew razor-edged the longer it stretched. “I’m afraid I have no idea what you mean, Miss Smoak.”

“Tempest,” Felicity said, simply. “Walter knew about it — but I knew he wasn’t going to ask you. I think he still loves you, even if you guys got divorced for some _pretty_ good reasons. Anyway, I noticed a substantial wire transfer from the account to a numbered one in Starling National, and long story short, underneath all that encryption and red herrings, it belongs to a Dr Gill. Otherwise known as the doctor who delivered Thea.”

Moira turned away from the walls, facing the windows instead. The sunset was a dusty red, staining the dark gray clouds hanging low over the city, painting her skin the color of blood. Still she didn’t move, and Felicity kept on thinking aloud.

“Now that could mean it was just some overdue medical expenses, but the frankly _mind-blowing_ amount and the fact that it happened just last week makes me think — no. You said it yourself, you’re announcing your campaign in a few days. Paying off a doctor implies there’s something to keep quiet. Granted, I’ve only been at this for an afternoon, but I was thinking about your testimony from the murder trial. Malcolm Merlyn — you two had an affair, one year before Thea was born.”

Felicity paused, as though it wasn't too late, too late to turn back now. “Malcolm is Thea’s father,” she said, and it wasn’t a question, not anymore.

Moira had been as still as a marble statue while she spoke, and when she looked over her shoulder at Felicity, there was something changed about her face, completely stripped of what little warmth there had been before. Even more than that, a realization that made Felicity’s arms prickle with goosebumps, was how deliberate and dangerous the stillness looked, like a snake in the sand, preparing to strike.

Then she smiled, a slight curl to the corner of her thin mouth. “You’re a very intelligent woman, Felicity, and I can see why Oliver talks about you the way he does. He’s very infatuated, you know, and I’m sure the feeling is mutual.”

Felicity straightened her spine, ignoring the strange twinge in the vicinity of her lower ribs. “I know what you’re trying to do,” she said bluntly. “But that doesn’t change why I’m standing here right now.”

Moira gestured at the room. “Oh? And what was your plan — after confronting me in my son’s office?”

There was probably a rule in the confrontational handbook to _not_ be one-hundred-percent honest, but Felicity figured that _someone_ had to be. “Believe it or not, I wasn’t going to tell you — until just now,” she said. “I don’t have a lot of experience in the area, but it seems like something he should hear from his mother, not me. I thought you should have a chance to tell him yourself. ”

“Ah.” Moira folded her hands in front of her. “An unfortunate miscalculation on your part, because I have no intention of telling my son what you've just told me. In fact, I don’t plan for Oliver to ever hear the truth about Thea’s true parentage.”

“And how does that plan work if I have the proof and the ability to call him on something we call a phone?” Felicity asked, unable to keep the question sarcasm-free.

Moira laughed quietly in her throat. “Because _you_ won’t tell him, if not for his sake — for yours. Like I said, I know my son, and I know the women in his life. Your feelings towards him might not change, knowing he has a mother like me, but his most _certainly_ will, especially towards the person who singlehandedly managed to tear his world apart. That will be you, Felicity. He’ll hate me, but I doubt he’ll be so conscientious as to separate your involvement from mine. My lie might be the blade in his back, but your hand will have been the one driving it home. Like it or not, he’ll associate you with the lie that ripped his family to pieces, and sooner or later, he’ll end up despising you too. Now, does that sound like something you would want?”

All of this, she delivered in the same, dispassionate tone of voice, as though she was discussing the taste and quality of the afternoon tea.

“He’s your son,” Felicity said, because it was supposed to mean something.

“I know.” Moira chafed Felicity’s arm affectionately, like they were old friends, and leaned forward to kiss her coolly on the cheek. “In the end, we all must learn to keep secrets. Especially you, Felicity — if you hope to be a part of our world one day.”

Felicity was too frozen to physically recoil, but some part of her did — deep, deep down — at the fact that Moira had not only guessed her worst fears, she’d dismantled them to use as weapons against her. And a part of Felicity was genuinely afraid she might be telling the truth.

“I suppose I’ll have to look for Oliver elsewhere, won’t I?” Moira said, as she walked out of the room, leaving Felicity standing alone in a blood-red sunset, staring sightlessly at her son’s empty chair and wondering what she was supposed to do now.

* * *

“So how long do blood tests usually take?” Sara asked.

Felicity was huddled into her coat by the frankly freezing pier, where they were currently taking an ill-advised stroll. “Hm? Um…time,” she mumbled, staring at the cracks between the wooden boards. “Phone…alert.”

The state-of-the-art lab at QC could run samples faster than the machines they had in the Foundry, but it still left the pesky waiting period between putting in the sample and getting the results back. Normally, Felicity would have poured them both some coffee, consented to an extra hit if a hip flask was present (it wasn’t), and kicked back to wait, but the office seemed to be populated with Moira’s _diabolical_ fumes, like an _Eau de Toilette_ with the staying power of a skunk spray.

Besides, Sara was practically eating concrete with the amount of adrenaline in her that she hadn’t protested when Felicity suggested a walk by the water.

A ship’s horn sounded somewhere through the fog, but Felicity barely even stirred.

“I might have been gone a while, but you’re usually chattier than this,” Sara said. “What’s the matter?”

 _Where to start? Um — my sorta-boyfriend’s mother wants to blackmail me into not-telling him that his sister is actually his half-sister, and his best friend’s actually her half-brother_.

Maybe not.

Felicity might be in a moral and ethical quagmire, but the one thing she knew was that the first person who had to hear it was Oliver Queen.

If only the other pieces would line up into something resembling a solution.

“People suck,” she said, in severely-understated summary.

Sara snorted underneath her breath. “They do,” she agreed, slipping her arm through Felicity’s. “I know I don’t have the most relatable life experiences, but if you need to talk — I’m here. There’s too many boys down in the basement.”

Felicity dropped her head onto the shoulder of Sara’s leather jacket with a grunt. “Stay in Starling forever,” she said, articulately. “For my sanity.”

“I can’t,” she answered, suddenly serious. “If the League’s really coming after my family, they’re safer without me.”

“ _If_ ,” Felicity emphasized. “It might be nothing.”

Sara turned her head to look Felicity in the eye. “You’ve been doing this long enough — do you still believe in coincidences?”

“Is that your way of asking if I’m stubbornly optimistic?” she said. “Why yes, I am.”

Sara smiled the way Oliver did when Felicity did an unexpected _funny_. “You’re still cute.”

Feeling marginally better, they were both chuckling as they came up to the footbridge. “Like I said, I’ve been gone a while, but Ollie seems to be hanging out less in his Arrow cave,” Sara remarked, and Felicity felt her muscled arm squish her _much_ less toned one. “Did you have something to do with that?”

The precarious state of her secret relationship was just about the last thing Felicity wanted to discuss, but thankfully, she didn’t have to. Because Sara had ground to a sudden, screeching halt. Then she shoved Felicity behind her, simultaneously reaching underneath her jacket —

Her black Bo staff expanded to its full formidable length in Sara’s hand, as she stared up at the shadow of the bridge like she’d seen something. “You carry that around with you?” Felicity said incredulously.

“Don’t say anything,” she warned. “And when I tell you — _run_.”

“What —?”

Sara tensed, and a figure dropped gracefully from the shadows like a flower uncurling its petals, landing in a crouch, a curved knife gleaming in one hand.

No, a _dagger_.

Felicity had never seen one of the assassins from the big, mysterious _League_ Oliver and Sara talked about, but she had a pretty decent feeling that she was looking at one right now. And Sara clearly had no choice except to fight.

“Frack,” she breathed. “Oh frack.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not that this is important (though it kinda is :D), Oliver and Felicity aren't sleeping together yet. At all. Again, not very important, just...throwing that out there.  
> Also, I might have to apologize in advance for the stuff coming up, but at least you know Sara and Oliver won't be getting together, right? Sheesh, that scene from 2x13 still makes me want to flip everything within reach when I watch it *shudder* ANYWAY. Won't be happening here :)  
> Until the next update!


	22. Some Kind of Resolution (Heir to the Demon, Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helpful songs: "About Today" and "I Need My Girl" by the National, "Choke" by One Republic (thanks @Oliversmoaked for the rec!)  
> The chapter for this week is indecently long, and you'll definitely see why, but lemme just apologize in advance...for stuff. :)

As far as real-life, shadowy assassins went, what Felicity saw in front of her fit that mental image to a complete _T_. Right down to the dagger, a word about as archaic to describe the rest, which was some kind of black leather armor and full length cloak, the latter as dark as blood. The face was hooded, a scarf drawn up to hide anything but the eyes, and Felicity saw them gleam, darkly, challengingly, as the figure rose from the landing. Leather and metal armor, but she — it was most definitely a she — moved as quietly as silk.

“ _Ta-er al-Sahfer_ ,” she whispered.

The language was unfamiliar to Felicity, but Sara seemed to be in a trance. She took a step forward, ignoring Felicity’s attempt to snag the back of her jacket, the staff still in hand, until she was standing right in front of the strange woman.

There was a charged pause, in which Felicity stared at the curved dagger with her heart in her throat, then, with the kind of magnetic ease Felicity recognized from her experience with Oliver, Sara pulled the scarf out of the way just as the woman pushed her hood back, and they were kissing.

Which was, suffice it to say, slightly unexpected.

“Um,” Felicity said, sensing that her face had gone something of a red shade. “What?”

* * *

Sara and the lethal assassin lady were kissing. Right in front of her.

Yet another series of thoughts that broke new ground in the ever-growing list of things Felicity never expected to face, in her short but somewhat eventful life.

What was the etiquette with impromptu make-out sessions? Five seconds, then a small cough? _Wait_ — this was someone from the League of Assassins, and the League wanted Sara dead for not wanting to do the whole assassin thing.

But they were kissing, so Sara couldn’t think that she was a threat. Unless it was some kind of assassin distraction technique, in which case — _balls_.

In summary, Felicity was _incredibly_ confused.

Not sexuality-wise (she was pretty sure), just run-of-the-mill-type confusion because she had absolutely zero idea what was going on.

Finally, with a short gasp that Felicity _also_ recognized from personal experience, they broke apart.

“A warmer greeting than I’d expected,” assassin lady said throatily. “For someone who seems to have already replaced her beloved.”

The woman turned her head towards Felicity, her black hair curling around her bronzed skin, dark eyes in a gorgeously sculpted — but also dangerous-looking — face. With all that going on in front of her, it took a prolonged second for Felicity to process the implication.

“Oh, _no_ ,” she said, waving her hands in front of her. “Sara and I — two of us — just friends. I mean, I _wish_ , because she’s gorgeous, but I don’t bat for the other team, and clearly you both do. Or she bats for both, _wow_ , so many things right now — god, if Tommy was here, he’d spontaneously combust —”

Assassin lady glanced questioningly back at Sara, looking vaguely amused. “I didn’t think you enjoyed such loquaciousness, or I might have made the effort.”

“Nyssa,” Sara breathed, gripping her by one of her gloved wrists. “You know I could never replace you. But what are you doing here?”

“I should think that was obvious, beloved,” she answered, stroking the hair from Sara’s face. “I’ve come to bring you home.”

Sara shook her head and disentangled herself from Nyssa, taking a shaky step back. “You can’t be here,” she said. “Because I can’t go back.”

“You swore an oath, _Ta-er al-Sahfer_.” The same phrase, whispered with the same equal measures of steel and softness. “And you know the only way to be released from the oath is to serve until death.”

“Oaths aren’t legally binding contracts,” Felicity interjected, for unknown and slightly unhelpful reasons, except that her business experience had decided to kick in. “Even if you use blood, which — _believe_ me — is an option my boss _so_ would have taken. She’s not very nice, not that _you_ don’t seem nice — big knife in your hand and all — sorry, carry on.”

Sara tried again. “Your father listens to you — make him release me, Nyssa, _please_.”

“My father has only ever released one man from his oath to the League, and I’m sure I need not remind you why he will never do so again,” she snapped. “Malcolm Merlyn was the exception to many things, and were he not gone from this mortal world, my father would send his army to hunt him to the very ends of the earth.”

Sara reached back and Felicity gripped her arm in support. “I’d never ask you to betray your father, not for me,” she said. “But _my_ father’s sick, and I won’t leave until I know he’s safe. Can you allow that?”

Nyssa’s gaze flickered towards their hands. “Fortunately, that happens to be one favor I can grant,” she said imperiously. “Twenty-four hours, and you shall return to Nanda Parbat with me, _Ta-er al-Sahfer_ , is that understood? The League has no qualms against retaliation, as I’m sure I need not remind you.”

Privately, Felicity felt like she just had.

Sara nodded. “Twenty-four hours. Thank you, Nyssa.”

She turned in a swirl of red and black, striding towards the shadows until they swallowed her whole.

“What the hell was that?” Felicity said.

* * *

“Nyssa al Ghul,” Sara said, standing in the middle of four incredibly curious and bemused people. Well, excluding Oliver, it was three curious human beings and a cryptic encyclopedia of non-disclosable life experiences. “Daughter of the Demon’s Head.”

Tommy raised his hand. “Any chance that’s a super cool gang name?”

Oliver glanced at him. “If that gang happens to be made up of highly trained assassins capable of taking down governments and destabilizing world organizations for their own personal goals, then yes, Tommy, it’s a super cool gang name.”

“Jeez, don’t bite my head off just because they didn’t ask _you_ to join up.”

“Somehow I don’t think they’re the kind of people who ask,” Diggle commented.

“They don’t,” Sara said. “They take you in, and that’s only _if_ you survive the journey to find them, and _if_ you survive the tests to determine if you’re worthy.”

“And I thought my gym making me sign up for six months’ autopay was coercive,” Felicity muttered.

“I didn’t have a lot of choice. Nyssa found me after I was washed off Lian Yu, and I couldn’t have made it through the training without her. Her father Ra’s leads the League of Assassins — he’s the Demon’s Head — and he sent her to bring me back. I don’t think she means to fight, but she’s never betrayed her father, and I wouldn’t ask her to.”

“What’s she like?” Tommy asked.

“Hot,” Felicity said, and hesitated. “I mean, _not_. Sorry…slipped out.”

Diggle had his hands on the back of his head — his version of the _pinch-me-this-isn’t-happening_ , and from the look on his face, he probably had some strong feelings about deadly female assassins from shadow organizations running around Starling. Which would have been funny, except… _not_. Oliver, on the other hand, was giving her a look of the _explanation-please_ persuasion, given their current state of relationship-esque involvement, but the _explanation_ part of it made Felicity think about her earlier conversation with Moira, and she hastily averted her eyes. Ditto for Tommy, minus the reasons that involved making out.

If this kept up, her only option for eye contact in the basement would be the walls.

But that was backburner stuff, _extreme_ backburner.

“Is she alone?” Oliver asked.

“The daughter of the Demon doesn’t travel without a personal guard,” Sara said, with almost no hesitation. “She knew I’d be in Starling to visit my sister’s grave — I told her that’s what I wanted to do — and she might have put my dad in the hospital to keep me here.”

“Felicity?” Oliver turned, but she was already on the computer.

“Got the results sent over from Queen Consolidated,” she said. “Sergeant Lance’s blood is home to slightly high cholesterol, polypeptides, thrombin pro-coagulant, proteases, and amino acid oxidases.”

“Two of us failed biology,” Tommy said, waving his hand. “Actually — make that three — Sara, didn’t you fail too?”

She made a face. “A-minus, sorry.”

“Show-off.”

“English, please,” Oliver interrupted.

“It’s a hemotoxin,” Felicity said. “Specifically, Tibetan pit viper venom. Which isn’t first on most people’s lists of likely collapse factors, that’s probably why the hospital didn’t check for it when he was admitted.”

“It’s one of the League’s poisons,” Sara said, her hands clenched into fists by her sides. “I’ve seen them use it — a cut to the arm can cause the victim to go into shock. They must have used a diluted version on my dad.”

“So what’s the plan?” Diggle asked, pragmatic as ever. “We take on the League of Assassins and hope we survive?”

Sara shook her head. “That’s suicide. I can’t let you —”

“—and we can’t let you go back,” Oliver reminded her. “You said it yourself, you can’t do what they want, not anymore.”

They shared a look that made Diggle glance in Felicity’s direction. She appreciated the concern, but the thought-gears were chugging away inside her skull, looking for a way out of a pretty much lose-lose situation.

“It’s too bad Malcolm Merlyn isn’t around,” she said, sliding her glasses up into her hair because her eyes were burning. “We could have worked out a trade option. Sorry, Tommy.”

Tommy inclined his head. “No, I’m right there with you,” he said. “Murdering bastard — least he could have done was stuck around to face the consequences.”

“So where does that leave us?” Oliver said.

“I have twenty-four hours,” Sara said. “And right now, I have to stay with my dad.”

“But we’re not giving up,” Tommy stressed.

Sara only smiled at them, as though she didn’t want to make any promises, and brushed his shoulder fondly on her way out.

Tommy checked his phone. “Let’s mark that down as _ominous_ , shall we? But I have to start my shift. Need anything from upstairs?”

“A drink,” Diggle said, to the surprise of everyone. “What? I just found out that a league made up of deadly assassins is in Starling City. If that doesn’t get me a whiskey, I don’t know what does.”

Felicity managed a small smile, and he winked at her on his way out with Tommy. They were debating the merits of Scottish and Texas whiskey all the way up to the door-slam, then it was just her and Oliver.

And in marked contrast to the past two weeks, it wasn’t a state of being she particularly enjoyed.

Which was something he had no way of knowing.

Oliver put his arms around her waist. “Hi,” he said, with a scratchy kiss in the curve of her neck. “I missed you.”

“Really?” Felicity managed to relax into his touch, cupping his face in her palm. “You saw me this morning.”

“But I’ve been to a long campaign strategy session since then,” he pointed out, guiding her into one of the columns with practiced ease. “Long, and boring.”

“Sounds like a _hard_ day,” she agreed, and they were smiling when they kissed.

End of another day. In spite of everything, they were meeting in the middle, like it was already becoming an established habit. Felicity tried to lose her train of thought with Oliver, his touch on her skin, the softness of his mouth, how close he was, but the weight of the lie — even by omission — pressed on her sides and chest like an actual physical presence, and eventually she had to stop.

In hindsight, it was hard to believe that she’d started the morning thinking everything was going to be okay.

“Felicity.” Oliver’s hand was on her face, thumb stroking the hair from her cheek. “Are you okay?”

“Hm? Yeah,” she said, chafing the sides of his arms. “Sorry, it’s just — work. Biofuel project’s kicking my ass. I was thinking I might head home early, get some work done on my own.”

“Oh.” He sounded disappointed, but not suspicious. “About today, at the cemetery —”

Felicity inhaled sharply, willing him not to bring up the Tempest offshore account, because god help her, she was _not_ ready to answer him.

“— I overreacted a little. During the trial, everyone was questioning who my mother was, I guess it just triggered something for me.” His hands were warm on her hips. “I know my mother doesn’t seem like the most trustworthy person, but she’d never do anything to hurt anyone, not after the Undertaking.”

“Right.” Felicity blinked rapidly, feeling her smile stretch like something that didn’t belong to her. “So — I’ll get going, I guess. Those reports aren’t going to write themselves.”

“One more thing —” He gently pulled her back by their linked hands “— do you like Italian?”

Felicity hesitated, the thoughts in her head making it hard to put the pieces into something coherent. “Um, as much as the next person?”

Oliver smiled. “I made reservations for Friday night. A _very_ nice place, and I’d really like it if you said yes to dinner.”

 _Oh holy frack_. Felicity cupped his face, at a loss for words, and kissed him softly on the lips, standing on her toes. “I’d love to have dinner,” she said, and it wasn't a lie, not really.

Because she was more than sure that Oliver would be the one who didn’t make the date.

* * *

Deadly assassins may have set up camp in the city, but that didn’t seem to have stopped the nightclub scene from powering on, full steam ahead. Tommy checked the time on his buzzing phone as he stepped out of the club with a bag of bottles for recycling in one hand. A sordid 3AM, fantastically past hospital visiting hours.

“Hey,” he said, blinking at the alley light and wondering if it was the onset of old age. “What are you doing, calling me at this indecent hour?”

“I figured you’d be up to no good,” McKenna answered. “I’m on graveyard tonight, thought you might want some company.”

“You’re showing up?” Tommy squinted down the steam-filled alley, but apart from what looked like a guy smoking out on the street (he was guessing), there wasn’t much to see. “Are you in a costume?”

“Not _that_ fantastic, unfortunately. I’m still at work.”

“Bah. I was planning to call dibs on the office my best friend’s sister appropriates for her sordid affair with the waiter.”

“I think you mean _torrid_ , and you could always just drop by my place.”

“ _Sold_. Swing by around sunrise?”

“Can’t wait.”

Smiling stupidly at his phone, he hung up and turned to go back in. Except he could have sworn — glancing inadvertently over his shoulder — that smoking guy was standing about six feet closer than he’d been before.

“Can I help you, buddy?” Tommy called, one hand braced on the half-open door. “The entrance is round the front.”

No answer, but the dark figure was still moving closer, footsteps crunching on the gravel, and Tommy’s hand crept towards his side. He didn’t carry a gun — not after what happened to his mom — but that didn’t rule out a Sara-esque choice of weapons (there was a lot of random crap lying around in the alley).

“Can I help you?” he repeated, the words reverberating off the brick walls.

“So this is where my son chooses to spend his nights,” said a voice he never thought he’d hear again. “Slaving away at a back-alley nightclub. Your mother would be so proud.”

Tommy stared at the face as it emerged from the fog. The same sneering mouth, and the eyes narrowed in cold appraisal. “Dad?”

* * *

Sara Lance had come back from the dead, once. Ditto Oliver Queen, also once. Two friends mysteriously showing up not-dead seemed like more than enough for anyone. At least, that was Tommy’s starting assumption.

Clearly these things happened in threes.

“This is _so_ not happening,” he said, unhelpfully. “You’re dead.”

“I’m afraid not, Tommy,” Malcolm said, taking a step forward.

Tommy backed into the wall, the door shutting with a slam. The Undertaking, the Dark Archer, fighting Oliver, killing all those people…and after all of it, his dad was standing right in front of him.

He’d never given much thought to the impossible, what to do if his dad ended up standing in front of him, _alive_.

Then he remembered whose grave he’d visited earlier today.

“You son of a bitch,” he said, and his hand closed around a length of steel pipe.

Not the most subtle of fight lines, but screw the cool stuff, because he and dad had issues.

Except Malcolm smoothly dodged his first swing, and the pipe in Tommy’s grip glanced off the brick wall with a spray of dust.

Tommy wasn’t the same person he’d been six months ago, for one — he’d actually been paying attention when Oliver tried to teach him how to fight. But any confidence whatsoever in his progress went smoothly out the proverbial window because his attempts to land a blow seemed to slide off Malcolm like he was impact-proof, much less the accusation that had been building inside him from the start.

If Malcolm hadn’t triggered those earthquakes, Laurel would still be alive.

“Laurel’s dead because of you!”

That was when Tommy realized just how angry he was — _still_. It didn’t help that Malcolm was barely even touching him, deflecting the swings and lunges with nothing more than the flat of his hand.

“Fight back!” Tommy snarled. “You son of a bitch — fight _back_!”

Whether his dad took the hit, he had no way of knowing, but something changed. It was as elemental as a tremor beneath his feet, and suddenly, Malcolm wasn’t just playing defense anymore.

He twisted around without warning, moving as a blur, and Tommy landed hard on his side, tasting dirt with his wrist on fire, the pipe flying to the other side of the alley.

“A very amusing exercise, but I was trained in Nanda Parbat, by the Demon’s Head himself. Did you really think —” a boot heel landed in his gut and Malcolm’s hand slammed around his throat, dragging him up against the alley wall until his feet weren’t even touching the ground “—that you could hurt me?”

“Points — for — trying,” Tommy hissed, batting ineffectually at the choking fist.

Malcolm’s lip curled at the reminder that his son had a sense of humor. “I didn’t come here to fight with one of my children.”

It may have been the oxygen deprivation, but something about the phrasing sounded _off_ to Tommy.

“In fact,” Malcolm continued, glancing towards the club again, “I was expecting to find you alone — not teamed up with Oliver in his doomed little crusade.”

Seeing as Tommy was visibly struggling for breath, Malcolm relaxed his grip slightly, and some of the red spots faded a little.

“I mean,” he coughed, “best friendship counts for life once you’ve shared toys, cookies, baths — oh, and we both think you’re a murdering — _asshole_ —” Tommy attempted to kick him somewhere near the groin, but it only made Malcolm try to strangle him again.

“Really?” he said sarcastically. “How admirable, coming from someone with a kill count like Oliver’s. But he gets his hypocrisy from his mother, I’m afraid. You, on the other hand, I thought I taught better.”

“You didn’t teach me _anything_ ,” Tommy spat. “I barely had a father — did you think _fake-dying_ was going to erase all that?”

Malcolm made a noise under his breath, still eyeing Tommy (pinned via chokehold to the bricks) like he was a mildly interesting piece of performance art. “I see. And how does your particular stance with Oliver apply to information — _united we stand_ , that is — when it comes to Thea?”

Tommy froze mid-struggle because of the total and complete _non sequitur_. “What _about_ Thea?” he asked.

* * *

“Jesus.” Roy sounded concerned, even for him, whose regular mode was _snoozing cat in sun_. “What the hell happened out there? Did you fight with a raccoon for dumpster rights?”

News flash, even in a nightclub, where getting beat up was _easily_ not the weirdest turn of events Verdant had seen, the owner walking back in like he’d decided to bodysurf the alleyway a few dozen times still had the ability to raise questions.

Lucky for them, the club was already in the process of clearing out, and nobody seemed to mind when he collapsed into the chair behind the bar, sticking his hand (and throbbing wrist) into the tub for ice. “Big raccoon,” Tommy wheezed. “Barely got away.”

Roy cursed. “I’m getting Thea. Stay there.”

Tommy coughed. “Sure. Where else am I gonna go?”

It seemed like only a second later — or maybe he’d blacked out for a second — before he heard Thea’s heels in the vicinity. “Tommy,” she said, crouching by the chair. “What happened? Who attacked you?”

Tommy shook his head. “Don’t remember. Just — just let me — sit, okay?”

Thea had his bad hand painfully tight, but Tommy (stinging ribs aside) focused in on her face, wondering if what he’d heard was the absolute, indisputable truth. Because it wasn’t possible — it couldn’t be.

Family resemblance wasn’t something kids usually thought about, that was reserved for unintelligible old relatives at family parties to comment on, over fancy pastries and dead conversation. Between the two Queen children, as much as Oliver took after both his parents, Tommy had always thought Thea resembled Moira the most. Not in coloring — the only dark one in a blonde family — but her green eyes, the way she carried herself, her _temper_ …

It was like she’d become a completely different person to him now, even if she hadn’t changed a bit. All those times he’d thought the words _like a sister to me_ — now the universe was just being cute.

Thea patted his face, as though she could tell that his eyes were going a little out of focus. “Jesus, Tommy,” she said, still sweeping him for cuts while Roy (at least he thought it was Roy) prodded the odd location like some kind of bruise detector. “Can’t you stay out of trouble?”

“Trouble always finds me,” Tommy answered, very honestly.

_Honesty._

The big kicker. As far as personal definitions were concerned, the Queens were family to him, a unit that had always included Thea, even through the teenage bratty phase. Did he really need to know for sure? Especially something his surprisingly-not-dead dad told him?

There was always an angle with Malcolm, and if anything, the one-sided fight in the alley showed Tommy just how ruthless his dad was prepared to be with someone who shared his DNA. The first thing he had to do was make sure he knew the actual truth.

Which made it very lucky that he knew someone with access to the police DNA lab.

* * *

There was a red dress at the foot of her bed, a set of matching heels on the floor, and a box of old photos spread out across Felicity’s duvet. Old Vegas and a childhood documented by instant cameras, from the lumpy sweaters hand-knitted by mom-level experimentation to the bad bathroom haircuts, faded colors preserved in a neat square.

Some bright smiles too, in spite of everything they’d been missing.

Donna Smoak — blonde, bright-lipsticked, and indisputably a bombshell — was smiling in every picture, even if the dark-haired girl she occasionally cuddled into the photo (by force, if Felicity remembered correctly) wasn’t always happy to do the same. But Donna Smoak’s magic power was to act as though she believed that they were going to be just fine, and most of the time — they were.

Besides not being able to contemplate sleep, there was a purpose to staying up as late as she did, which was waiting for the regular phone call after Donna got off work. Her mom was the only one who ever called the landline in her house, and Felicity was usually ‘asleep’ (civilian euphemism for being in the Foundry) when it happened. Today was the rare exception, and she snatched up the receiver as soon as she heard it ring.

“Oh, sweetie, sorry — I thought I’d just leave a message,” Donna said, sounding surprised and perky for the early hours of the morning. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

Felicity smiled at the _mom_ -ness of the question, silently relieved that despite Lady Macbeths like Moira Queen, there were still moms like Donna who — well — _mothered_ , asking about sleep hours and healthy food intake, not blackmailing her son’s supposed crush into keeping her lips sealed. “I’m an adult woman, mother,” she said. “Are you really going to ask me about my bedtime?”

“No, I was planning to do that Jedi trick thing and let you tell me that you have a boyfriend in the kitchen right now, making you chocolate waffles because you did some _unspeakable_ things after dinner —”

“ _Mom_ ,” Felicity couldn’t believe it had only taken her two seconds to say something inappropriate. “Oh my god. No. Just — _no_.”

Donna _tsk_ -ed in a _plan foiled_ kind of way. “And how’s work? Your boss Oliver still as cute?”

Felicity covered her face with one of the photos. “Work’s busy,” she said, tackling the least thorny one first. “And Human Resources generally frowns on dating bosses. You know, for reasons.”

“Oh, they’re just being stiffs. Live and let live, right? And with someone so _cute_ — sorry, little fantasy moment here — so what’s new with you, honey?”

“Nothing much.” Felicity rubbed a photo against her bare calf, wondering if she could give herself a paper cut. “Just…wanted to talk.”

There was a rustle and a creak, like Donna had sat up straight. “Felicity Megan Smoak, you tell me what’s wrong, right now, or I will buy a ticket and fly down there — or up there, I forget — _first_ thing in the morning.”

A Donna Smoak visit was quite literally at the top of the list of things Felicity couldn’t handle right now, and she knew from copious experience that her mom was _very_ good at getting fired up, which put her on damage control-mode.

“I’m thinking about dad,” she said in a rush. “I was looking through some photos, and…you know. It came up.”

That part was somewhat true, in the incessant way that childhood traumas had of sneaking their way into present-day problems. Exposing Moira’s lie to Oliver was always going to be messy, but Moira — true to Malcolm-Merlyn-compatible-form — had underscored the likelihood that Felicity doing said exposing would cause consequences for herself too.

Not that she had a habit of listening to manipulative twist-monologues (especially from someone who hadn’t noticed her son’s nocturnal habit as a vigilante), but Oliver had trust issues, and a reliable habit of shutting down (if not outright regression) when he ran head-on into a problem concerning his personal life. That habit included shutting down risks, including the one they were taking with each other and a quasi-relationship.

It was selfish, and childish, and unimportant in the scheme of things, but Felicity had known most of her life that her father had walked out on her, and the prospect of Oliver doing the same — even if it had only been two, implausibly _perfect_ weeks — wasn’t something she wanted to power towards, full steam ahead.

But not telling Oliver didn't just mean averting the implosion of a quasi-relationship, it came at the expense of depriving Tommy of a sister, an actual related-by-blood sister, family he one-hundred-percent deserved to have.

Again, note the selfishness.

In the meantime, Donna had been silent for a grand total of five seconds (a record for her), and then she said: “Oh baby, don’t let him hurt you. He’s not worth it.”

Felicity blinked, resting her chin on her bent knees. “But he left.”

“He left because he’s irresponsible, and — and silly, a _silly_ man — because he has no idea what he’s missing, not getting to know you, not being there to watch you grow up…into the intelligent, gorgeous girl that you are.”

“He missed out on you too,” Felicity said, willing her nose not to run so that Donna wouldn’t hear the sniff and break out the warm milk.

Donna sighed. “Sometimes, you’re so wrapped up in the fantasy that you can’t imagine life without that person, and I mean, it’s good, it’s _great_ — that’s how you know you’re not wasting your time with one of those boring placeholder relationships, but… _sometimes_ …it takes someone like that walking out on you and your seven-year-old girl to realize that you can do it all on your own, screw whatever he thinks, whatever _anyone_ thinks.”

Felicity picked at a worn patch on her duvet, considering the advice. “You did just fine, mom,” she said. “I know that for sure.”

Donna laughed. “Oh, I love you so much, sweetheart. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me what’s wrong?”

“I’m just thinking about dad. Don’t worry,” Felicity laughed a little, wiping her eyes. “Happens once in a while.”

“Okay, baby. Sleep tight, and I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay.”

Felicity hung up the phone, but instead of turning out the light and calling it a day, she stayed where she was for what felt like a long time, staring at an old photo of her in Donna’s arms — back when she’d been small enough to sit in anyone’s lap — the two of them laughing into the camera.

They’d done just fine without her dad. Someone who must have meant the world to her and her mother, just walking out of their lives. Without a trace, and questions in his wake.

That had to mean she’d be fine too.

Felicity gathered up the photos, sorting them methodically by year, neatly back into the box. She looked at the red dress for a long moment before she got to her feet and hung it back up in the closet, shutting the door with a click that sounded of finality.

In a way, she’d always known there was no choice to make. Not when it came to something like this. Childishness and past trauma — over. Instead of the icy lead weight in the pit of her stomach, Felicity felt heat, adrenaline in her veins, like she was gearing up for a fight. In a way, maybe she was.

Moira Queen could try to intimidate her into keeping her mouth shut, but scare tactics only worked if she understood the intimidated in question — and she _so_ , unequivocally did not.

Because Felicity would always tell Oliver the truth, no matter what the consequences for herself.

Her hands balled into fists at her side. _No matter what_.

* * *

Oliver flicked through the cards the campaign manager had given him, wondering if it was honestly necessary to cover this many bases when all he’d been asked to do was an introduction. The man was still talking to him while he read, and by the fifth time he’d said _just in case_ , Oliver decided to save them all some time.

“What about I promise to go up there — _sober_ — and do exactly what it says on the label?” he said.

“My, my, is the candidate-to-be’s son drunk on the job?” said a familiar voice.

“Excuse me, ma’am, press get to ask questions later —”

“—it’s fine,” Oliver said, sliding the cards into his pocket and facing Victoria Vale with a smile. “I know her.”

Part of the agenda was to get his mother’s campaign manager off his back, and Victoria watched him go with a conspiratorial smile. “I think that’s _precisely_ what Mr Francis is worried about,” she said, before holding out her hand to Oliver. “Nice of you to introduce your mother — playing up the wholesome family angle to make Sebastian Blood look like the sad bachelor with no life. That being said, if he gets a doctor or lawyer girlfriend who just happens to be a bombshell — because we all know _those_ exist — you guys are screwed.”

“What happened to _hi, hello, how are you_?” he asked. “Are you giving my mother free campaign advice?”

“Tit for tat?” she said. “Maybe I just like to remind everyone that I have a brain, regardless of how short my skirt is.”

“Touché. But I still can’t answer any questions until after the announcement.”

“Shame,” she said, feigning disappointment. “So where’s your lifesaver — sorry, I meant colleague?”

Oliver blinked. “Who?”

Victoria wrinkled her nose at him, as if to say _how cute._ “Felicity Smoak. Politics isn’t her thing?”

As a matter of fact, Oliver knew it wasn’t, but he’d still invited her as a matter of instinct. “She has other concerns.”

“I’ll bet.” Victoria smiled dangerously, and Oliver was reminded that he’d showed up at her office as the Arrow, just the night before. “Well, I’m sure you have to mingle. Catch you later, rich boy. Send Tommy my love.”

The thing about Victoria Vale was that she always seemed like she had somewhere more important to be, like she was two steps ahead and chasing a lead, and Oliver had barely finished the polite goodbye before she’d strode off.

“Oliver, there you are,” Moira said, with Walter and Thea at her side. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Kissing his mother’s cheek, Oliver smiled blandly at the campaign manager at her shoulder. “Really? Mr Francis and I were _just_ having a discussion about your introduction.”

Moira touched his arm in reproach. “He’s a very nice man whom I hired to manage my campaign — shall we try not to make life extraordinarily difficult for him?”

“Oh, I think he knew what he was signing up for when he said _yes_ to the Queens,” Thea said, arm in arm with Walter.

“Walter,” Oliver said, shaking the older man’s hand. “Thank you for supporting my mother.”

“You say that as though I had any choice in the matter,” he said, the corners of his eyes crinkling kindly. “Sebastian Blood is a nice fellow, I’m sure, but the city needs a candidate like Moira to steer it during uncertain times.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a British person express that much emotion,” Thea joked.

“Oliver? Something the matter?” Moira asked.

Oliver had been scanning the room for signs of Felicity. “I invited Felicity to join in. She should have been here by now,” he said.

“Felicity?” Thea raised her eyebrows, like she knew who he meant (what had Tommy been saying to her?) “I didn’t know you invited girls to political events.”

“Oh, I’m sure Miss Smoak was unavoidably detained by work,” Moira said breezily. “Mr Francis, should we be starting soon?”

“Ah, Felicity.” Walter raised his hand in greeting. “We were just speaking about you.”

Oliver turned, and sure enough, Felicity was standing behind them. “Good afternoon, Queens,” she said. “Walter, it’s been too long.”

It was just for a second, but Oliver sensed an undercurrent of tension flicker between her and someone in the group, gone before he could follow it any further.

Moira smiled brightly. “We thought you might miss the announcement, Miss Smoak. How nice of you to join us.”

“Oh, I couldn’t miss this.” She smiled back, but something about her tone — the way she carried herself — set Oliver instinctively on his guard, because she was most definitely on hers.

Something wasn’t right. He just didn’t know what.

* * *

To add to an already crushing list of problems both team-related and personal, Felicity was at a campaign event for a woman who personified the word _manipulative_ , which probably meant that she’d win the election.

Because life was just fun like that.

There were waiters handing out champagne and sparkling water off silver trays, reporters milling around the lobby alongside invited guests. Felicity took the water, feeling the snug fit of her gray dress ( _tweed_ , of all things) like a corset, and wondering how she thought walking it off would help.

QUEEN 2014 banners were set up in front of the sleek glass stage, deep red and pale blue, a very Moira Queen production, in that it was impeccably put-together, with no hint of the probable carnage in the backdrop.

Felicity wondered if she hated Moira. Genuinely, truthfully, _hated_ her.

Most people probably would have avoided their blackmailer like the actual bubonic plague, not make the beeline straight for them, but Felicity wasn’t most people.

And Moira Queen would regret the day she ever thought that was the absolute truth.

The Queens were incredibly easy to spot, a circle of their own, confident, laughing, easy. They projected it — the vibe of _otherness_ — enough to make Felicity’s insecurities nag at her the closer she got, but that didn’t matter.

She’d come here for a reason.

Moira’s gaze had slid straight off Felicity like she wasn’t even worth noticing, and Walter ended up being the one to point her out. Now that the greetings were done and non-blackmail-intimidation was established, Felicity could sense Thea’s curious stare, and Oliver’s too.

The campaign manager, who’d taken zero notice of her prior to the interaction, had put on his apologetic face. “I’m afraid we need to start soon, Miss Smoak, would you mind —?”

Triumph gleamed on Moira’s face, as though she’d thought Felicity was going to try and get Oliver alone before the announcement.

“Not at all,” she said, smiling at their faces. “Oliver, I’ll see you back at the office.”

His brow furrowed, but he didn’t say a word as she turned to go, her heart hammering against her ribs like she’d just run a marathon.

The pulsing in her chest and ears drowned out everything else, to the point that Felicity didn’t hear Oliver excuse himself to follow her.

“Hey,” he said, catching her arm before she’d made it halfway across the room. “Everything okay?”

“Keeping up appearances, remember?” Felicity said, pretending like they weren’t talking about anything important, not over a glass of bubbly water. She touched the sleeve of his suit, light, impersonal — rehearsal period for the _back-to-platonic_ version of them. “We can talk later. Seriously.”

Oliver frowned, but contrary to anything she’d expected, he took her wrist and started walking, fast.

“Oliver — _Oliver_ ,” Felicity said, glancing around like they were doing something wrong. “People. Family. _Reporters_.”

“I don’t care.”

In her frantic sweep of the room, she alighted on Moira Queen, unsurprisingly taking note of her son’s hasty exit. Whether the look in her eye was a thinly veiled reminder (as if she needed one) of the consequences to telling the truth, Felicity never really got to see. Oliver was cutting through the crowd, murmuring apologies as he went, until they were suddenly ducking into a side door and through to a stairwell lit steely blue, and echoing with silence. The door banged shut with a sound that made Felicity flinch, and Oliver put his hand out to hold it there. “What’s going on with you?” he said. “You’ve been acting strange since yesterday. Is it something I did?”

Newsflash, but Oliver — he of the short-lived relationships and some genuinely dismal boyfriend ratings — was _genuinely_ asking. As though it had been something on his mind since she’d last seen him.

Felicity wasn’t entirely sure whether there was a Geneva Convention of blackmail and truth-telling, but if there was, she was had a feeling that spilling the proverbial flaming beans to someone right before he went up on stage to introduce his mother’s mayoral bid classed as a _low_ blow.

So she tried again.

“Trust me, this can wait until later. Moira’s waiting for you — go.” She just about approximated a smile, and dropped it because it made her feel like a Chucky doll.

Suddenly, Oliver wasn’t touching the door anymore, but had both hands braced on the wall, on either side her shoulders, as though he sensed that she wanted to slip away. “The truth,” he said. “Please.”

Felicity shook her head. “Oliver, when a person who talks as much as I do wants to stay close-lipped, maybe it’s a _big_ hint being dropped that you should listen.”

“You know me — I’ve always had selective hearing,” he said, in a very different voice that made her think getting this close, _alone_ , was a bad, _bad_ idea.

In turn of events that was rapidly becoming a pattern with them, Oliver bent and kissed her, and Felicity felt herself respond, her hand wrapping around his tie, the other in the front of his suit jacket, pulling him against her. She could feel the heat of his palm on her thigh, following the curve of her leg, and higher still, making her regret choosing a dress with a neckline scooped low. Evading the truth was one thing, but the way they were — the way they could be — with each other, that was something painfully honest in its own right.

They were both breathing hard at the end of it, and she felt steadied — aching, somewhere, but steadied. Not the best rehearsal period for platonism, throwing it straight out the window, but she’d have plenty of time to practice, once the bomb dropped.

Felicity put her hand up to his face, stroking his cheek, the underside of his jaw, not quite wanting to talk — yet another novelty for her. “You’ve been crying,” he whispered, his thumb and finger beneath her chin. “Why?”

She didn’t know how he’d guessed, but she did know that the pretense was better left for later — after the fallout. “I really like you,” she whispered back. “I really like _this_. I don’t want it to stop.”

“Why would we stop?” Oliver actually smiled like it was a ludicrous idea, still holding her close. “We’re doing this together, that’s what you said.”

She nodded. “I know — I know. But the thing is…I have to tell you something. And you deserve so much better than this.”

She meant it. Someone like Oliver — who’d been through hell in the past and present — who famously put his personal life on the flames in favor of saving a city on the regular, someone with a good, _kind_ heart, someone who could make her fall in love pretty much from day one, without even realizing it…

Someone like him deserved to believe that his family was the safe zone, the safe haven beyond all of the bad things, the way she could call her mom after a long day at the Foundry and hear about waitressing debacles at the Grand. He deserved to trust people, no matter how small the circle was, and proceed with the knowledge that they’d never lie to him.

He deserved never to have his world turned upside down by a lie, not again.

“Why?” Something in him tensed. “Felicity, what’s wrong?”

This time it was Felicity who initiated the kiss, curling her arms around his neck, her body stretching along the length of his. It was the kind of kiss that said nothing, but everything all at once, holding him close like she knew she was about to let him go, breathing him in like it was the last time.

They stayed where they were _long_ after it was over, foreheads pressed together, chests rising and falling.

Felicity shut her eyes, feeling the ground roll beneath her feet. Oh god, she was going to do it.

“Oliver, I have to tell you something,” she said, through numb lips. “It’s about your family.”

* * *

Oliver was only dimly aware of emerging from the stairwell by himself, the taste of Felicity’s kiss still on his lips, retracing his steps the way he’d come. The crowd seemed to know him, but it was a sea of strange faces to him, like he’d lost the ability to differentiate between the people he knew and the people he didn’t. He couldn’t even remember if he’d managed to smile. He just…walked. One foot in front of the other, his thoughts spinning dizzyingly out of control.

Someone — Mr Francis, maybe — touched his arm and said something about being _ready_ , and Oliver nodded without really hearing it.

Suddenly the stage steps were beneath his feet, and he climbed them, each step as heavy as lead, until he lifted his head and there they were — his mother and sister.

Two faces he knew for sure, but it turned out he hadn’t, not really.

He remembered what it felt like to fight with someone he cared about, to be at odds with someone like Felicity, who mattered — mattered more than she knew. Then, it had been like a red-hot stone in the pit of his stomach. Now he just felt numbed, like his limbs weren’t even his own, not anymore.

Walter was at the podium, speaking to the crowd. “Now, please give a warm welcome to Oliver Queen, Moira’s son, to introduce her to the people of Starling City!”

The applause shattered the ringing silence in his ears, and he looked straight ahead, locking gazes with his mother — all the shock, disbelief, and above all, _betrayal_ — spilling past the outward composure for her to see.

Her face shifted, instantly, and she shook her head, once — silently — as though saying, _please_.

Two weeks of being impossibly happy had almost erased the memory of what it was like to have his heart broken. But in one single, awful moment that confirmed everything Felicity had just told him, he remembered.

Because he knew.

Now, he knew.

* * *

Felicity hugged her arms to her chest, standing in the stairwell as the applause sounded off the walls. She was shaking, actually shaking, her hands shot through with a tremor from going through with it.

The look on Oliver’s face when he’d turned to go, wiped clean of all emotion.

He hated her now. He had to.

As Felicity slid slowly down the wall and to the ground, hands pressed to her head, shielding her ears, she heard Oliver say, as though he one-hundred-percent meant it: “Please welcome my mother Moira Queen, the candidate this city deserves!”

Of course. Because Oliver came from a world that meant he could climb onstage to deliver a pitch-perfect speech for his mother’s political campaign, even though he’d just heard news that would devastate anyone else. Polished, trained, and impeccable, down to the last stitch of a tailor-made suit.

A completely different world from hers, and if anything, telling the truth had shown exactly that.

Felicity lifted her chin, staring straight ahead. But it was the truth, and that would have to be enough.

* * *

Oliver heard the sound of metal clanging as soon as he walked into the Foundry, suggesting maybe the one person he felt he could face, after everything.

“I thought you’d be at the hospital with Quentin,” he said, shrugging off his suit jacket while Sara worked her way up the salmon ladder.

“I was, but my dad made me leave and subbed one of his detectives in,” Sara answered, in between swings. “He thinks I need something called _sleep_.”

Oliver cracked a smile, and his hand resting on the back of Felicity’s chair. Empty, not that he’d been expecting her to show, not after what happened with his mother. “Someone should tell him you don’t do that.”

“Yeah.” Sara dropped soundlessly onto the ground and walked over, pulling her sweater over her head. “What’s wrong?”

He shook his head. “It’s just…someone wasn’t who I thought they were, that’s all,” he said heavily, and in a severe understatement.

“I know about that,” she said bluntly. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not really.”

Sara nodded like it was the end of the discussion, and Oliver was momentarily glad that they had an unspoken understanding not to press each other, product of a complicated history of things too long — and too difficult — to explain.

“What about you?” he asked. “What are you going to do about the League?”

Sara liked to keep her hands in constant use, even when she was talking. “Tibetan pit viper venom doesn’t exactly come around easily,” she said, twirling one of the practice staffs in a lazy circle. “And I used all my cyanide pills on something else.”

She said it like a joke, but Oliver knew better. “There’s another way. There has to be.”

“Serve until death,” she recited. “I knew that when I signed on. I can’t take the killing anymore, but that doesn’t mean my family should have to suffer for my choices.”

“It doesn’t, but they’ll suffer anyway if they lose you.”

They looked at each other, as though remembering the impossible choices they’d both had to make, back on Lian Yu. “History repeats itself, but it doesn’t get boring, does it?” she said, quietly.

“Nyssa al Ghul has feelings for you,” Oliver reminded her. “I don’t think that was something they taught in League training.”

“And you have feelings for Felicity,” she returned, just as frankly as him. “Would you use them against her?”

Oliver’s hand clenched into a fist, because he had an inkling his mother had done just that. “Fine,” he said. “But you can’t go back to the League.”

She nodded. “I know, and that doesn’t leave me with a lot of choices, Ollie.”

They were at a stalemate, but the Foundry door banged open before they could press it further. Tommy came down the steps, wincing in a way Oliver knew had nothing whatsoever to do with the way they’d been training. He never targeted to maim, and this was different.

“What the hell happened to you?” he said, crossing the room almost at a run. “Did someone attack you?”

Tommy waved a hand like he meant _later_. “My dad? Malcolm? A) not dead, and B) back in town. If your assassin girlfriend’s still hanging around — mind asking her if she’d take care of him for me?”

* * *

“So let me get this straight.” Diggle was talking into his hands, his head bent from the probable effort of not-freaking. Not in the cussing way, though in all likelihood that was on the table, but the bang-head-against-wall gestures of being epically screwed, at least on paper. “Two years ago, Oliver Queen turned up alive after a shipwreck no one survived. A few months ago, Sara Lance turned up as the woman in black, after the same shipwreck supposedly no one survived. And now Malcolm Merlyn’s alive after being stabbed in the chest and a city-destroying earthquake, but we shouldn’t be surprised, because that stuff just happens now.”

“Oh, I think we can still be surprised,” Felicity said. “Doesn’t seem fair to the people who turned up alive if there wasn’t a big _O_ -face.”

Seriousness of the moment aside, Tommy and the others all looked at her as the inappropriate implications of what she’d just said sunk in.

“I meant — _surprise_ ,” she said, wondering if she needed to demonstrate with the Edvard Munch _Scream_ face. “Not the other thing.”

Oliver glanced at her, a question behind it, and Felicity knew what he was asking, even without trying to put two and two together. Exhaling, she gave a silent nod, even though she’d just about had it with devastating breaks of truth.

“Malcolm Merlyn is Thea’s father,” he said, looking Tommy in the eye. “I just found out today.”

Felicity braced for the reaction, but apart from Diggle swearing quietly and Sara’s eyebrows shooting way, _way_ high, Tommy (usually the contributor of exaggerated reactions) only wore a rueful expression instead of shock. He contorted — grunting — trying to get at his back pocket, until Diggle took pity on him and grabbed the piece of paper. “Thanks.” Tommy pointed at the crumpled sheet. “Fresh from SCPD’s DNA lab. Off a strand of my hair, and Thea’s. Empirical proof that —”

“— my mother is as much a liar as Malcolm Merlyn,” Oliver said, with the kind of heat in his voice that made Felicity wince. “You knew?”

The two men stared at each other. “Straight from the horse’s mouth,” Tommy said, and his injuries took on a whole new significance. “But that can wait. The question is —”

“— can we use the information to help Sara get out of the League?” Oliver turned to Sara. “How much does the League want Malcolm Merlyn to be alive?”

“He broke the League’s code of honor the way no one in living history has _ever_ broken it before,” she said. “Ra’s was furious when he heard about the Undertaking.”

“So… _a lot_ , then,” Felicity said. “Would Nyssa be okay as the negotiator?”

“I could talk to her, ask her to speak on my behalf, but it’s still risky. She’s loyal to her father, and an assassin who leaves the League without being released has to die. She’s always honored the code — it’s one of the things I fell in love with.”

The last part, she stated matter-of-factly, as though nothing had changed, not her feelings for someone who in all likelihood could (and would) kill on behalf of a shadow organization.

Because it was _complicated_.

Felicity looked up and made accidental eye contact with Oliver, only because he’d been eyeing the general direction anyway, and they both turned away from each other at the same time. A split-second was enough to see the conflict in his expression, and Felicity didn’t need a confirmation that he’d seen hers too.

Another complicated story.

“Malcolm Merlyn decimating a city and five hundred innocent people is a code violation too,” Diggle said. “Maybe bringing him in can be a sign of goodwill.”

“Maybe —” Sara reached into her back pocket and pulled out her phone. Felicity craned her neck to see the screen.

“ _Unknown number_ ,” she read, and brought up the call tracer program as a preparatory measure. “I might be wrong, but don’t all terrible, no-good, bad days start with an anonymous number?”

Sara gritted her teeth and answered on speaker. “Hello?”

“Your time grows short, _Ta-er al-Sahfer_ , as does my patience,” said Nyssa in her distinctive drawl. “Come to the boatyards by midnight, or your family will pay.”

“Nyssa, leave them out of this,” Sara said. “My father —”

“— your beloved father is with me at this very moment,” she said, and Sara’s head whipped around towards Tommy, who was already dialing the hospital. “I had him brought to me as a guarantee.”

“I already said I’d come back to Nanda Parbat.”

Nyssa laughed. “You always did poorly when it came to deceit. I’m sorry, beloved, but I couldn’t take that chance.”

“He’s gone.” Tommy was on his feet, breathing hard. “They took him.”

Sara squeezed her eyes shut, and when she opened them again, there was something still and controlled about her gaze. Resolved. “Nyssa, please,” she said. “Don’t make me do this.”

“I am making you do nothing,” she answered, sharply. “ _You_ took the blood oath. I am simply reminding you to honor it. Midnight, or your father dies.”

The call cut off, and Felicity tapped a few more keys. “I lost the signal before it could triangulate. It’ll take me a couple of hours to get it back.”

“Too late,” Sara said, grabbing her jacket off the chair. “I’m going.”

“Starling has _hundreds_ of places that have _boatyard_ in the name — how do you know which one she means?” Tommy said.

She shook her head. “The League has safe houses everywhere — the boatyards too. Thank you for helping me, but I have to do this on my own.”

The door slammed behind her, and Felicity looked at Oliver, but it was as though he knew he couldn’t stop Sara. “Nyssa won’t arrive at the handoff location until it’s time — she’ll be waiting somewhere else. But we can track Sara.” A pause. “Please.”

She turned away at the look in his eye, and started to type.

* * *

“This might be the pot calling the kettle black, but you and Sara have a very strange relationship,” Diggle said, a pair of binoculars to his eyes.

Oliver didn’t take his eyes off the space below the metal beams they were crouched on. “How do you mean?”

“You guys run on the same wavelength, but you don’t stop her from going on a suicide mission, and _track_ her without her knowledge, all the way to the secret assassin spot?”

Oliver felt his temper rise, dangerously, but that wasn’t Diggle’s fault. “Is there a question in there somewhere?”

Diggle shrugged. “Just doesn’t seem like there’s a whole lot of trust, for two people who understand each other the way you guys do. Hope you and Felicity aren’t the same.”

The implication was clear, but at this point in time — after Felicity’s close brush with his mother — Oliver wasn’t sure there was any truth to it, not anymore.

“Felicity’s different.”

“How so?”

“I…Sara’s seen the darkest aspects of me, and I’ve seen hers too. Felicity hasn’t, and I don't plan on showing her the darkness anytime soon.”

“Did you think your first year as the Hood was petting bunnies?”

Oliver rolled his neck. “Not compared to what I’m capable of.”

Diggle sniffed like he disagreed. “Look, Oliver, I may have been divorced once, but I’ve been a soldier too. Sometimes it feels like with what you do, with what you’ve seen, there’s no one in the world you can be open with, without being judged or misunderstood. Lyla’s my person. She may not have been there to see everything I did, but she’s still a soldier at heart, and she accepts me for who I was, who I am, and who I could be. I know you don’t want to show Felicity the darkness, but is there something that makes you think she won’t accept it as a part of you, along with everything else?”

“What about my family?” Oliver asked. “I just found out that Malcolm is my sister’s father, and my mother —”

“You think Felicity can’t handle _complicated_?” Diggle questioned, no less obstinately. “Look, you’re running through the excuses not to go all in, and I’m here to tell you that they’re just reasons you’re throwing in your own way. Tell her how you feel, and maybe you’ll kick the habit of not letting yourself be happy. Just my two cents, man. I’m not _blind_ , you know.”

Oliver stared into the shadows for a few long seconds. “What if she doesn’t want…this?” he asked.

“If she’s worth it to you, that’s a risk you’ll have to take by telling her the truth.” Diggle shifted his position, like he’d heard something. “Lord knows there’s not enough of that around here.”

Someone was coming, and Oliver reached for an arrow.

“Don’t tell Tommy,” he said, quickly.

Diggle pulled out his gun as they heard footsteps sound in the boatyard below. “Do I look like I’m stupid?”

* * *

“I see them,” Oliver said, as Nyssa came into view, surrounded by figures in black, carrying something large and misshapen between them.

The shape thumped heavily onto the wooden floor, and they yanked the sheet free to reveal a bound and gagged Quentin Lance, looking — for all intents and purposes — completely murderous.

Oliver nocked an arrow while Diggle angled his sniper rifle. “Ready when you are,” he said.

“Guys, Sara’s moving,” Felicity interrupted. “I think she’s —”

They all gritted their teeth when the ear-piercing scream of the sonic device echoed through the space, bouncing off the roof and doubling back as it continued to shrill.

“Nyssa — let my father go,” Sara said, landing on the raised dais behind them. She was in black leather, silvery wig rising and falling with the night wind, her teeth bared in a defensive snarl. “This is between us.”

“You forget yourself. I am Nyssa al Ghul, heir to the Demon,” she answered, drawing her sword like she knew there was going to be a fight. “I know my duties, and I know you will fulfill your oath, one way or another.”

She turned towards Quentin, and Oliver shot. The arrow sparked off the sword grip and it spun from Nyssa’s hand, but she reached for the bow across her back and pointed it at him instead.

“I see you’ve brought your friends,” she said. “They can join you in the afterlife.”

Sara looked at Oliver, who jerked his head, because he was here anyway. “Leave Sara alone,” he growled, and dropped from the beam to land on the other side of the assassins. “She won’t be going with you.”

“This is League business, _Arrow_ ,” Nyssa hissed, and said something in Arabic.

“I think that means _kill them_ ,” Felicity translated. “Oliver —”

He ducked an arrow and skidded under cover. “I know,” he said, breathing hard. “Be careful, right?”

A pause, because they both knew it wasn’t the right time. “Right.”

* * *

Oliver slammed an unconscious assassin off the edge of the railing, his arm stinging from a fresh cut. “All right?” he said, meaning Diggle.

He saw the man’s salute from the shadows. “Tough to get a clean shot from up here, but I’ve got your back,” he said. “You still have a hostage.”

“I know.” Oliver leapt from the railing and landed on the platform below, but Nyssa had already beaten them to it.

Sara broke an assassin’s neck with a crunch and tossed him away from her, before turning to face Nyssa again. Quentin struggled, the wickedly sharp blade against his throat, and Oliver braced to fire, but Sara raised her hand. “ _Don’t!_ ” she said, her voice high and vulnerable. Exposed.

It was as though they were alone, Nyssa and Sara.

“I found you when you were starving — shivering, _hopeless_ — and I brought you into my home,” Nyssa said, her voice shaking with emotion. “I loved you, with all of my heart, and this is how you repay me. With betrayal.”

Sara hesitated, and reached up to pull the mask from her face, and the silvery wig. They landed silently at her feet, and she stepped forward.

“I wasn’t with you because you saved my life,” she whispered. “I was with you because I loved you.”

“But not anymore,” she answered. “Things have changed.”

“I can’t take the killing, Nyssa. Whatever you might have loved about _Ta-er al-Sahfer_ , Sara Lance will be gone forever if I have to go back to that life.” Sara took a deep breath, and dropped the Bo staff with a thunk, letting it roll away from her on the floorboards.

“ _Sara_ ,” Oliver warned. “Don’t do this.”

“It’s the only way.” She held her arms by her sides, and found a smile for her father, even as he struggled to get free of the ropes and gag. “I love you, daddy.”

Then she looked Nyssa in the eye. “Do what you have to do. It’s okay. I know what you owe your father — I know what you have to do.”

“Oliver, do something,” Felicity said. “Nyssa’s going to _kill_ her.”

It was a tense silence, charged with something ineffable and dangerous, liable to shift at a moment’s notice, and Oliver didn’t know if he would have killed Nyssa against Sara’s wishes, except —

Nyssa flung the knife away with a scream of rage, and Quentin fell forward into Sara’s arms, breathing hard and struggling, but safe.

Sara lifted her head to meet Nyssa’s gaze.

“I release you in the name of Ra’s al Ghul,” Nyssa said, huskily. “Goodbye, my beloved. I wish for you to find your peace.”

“Nyssa,” Sara reached out her hand, still holding her father. “Thank you. And I’m — I’m so sorry.”

Something gleamed on Nyssa’s cheek but she was already walking away, without a backward glance.

“Wait,” Oliver said, and she stopped. “Your father will be angry, but tell him that Malcolm Merlyn is alive, and he’s in Starling City.”

Nyssa turned, her expression dangerous. “I do not suffer fools gladly, much less liars,” she said. “My father would have Malcolm hanged by his feet over burning coals, so if you are attempting to create a falsehood to ease his rage at losing an assassin like _Ta-er al-Sahfer_ , I assure you —”

“It’s not a lie,” Oliver promised. “But he’ll be on the run, especially once he knows you’re coming.”

Nyssa’s eyes flicked over Oliver, as though assessing the truth. “So much the worse for him,” she said, and was gone in a swirl of black and red as dark as blood.

* * *

Oliver sank into a chair. Felicity had gone with Sara and Quentin to the hospital, moral support — he suspected — coinciding with an opportunity to avoid him. Which left just him and Tommy in the Foundry, and there was a lot to say.

“Here you go,” Tommy said, pushing a glass of vodka across the table, instead of whiskey. “Usually I save this for disinfecting cuts, but I made an exception under the circumstances.”

Oliver took the glass in his hand but didn’t drink it. “I can’t believe she lied to us.”

“Can’t you?” Tommy said, and Oliver glanced sharply at him.

“I didn’t want to believe my mother was a pathological liar,” he said, unable to keep the bite from his voice.

“Not that.” Tommy didn’t seem to have registered the sharpness, rubbing the purple bruise along his arm. “Moira lies to protect her family, and that’s what she did with Thea. Malcolm’s dangerous.”

Oliver jerked his head. “She lies to protect herself. She always has. I just — I just didn’t want to see it. But she threatened Felicity, she hid this from _me_ — us — it’s one time too many, Tommy. She’ll never change, and I can’t do this anymore.”

“You’re going to walk away from your mother?” Tommy asked, again in the same even tone. “What about Thea?”

“For Thea’s sake, I’ll act like everything’s normal, and the campaign, but I won’t stay in the mansion — not under the same roof as that —”

 _Monster_. Oliver couldn’t say it aloud, not yet.

“But Thea can’t find out about Malcolm,” Tommy said, like it was a question.

“That’s what I can’t stand,” Oliver said. “It will devastate Thea if she finds out that Robert isn’t her father. She loved him so much.”

“So we’re liars too, then.”

Oliver got to his feet, pushing his chair away with a crash. “Are you on her side?” he demanded. “Tommy, she’s —”

“—what exactly do we do every day?” he asked.

They glared at each other, and Tommy set down his glass, getting to his feet. “I get why you have to walk away, catch your breath, but I’m not going to do the same thing. Malcolm’s dangerous, even if you’re related to him.” He didn’t have to point out the bruises, because they were there for Oliver to see. “I’m going to protect Thea.”

The resulting silence was like a mutual acknowledgment of an impossible situation, and after everything, the last thing Oliver wanted to do was fight with Tommy, especially if he had good reasons.

“She’s your sister,” he said, finally, and it was like he realized it all over again.

“My sister,” Tommy echoed. “God, that’s weird to say.”

“It is. You okay?”

He grunted. "I will be. You?"

"I will be." Oliver returned the glass to the table untouched and reached for his jacket, but Tommy interrupted him.

“Where are you going?”

“H—the mansion,” he said, correcting himself before he said the word that didn’t apply, not anymore. “Then…back here.”

Tommy reached for his keys. “Okay. You get on your bike, I’ll meet you there.”

Oliver stared at him, and Tommy smiled. “You didn’t think I was going to make you face this alone, right?”

* * *

It was the end of something, and Oliver knew it as soon as he walked through the front door. Tommy was waiting for him in the car, giving mother and son their space, and Oliver knew it was for real.

He was about to lose his mother.

A step creaked, and he saw Moira standing by the stained glass window, midway up the polished staircase, as though she’d been watching over the house, surveying it.

Neither of them said a word as he climbed the stairs up to meet her, until they were both standing on the same level.

“Oliver,” she said. “I wasn’t expecting you to come home.”

“I didn’t expect to,” he agreed. “Where’s Thea?”

“At the club. Oliver, please let me exp —”

He jerked his head, once. “I want to say something to you, and then we’ll never speak of it again.”

Moira paused, and re-oriented herself, her arms folded. “All right.”

“All my life, I always thought you and I were closer than anything,” Oliver said, staring at a patch of dark blue glass in the window at their backs. “You always understood me, the way dad was always closer to Thea — it was always the two of us.”

He could feel her reach for him, and he took a step back. The wooden floorboard beneath his shoe gave a sharp creak, almost a snap, and his mother — in a rare show of weakness — flinched at the sound.

Oliver turned away from the window, because he wanted to look his mother in the eye. “But I was wrong,” he said, enunciating each syllable. “Because you should have realized that the biggest mistake you could have made was to threaten the woman I love.”

“Oliver —”

Again, he shifted his hands from her grip.

“I only lied to protect you, and Thea, and Tommy,” Moira said, pleading with him. “Malcolm would have used that information against us, against all of us. I couldn’t let that happen, but I am so, so sorry that you had to hear of it like this.”

Oliver waited, listened, in impassive silence, waiting for something to change. But he knew it for sure now. The worst part of it all was, even faced with a show of emotion from someone as poised as Moira, Oliver couldn’t be sure if it was real, not anymore.

“No, mom, I’m done waiting for you to change. You lied to protect yourself, because you know that Thea will hate you if she ever finds out, and neither I, nor Tommy, can bear to watch that happen. You’re still using us. You always were, and you always will be. I can’t trust you anymore, which is why —”

Moira shook her head. “Oliver, please don’t do this, I’m —”

“—as of today,” he said, raising his voice slightly, and it echoed off the high ceiling, ringing with finality, “I have no mother. You and I — are done.”

The silence was shattering all on its own, and Oliver — numb, again — started to walk down the steps. His mother watched him without a word, hands over her mouth, until he pulled the heavy door closed behind him and walked into the darkness of the trees.

* * *

Tommy could hear the gentle clink of a glass in the drawing room when he walked back into the house, and Moira looked up — a wry certainty in her eye — when he entered.

“Ah,” she said. “I was wondering when my second son would show up to sever all ties.”

He wondered how many drinks it had taken for her to be able to joke about it. “You knew Oliver would tell me.”

“After all that’s happened between you, I can’t imagine either of you are advocates of selective untruths,” she said, setting down her crystal tumbler. “I knew that telling one of you would mean indirectly telling the other, and I didn’t want to tarnish the memory of your parent’s marriage. Your father loved Rebecca, very, very much.”

“You had the affair after she died,” Tommy pointed out, because it was important. “That changes things.”

“I hope so,” Moira said, still watching him in her quiet way.

“So it’s true, then,” Tommy said, even though he had the crumpled DNA results in his hand. “Thea’s my sister.”

Moira nodded. “Thea is your sister, and I’ve always known it. Even at the trial, even when she asked me if I had an affair with her father — always.”

There was something almost wry about they way she phrased it, and Tommy sank into the armchair across from her.

“Now, are you going to walk out on me too?” she asked, like they were getting to the main order of business. “Because Oliver has. I no longer have him as a son…apparently.”

“No,” Tommy said. “I’m not going to leave. I know why he has to, but I’m not.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh? It must be your mother’s forgiving streak, then.”

“Maybe,” Tommy answered, and gently took Moira’s hand. It was cold, but steady, at least on the surface. “Maybe I know what kind of father Malcolm Merlyn would have turned out to be, and Robert was the better choice to raise your daughter.”

Setting down her glass, Moira covered his hand with her own. There was a tremor in it now. “I’m so sorry, Tommy.”

He shook his head. “I understand.”

“But Oliver doesn’t.”

“Yes and no,” he said. “And I’d give him the time he needs to come to terms with it.”

She drew in a shaky breath, covering her mouth with her fingers, the diamond ring glittering above her gold wedding band. “All right,” she said. “Unfortunately, that still leaves the question of what the both of you planning to do about Thea. Malcolm has been threatening to tell her, whatever happens, and I’m at my wit’s end as to how I’m meant to silence him.”

“We could make him run,” Tommy suggested. “Far, _far_ away from Starling.”

“If only we had that nuclear option,” Moira said, laconically. “Unfortunately, Malcolm was always careful with his Achilles heel. I always thought it was his children — clearly, I was wrong.”

“That’s true,” he agreed, still holding her hand. “But he mentioned Nanda Parbat, and the Demon’s Head, _and_ I just told Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter that Malcolm Merlyn’s alive.”

Moira looked at him with interest. “Now, that’s very intriguing.”

“What a touching scene,” said a voice.

Tommy was on his feet in a second, interposing himself between Moira and the open glass doors, where dried leaves swept in from the lawn, past Malcolm’s very-much-still-not-dead presence.

“I see the beating I gave you wasn’t instructive in the least,” Malcolm said, a sentence aimed at Tommy. “And my previous visit doesn’t seem to have had the necessary impact, either —” (that was aimed at Moira) “— especially since Thea seems to still be unprepared for the truth.”

“And she won’t hear it, _especially_ not from you,” Tommy said, ignoring the telltale twinges of pain in the various areas Malcolm had beat the stuffing out of. “Why are you here?”

“I should have thought that was obvious.” Malcolm looked past Tommy’s arm to Moira. “Hello, Moira. I trust you remember what we agreed on. I intend to recognize Thea as my daughter, and you were supposed to prepare her for that fact.”

“You will do no such thing.” Moira got to her feet with a whisper of silk, standing by Tommy’s side. “Because I am _done_ being afraid of you, Malcolm.”

“Oh?” he raised an eyebrow. “Did you contract some of your deceased husband’s stupidity?”

Moira’s lip curved. “On the contrary, Tommy was just telling me something very interesting — a piece of your past you seem to have called to our attention. Nanda Parbat, and the League of Assassins.”

Malcolm was very still.

“Ra’s al Ghul,” Moira said, startling Tommy with the cold bite of steel in her voice. “The elusive leader of the League of Assassins, who will shortly be in receipt of the information that you are in fact still very much alive, and if I’m not mistaken, he will be _most_ pleased that he now has the chance to kill you himself.”

Tommy had to smile at the sight of his father turning pale.

“You wouldn’t,” he said.

Moira touched Tommy’s arm, slipping it into the crook of her elbow. “Ask your son,” she said. “Because he was the one who passed the news on to Ra’s al Ghul’s daughter.”

“Nyssa has one hell of a sword arm,” Tommy said. “And I’d be on my way, if I knew what was good for me.”

“This isn’t over,” Malcolm said, through gritted teeth.

“Oh, it very much is,” Moira answered. “Goodbye, Malcolm.”

Tommy echoed the sentiment, except with another (ruder) gesture of his own, involving a raised finger. “What she said.”

Malcolm sneered, but turned in a whirl of dead leaves and was gone, leaving the doors banging behind him in the wind. “Sorry about that,” Tommy said, shutting them primly and drawing the curtains closed. “Don’t know what got into me.”

Moira lowered herself onto the sofa and held out her hand again, which Tommy took, sitting on the squashy arm of her chair. “Thank you, Tommy,” she said.

“No problem. Now — time for some bad TV,” he declared, reaching for the remote, and Moira smiled.

* * *

When short-lived romances imploded and first dates got cancelled by unfortunate blackmail-related circumstances (which sounded a _lot_ more interesting than it actually was), at least there was always food in the fridge.

Except _not_.

Felicity sighed, looking between the empty shelves and the wall clock in her kitchen. Part of spending most of her time in a basement and the office meant that her diet consisted mostly of takeout the guys ordered and deli salads to make up for the latter. Come to think of it, she couldn’t even remember when she’d actually used her cooker — maybe that burnt omelette with the Tupperware of Mexican leftovers?

It was a little past midnight on a Saturday — a couple of hours post- her nonexistent date at the Italian restaurant — but unless eating a desiccated bunch of chives appealed to her food sensibilities, she was going to need a visit to the twenty-four-hour convenience store, or the Chinese takeout place round the corner.

Both looked good, especially for wine and chow mein respectively.

Felicity pulled on a pair of athletic tights (her health compromise for sad-eating in the early hours of the morning), shook her hair out of its ponytail, and reached for a jacket to pull over her tank, wedging her feet into sneakers and her keys into her pocket.

Food and wine — good plan. Everything else could wait.

Her neighborhood was as quiet as midnight on a weekend suggested, and her porch light burned amber as she stepped out into the cold, planning to jog all the way there and back (hah, things Felicity never did).

The screen door slammed first, but Felicity turned around before she could get the finicky front door too — because she’d heard a noise — only to experience what probably qualified as the shock of her life.

Oliver was standing on the sidewalk, hands in the pockets of his coat, no scarf, his breath misting in the cold, chest rising and falling like he’d walked very fast to get here.

 _Run_ , like he’d run all the way there.

She didn’t even know he'd had her address.

“Hi,” she said, completely motionless. “Are you — are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Oliver said, with a shake of his head. “I mean, yes — I just…I just wanted to thank you.”

_Thank me?_

Of all the things she’d expected to hear under the circumstances, gratitude wasn’t one of them. Breakups and apologies, yes. Not… _that_. Unless he was trying a bait-and-switch to make her feel better, i.e. start with the positives, then the _I’m sorry, let’s just be friends_. Felicity's stomach ached at the thought of it, but she took a step down, just one, to remind herself that she wasn’t a coward, and she could face this — before and after.

Oliver mirrored her movement, crossing one square on the sidewalk, until he was at the foot of her front porch. “For what?” she asked, as his eyes swept her face.

“For being you,” he said simply, a sentence that made her heart skip an embarrassingly eager beat, but he followed it up with: “I owe you an apology.”

Felicity’s throat seized up. _This is it_. “My mother…she shouldn’t have done what she did. She shouldn’t have… _used_ you.”

Felicity didn’t say anything — what could she say? Everything she could add to the hypothetical conversation of Moira-bashing, Oliver had probably already thought of, and she knew — appearances aside — that the only person it would end up hurting was Oliver, and he didn’t deserve that.

The thought made her want to wrap him in a hug, but she gripped one of the porch beams instead, until her knuckles turned pale. Oliver was staring at one of the ferns set out by the painted metal swing, and he looked back at her, suddenly.

“I told Moira that she doesn’t have a son — not anymore.”

The pain in his voice was all she needed to hear, and added to the topic of parental abandonment-slash-severance, Felicity went slightly over the edge with the run-on sentences. “Oh god, Oliver — was it because of what I said? Oliver, she’s — no —” She shifted her hands from her mouth, a safety measure against babbling (too late). “She’s your mom, Oliver.”

He shook his head again. “I know. The thing is — I wanted to believe that my mother was…different…than how everyone said she was. I think I could have forgiven her for a lot of things, but not this. Because if anything, today has proved that she only sees threats, or enemies — not people. Not… _you_. She couldn’t see you for who you are, and she _threatened_ you, and I don’t want to end up like her, Felicity.”

“Well, I don’t think you’d ever try to blackmail me,” she said, a flicker of humor that made Oliver’s face warm just a little, before it lapsed back to the _twisted-brow-downturned-mouth_ look. “So you’re just not going to see her? What about your sister — what about Thea?”

“I’ll still be her brother. So will Tommy — he’s always been family to her. I’ll support the campaign, I’ll do whatever I need to for appearances’ sake, but I’m not staying at the mansion anymore, and I can’t be her son in private.”

Felicity blew out her breath, slowly. “Are you okay?”

Oliver huffed, something of an incredulous laugh and a tired exhalation. “I will be, I think. But I didn’t come here to talk to you about Moira.”

“You came to say _thank you_ ,” she said. “You’ve done that — bonus points for signposting it this time.”

This time Oliver did smile. “I had a good teacher.”

Felicity smiled back, regretted it, and looked down at her feet. When she raised her head again, Oliver was still watching her, with an expression she wasn’t sure she could handle, _if_ —

“Why are you here, Oliver?” she asked, wanting him to get it over with. Like _band-aid_ , _off_. Then she could run for Chinese food and red wine, because god, she was going to need it.

Oliver’s hand was resting on the banister, and he climbed one step, still looking up at her, as though what pulled him closer was the look between them. “Today I learned that my mother isn’t who I thought she was, and it just made me think about everyone else — if they were hiding, _lying_ to me —”

Oh god, regression. The backslide from _problematic trust issues_ to _major, world-jarring, dysfunctional shutdown_. “Oliver…” she began.

“— I know I’m not always the most…open with you. It’s just — the five years I was away, I could never completely trust someone, and I guess it went on for so long that I…got used to always hiding a part of myself away from others. I know that’s not the easiest environment to create trust, which is why I’m so grateful that you do — trust me. And today, when I was thinking about those five years and the two since then…I thought of you. Because you’ve always told me the truth, no matter how hard it is to hear. So I just wanted to say…thank you. I never realized how much I needed it until today.”

With a ghost of a real smile, Oliver climbed the steps towards her, one hand trailing along the wooden beam, and Felicity tensed slightly, holding her breath as he got close, in spite of how physical they’d been — continuously and a lot — for the last few weeks.

Then he turned his head and kissed her on the cheek, just like he had at New Year’s. “Thank you, Felicity,” he whispered.

The kiss burned hot on her skin, but Felicity had been holding herself rooted to the spot, bracing for the knockout punch, that she didn’t realize he’d said everything until he was turning away — walking down the steps, _now_. She could imagine him walking down the street, the broad set of his shoulders disappearing down the road and into the dark, at which point her stillness shattered like thin ice.

“Oliver!” Her foot landed hard on the second step, sending a jolt all the way up from ankle to knee that she completely ignored. “I haven’t told you everything,” she said, her breath coming fast and oddly short, her chest tight from the cold. I mean…” (Oliver had turned to look questioningly at her) “…I haven’t been…completely honest. With you.”

She was biting her lip, because it was going to hurt, saying it aloud, as if she had relive it all over again. “My dad walked out on me and my mom. I was seven, and I never found out why he did it. But he never came back, and since then, other people — important people — they tend to walk away, from me. I don’t know if it’s because of the way that I am, or just… _coincidence_ having a sense of irony, but it happens, and I’ve always been afraid of… _that_ happening again.”

The cold turned her breath silver in front of her eyes, and Felicity opened the hand she’d been clutching tight to her chest, like she was letting go. “So I haven’t been completely honest with you, Oliver, because the truth is — I’m afraid you’ll leave too. I know there’s no way we can go back to the way we were, _get-together_ highs don't usually last after you drop a bombshell on your boyfriend about his family, but…”

Oliver had inhaled too, sharply, like she’d jabbed him in the ribs, and the thought of hurting him with what she was saying just made the words go even faster, and they proceeded to spill out of her all at once. “You’ve always come back, one way or another. I mean, sometimes I have to fly all the way to a deserted island and jump out of a plane to get you back, but you always find your way home. So — um —”

Oliver had gone very still.

“— I really like you, Oliver,” she said, hopelessly. “I’ve liked you for a really long time, and — um — that’s all I wanted to say. Just…promise me — whatever happens — you’ll always come back.”

Oliver didn’t answer at first, and Felicity forced her nerves back down, because he was on her sidewalk again, climbing the steps to get just a little closer. “That would mean I’d have to know where home is,” he said, slowly, as though it was a question.

Her eyes moved across his face, taking him in, as he was. “Do you?” she asked, very softly.

In answer, Oliver took another step, so that their faces drew level, and Felicity could look him eye to eye. He leaned forward, his thumb tracing her jaw in a way that created a wave of shivers centered somewhere in her stomach, his fingers curling against her skin like they knew her warmth by heart.

He paused — for half a breath — as though waiting for her to acknowledge the answer.

“I think I do,” he said, and Felicity, her heart in her throat, closed the last two inches of distance to kiss him.

It was a sigh of relief without the actual sigh, this kiss, that it was _working_ , that it was _happening_. Still.

Here, and now.

Felicity heard the murmured sound from low in his throat, and echoed it with a short gasp of her own, her body curving — sinuous, _wanting_ — into his. She put her arms around his neck, his heat burning against her skin, and felt his hands around her waist, eliminating what little space there was left between them.

With an ease that made the both of them smile — into the shared kiss — Oliver scooped her off the ground, pulling her legs securely around his waist. Felicity held his face in her hands, trusting him not to let her fall, and he carried her across the porch, through the threshold into her house.

She wanted him, and he wanted her — that, they could feel without question.

And this time, they weren’t waiting.

They made it past the doorway just as the porch light blinked out, and the door swung shut behind them with a slam.

* * *

Burned into Oliver Queen’s memory was the sight of Felicity emerging from her house, stepping backwards over the threshold, brushing her hair behind her ear — gold and honey and cream, lit under the warm amber light — keys jangling in her hand, her abrupt stillness, and the way her lips had parted at the sight of him.

As though she’d had to catch her breath.

So had he. So _did_ he, now, every moment with her — every minute and every second — it all made him lose his breath, his words…

He gave them to her, all of them, all of himself. He’d happily lose himself in Felicity Smoak, just for the chance to cherish her, hold her —

 _Love her_.

Oliver had never wanted anyone more in his life, now, carrying her through the door and into the house. She was light in his arms but solid, and _real_ , all hands and hot breath and lips that burned on his skin at the precise point between pleasure and pain. He might have groaned, but the sound was lost against her mouth, her throat, her chest…

She had been guiding him towards the stairs, but he stopped with a hand on the wall, holding them back. “Should we —” he began, hesitantly, “should we wait?”

Felicity’s face broke into a smile, as though the unofficial resolution to wait until they’d had a date was something incredibly funny, and she leaned in to kiss him in a way that made it perfectly clear she was done with all of that.

“ _Upstairs_ ,” she whispered, and Oliver felt his smile grow to match hers.

* * *

Oliver Queen was in her house. Correction, Oliver — someone she hadn’t even known had any idea, or interest, in where she lived — was carrying her, and they were about to hit the final stop on the Queen-operated private express line, her bedroom. The door had been left half-ajar (habits of the people who lived alone), and if he hadn’t kicked it open (more of a nudge, really), she would have done it herself.

Belatedly — in that it was slightly less important than feeling herself pressed up against Oliver’s rock-hard everything — Felicity considered the various aspects of her (distinctive, _crash-to-reality_ ) bedroom, from the lack of atmospherically burning candles, to the exposed brick walls showing between white wood paneling she’d painted herself, to the clothes she’d left piled on the patched green armchair and the patterned divider screen in the corner, to the extremely _loud_ geometric pattern on her duvet.

A duvet that Oliver was currently laying her down on, shortly before he stepped back, breathing hard. Felicity pushed herself up by her elbows, looking at him looking around the room.

“I really like your room,” he said.

Felicity kicked off her sneakers, and one of them hit the side of his leg. “And if all goes according to my nefarious plans, I’m about to add a very strong _pro_ to the list for keeping my place,” she said. “Care to help?”

It was as effective as a buzzer horn as far as reminding him that they were powering ahead was concerned, Oliver shrugged off his coat, not nearly quickly enough, because Felicity got to her feet to help him out, tugging — again — by his belt buckle to get him closer to the about-to-be-despoiled bed. He was wearing one of his indecently fitted henleys, and not much else, something she found out when she pulled the hem of his shirt up by the fistful and was rewarded with an up close and personal look at his abdominal muscles.

His breath caught, and he was looking down at her hands like they were the source of the trouble, even though she was sure only the backs of her knuckles had come into contact with his skin.

Felicity thought she might actually pass out from breathing so fast and so little, but she felt she owed it to womankind to at least… _unwrap_. Savor. Relish. Then she could pass out. Maybe after a couple of hours.

And off — _off_ it went.

With her help, Oliver dropped his shirt onto the rug, and straightened his shoulders slightly — something she greatly appreciated — and stood still as she ran her hands over, _all_ over. Easily not the first time she’d seen him shirtless, even if she avoided admitting point-blank to sneaking peeks during his workouts, but after two weeks of near-Puritanical deprivation, she needed her regular hit of impossible sculpting.

His fingers were teasing at the hem of _her_ shirt, slipping underneath to brush her bare waist now and then, but Felicity knew he wouldn’t undress her unless she asked him to (damn manners and being respectful of power positions). Unfortunately, the words were being a little uncooperative, now that he was in her bedroom, and she didn’t know how to move from groping his shirtless chest to losing her clothes.

It should have advertised on the label that Felicity Smoak was very, _very_ far from being anything close to a goddess (in contrast to current godlike company). Not even a minor deity. Barely even a sprite.

Oliver’s breadth of experience wasn’t exactly something she wanted to think about in times like these, but somewhere in the annals of history had to be some pretty _epic_ adventures, and she was…

Nervous.

As hell.

As though he could sense her mounting anxieties (and pure pheromone-driven arousal), Oliver caught her hand from where it hovered on his scarred flank, and moved it to the Bratva tattoo, right above his heart.

It took a second or two, and Felicity holding her own breath, to feel how fast it was hammering, just like — if not outpacing — hers.

Was he… _nervous?_

“Why?” she asked. _Why — for me?_

“Because it’s you,” he answered, simply. “It’s always been you.”

They stared at each other, his hand around hers, and Felicity reached up with her free one to cup the back of his neck, guiding his head down to hers. Their lips met again, and something was different this time. Less inhibition, less restraint — like that time in the alley, but also not quite. Despite two weeks of practice, this kiss — these kisses — were dizzyingly new, not just a combination of _alley_ -hot (yes, that was going to be the descriptor for them in the lexicon) and whisper-soft, but like everything up until then had been PG-13 in comparison to what they’d really wanted all along.

And hell if they weren’t going to get there now.

Felicity pushed Oliver gently onto the mattress and climbed on top of him, her legs on either sides of his hips, feeling acutely his eyes on her face like it was something of worship, something he couldn’t look away from. It made her body — every limb, every finger — feel soft, and fluid, and _sexy_ …enough to reach for the hem of her tank and lift it slowly from her body, their gazes locked the whole time.

Oliver’s fist closed around her shirt as it was tangled in her hair, hiding her face, and he pulled it from her — not quite gently, in contrast — throwing it halfway across the room with the kind of lopsided aim that made Felicity laugh, rocking into him.

The rigid seams of his jeans and the unfortunate (or fortuitous, depending on the POV) tightness of her pants made their breaths catch almost at the same time, generating friction just where they needed each other, and Felicity wasn’t laughing anymore. His belt buckle hit the floor, followed shortly by his jeans, and Felicity clung to him as he peeled the pants from her lower body, the heat of his torso flush against her chest, taut skin and a beating heart. She was swaying a little from the _everything_ of it all by the time she reached behind to unhook her bra, thanking all the deities (minor and major) governing sex that nothing was going wrong so far, even if she hadn’t done the candles-and-wine routine.

Oliver reached for her as soon as the bra was on the floor, joining the rest of their clothes, clasping tighter — nearer — as they moved against each other. His hands were roaming along her shoulders and back, pulling at the waistband of her underwear. In the interests of returning the favor, she pushed her hands down (he _was_ a boxer person) to grip him. He groaned, loud, and she felt his teeth scrape her chest (also groan-worthy, in the _good_ way).

Another blur of movement, and suddenly there wasn’t anything left to take off on both sides.

_Moment._

_Now_.

Felicity knew where her hips were, and where he was, and holding him steady with a hand on his chest, the other on his back, she shifted — orienting, with his help — and with a rush and a flood of sensations that felt like her body’s way of indicating _thank god_ , they were literally, metaphorically, _finally_ together.

She raised her head, having let it fall back from the sheer relief of the moment, and held herself very still, searching for Oliver’s hands so that she could link their fingers and hold them tight.

Then, _thank frack_ , they started to move.

* * *

Felicity’s chin rubbed at his bare chest, in the relative darkness of her room. They were surrounded by the disheveled bed, moonlight falling across the bare floorboards, in pale strips across his bare ankles and her toes, which were sticking out from the rumpled duvet and sheet he’d pulled around them to keep warm.

“Oliver?” she said, and he turned his head on the pillow.

“Hm?”

She was naked underneath the covers, lying along the length of his body like she was meant to be there, her knee between his, a hand resting on his belly, his arm around her shoulders to hold her close, and she whispered something to him — a joke, a reference he had no problem whatsoever with placing — containing the previously-taboo words _inside_ and _me_. Laughing until his chest shook with it, Oliver rolled over and began to kiss her again, feverishly, feeling like he couldn’t stop.

“It’s _late_ ,” she reminded him, but she was smiling, sliding lower against the pillows, her knees brushing the sides of his thighs as she drew them up.

“It is,” Oliver agreed, and she gave a breathy — incredibly arousing — gasp as he slid home. “But I want to hear you say it again.”

Felicity’s hips were working beneath him, her hair tossed around her face and fanning out across the pillows. Her fingers traced his lips and jaw, her forehead hot against his as they shifted, gradually, into the same rhythm.

Then —

“It feels really good having you inside me,” she whispered, and he bent, smiling, to kiss her again.

* * *

Felicity had damp hair, a fuzzy gray sweater on, a twice-worn-but-not-yet-washed pair of black jeans, and a firetruck-red leather booth at her back.

Oh, and Oliver Queen was there too.

Also with damp hair, last night’s clothes on (her supply of discarded men’s clothes had come up extremely short), and a smile.

Even though it was five AM, and they were the first customers at the twenty-four-hour diner a couple streets down from Felicity’s house. He was talking to the waitress — Meg, three grandkids — up at the black-and-white checked counter, leaning his elbows on the bar while she heated them a fresh pot of coffee.

While Felicity was pretty sure Meg appreciated the many French toast orders (extra whipped cream), she’d never gotten a fresh pot of coffee brewed just by asking (she hadn’t asked, _period_ ).

This was so, incredibly, _weird_. Like _clash-of-two-universes_ weird. Oliver Queen wasn’t supposed to show up at diners that still had quarter-operated jukeboxes and gigantic whipped cream hats for pretty much every hot drink they offered, where none of the staff were a day under forty and the waitress always knew to eighty-six the bacon before Felicity had to say anything, and they’d hover around to ask her how the big job was going.

Then again, it was her fault for forgetting to go grocery shopping, in the unlikely event that an all-night (well, _most-_ night) sexcapade would leave two grown adults with empty stomachs in the early hours of the morning.

Oliver came back with two white mugs of piping-hot coffee, setting them down — not a drop spilled — and sliding easily into the seat across from her.

“What?” he asked.

Felicity hid her smile behind the mug, pretending to stare out the window at the dark and uneventful street. “Nothing,” she said. _Just…incredibly sexy and cute_.

Oliver took his coffee black, but he watched her — no stranger to her precise routine of caffeine preparation — add copious amounts of sugar and creamer to her cup without comment (always a good sign). Still smiling.

Finally, Felicity had to ask, otherwise she’d combust.

“Are you this happy — and _smiley_ — because you just had sex?” she asked. “And yes, that’s my way of asking if you’re always in a bad mood because of your self-imposed celibacy.”

Oliver laughed, even though her face was perfectly serious. “What?” he said. “How would that even work?”

“Well, _sex_ is when two consenting grownups who really like each other get together — with birth control, god willing — and do stuff with their special bathing suit places that releases all kinds of happy brain chemicals —”

“That’s funny,” Oliver had reached across the small table to take her hand, entwining their fingers like it was the normal thing to do, “because I don’t recall you having so little confidence in my abilities when we were doing what we were doing last night.”

Felicity blushed — as was no doubt intended, _ass_ — but she didn’t snatch her hand away. If she was being honest, her instincts were the exact opposite, straying into inappropriate territory the more she considered exactly what she’d done with his hand — and her hands — in the privacy of her bedroom.

“I was actually really surprised no one ended up with a nosebleed — or a broken _anything_ ,” she admitted. “First times usually don’t go… _well_.”

“Ours did.”

The matter-of-fact tone of voice made Felicity blush even harder, but with a smile this time. “It did,” she agreed.

PDA wasn’t exactly her thing, much less while they were being watched from a distance — very curiously — by the staff, who were understandably intrigued at their chronically single customer bringing in, well, _Oliver_. Felicity pretended she had an itch to get her hand back, something Oliver seemed to find amusing, but by then the food had arrived, and she was hungry enough to eat her way through the mound of French toast. Maybe some of Oliver’s eggs (uncharred omelet, because restaurants were pretty good at doing that), if push came to shove.

“I know it’s not exactly a dinner at _Murano_ ,” he said, casually name-dropping the best Italian restaurant in Starling City like it was nothing. “But we kind of missed the reservation.”

Personally, tiny pasta portions (no matter how mouthwatering) paled in comparison to diner-sized dishes covered in butter, especially since they’d already skipped straight to the metaphorical dessert. But Felicity had other concerns, since he'd touched on the date they'd skipped. In a pretty epic fashion, if she was being slightly self-congratulatory.

“So would this technically count as our first date?” she asked, pouring syrup over the golden-brown brioche. “For…record-keeping purposes, I mean. The resolution _was_ to wait until we had a proper sit-down dinner — with nice glassware and non-plastic plates — before we, you know, got to the whole _tear-clothes-off-like-animals_ …thing.”

“Well.” Oliver seemed to be genuinely considering the question, shifting some eggs to the side of his plate as though he knew that she’d steal them. “There’s food, and we’re at a table, and we slept together on the same day, just in a slightly different sequence of events, so I’d say _yes_. It counts.”

“ _Slept together_ ,” she muttered, moving onto the butter and whipped cream, “is not _exactly_ how I’d describe it.”

She’d made the mistake of sucking a smear of whipped cream off her fingertip, an act that seemed to have gotten Oliver distracted mid-bite.

Which reminded her, _the rules_.

“ _Oliver_ ,” she said, pointing a forkful of French toast at him. “Ground rules — nobody else knows, so you _cannot_ look at me like that, under _any_ circumstances, or they’ll know stuff’s...hinky.”

“Then you can’t do that in front of me,” he said, zero hesitation. “Unless we’re alone.”

Felicity looked at her fingers and wiggled them. “What if I get a paper cut?” she asked, holding her index finger up with a preemptively hurt expression.

“Nope.” He shook his head. “That’s the rule.”

“Making out in the Foundry.”

“We'll play it by ear,” he said. “I’m starting to wish I had a bed down there. And a more selective lock for the door.”

“Oh, you have to buy a bed _now_ ,” she said. “Even if you’re sleeping over at my place, you can’t _say_ that you’re sleeping over at my place.”

“Will I be sleeping over at your place?” he inquired, the gleam in his eye contrasting sharply with the playful nonchalance in his tone. “I didn’t get my invitation.”

“As long as you don’t expect me to put my hand down your pants whenever I have to issue that _invitation_ ," she said, making him choke on his coffee. “Anyway, I guess the real question is — what happens now?”

Oliver, slightly flushed and breathless but otherwise a-okay, glanced out the window, then back at her. Like it was sinking in for him — more or less around the same time as her — that they were on a date, discussing the _rules_ , getting ready to do it for real. Felicity's heart gave a nervous flutter, and for a moment, she wondered what he'd say.

Then, in a moment impossible to articulate with how _perfect_ it was, a broad smile took over his face, as though he couldn’t wait and wanted her to know it. As though he was... _happy_.

“Anything,” he answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PHEW, amirite? Granted, they still owe each other a real first date, but at least they're not broken up :)  
> If you've read my other stuff before, you probably know I always have to make a reference to 1x21, I mean...how could I not? :P  
> So that's 2x13 sorted, next is probably going to be 2x14, but with some major tweaks, of course (no Oliver and Sara relationship, for starters, and OLICITY!). After that, I haven't really decided. I'm a bit interested in what I could do for the Huntress episode, but if anyone has other suggestions, by all means!


	23. A Fresh Start (Birds of Prey, Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. I've been away for a lot longer than I realized, exam and end-of-term stuff just crept up on me. Never got the chance to thank everyone for the reaction to Olicity really, really getting together. It was awesome to write, but I'll be honest - I think the update took a while because I really wanted to leave them in a happy place before all the S2 drama hits.  
> But anyways, here's a chapter dripping with fluff for you awesome people ;)

Either Tommy’s nerves were in serious need of a deep-tissue massage, or he was losing his ability to roll with the metaphorical vigilante punches, _or_ having pretty much all his friends out in the field at the same time — armed with weapons that looked practically Stone Age next to what the average drug dealers were packing these days — made him, and this was a _huge_ understatement, stressed.

Who knew porcelain made such a loud noise when it shattered?

Felicity rolled her chair out of the spill zone, namely the remains of her second-favorite coffee mug and a very nice Java roast, the first unfortunate casualty of the night.

Then again, from the look on her face and the fact that she probably had about the same number of friends that he did, she didn’t care about one cat-eared coffee mug.

“Sorry about that,” Tommy said, from where he was stationed in front of the computer. “I flail when I’m stressed.”

“I think you do a lot more than _flail_ ,” Roy pointed out, part two of the dynamic duo she was meant to be babysitting while the others took to the field. “Were you just cussing in German?”

Felicity raised one finger. “Let me guess: you dated a lovely _fraulein_ in college, and surprise, surprise, it didn’t end well — hence the not-so-wonderful vocab in yet _another_ European language. How far off am I?”

If he hadn’t been glued to the screens, Tommy would have broken out a different finger of his own. “I’m starting to worry everyone knows me too well.”

“We do,” Roy and Felicity said simultaneously. “But sharing’s cute,” she added. “Have you seen that video of an otter trying to break open a clam? It’s like that with Oliver — only harder.”

“Like you would know,” he scoffed, latching onto the potential double entendre before he could stop himself. “Last time I checked — you and Mr Emotionally Constipated were trying to be _adults_ and not jump each other’s bo—”

“ _Neither here nor there_ ,” Felicity interrupted, calmly, and gave the comm channels a prod. “How’s it going?”

“SCPD’s chasing, we’re following,” Sara answered. “Funny, I don’t remember there being so much chatter on the comms.”

“It’s getting crowded down here,” Felicity agreed. “But it’s not as if we have a fully grown man living down in the basement, do we? Oh wait.”

“ _Hilarious_ ,” Oliver answered, with his usual level of grumpy. “Can we all focus, please?”

“Oh, I think you ruled that out as a possibility once you introduced Hothead into the equation,” Diggle commented. “You know Tommy _always_ needs to get the last word.”

Roy whirled around to look at Felicity, wide-eyed. “Does he mean me?”

“Yes,” Tommy said, before she could protect Roy’s diamond-encrusted feelings (now _that_ was an image). “Now can we get back to work, please?”

It was a sentence followed by the audible surprise (or silence) of everyone in the comms circle. “What? There’s a drug raid going down,” he added, unnecessarily.

Felicity looked unnerved, which wasn’t to say she hadn’t already been biting her nails for the last half-hour, but the average crimefighting sting didn’t really seem like a crimefighting sting without irrelevant banter and externalized monologues over the comms.

Maybe he’d hit an emotional growth spurt.

“McKenna’s in charge of Vice these days, right? Is she down there with them?”

Tommy made an exasperated noise, but only because he’d accidentally brought up his browser search history instead of a different traffic cam feed. “Why do you have to assume a girlfriend is the only reason I’d take things seriously?” he said, hurriedly clearing the screen before they could see what he’d been googling.

Felicity and Roy exchanged glances, and the latter shrugged, the usual preamble to something offhandedly sarcastic. “I mean, I know our nonexistent friendship is founded on the fact that Oliver makes us both slap bowls of water together, but the reasons are literally endless.”

Tommy checked his phone, lying facedown beside the keyboard. “McKenna’s not the type to text before high-risk drug busts, but I’m guessing _yes_ ,” he answered, sensing another line on his forehead (another sign of the incoming apocalypse, he was _wrinkling_ ). “And being stuck down here isn’t helping.”

Felicity reached over and touched his arm in sympathy. “It’s dangerous,” she said simply, before turning back to the computers. “According to police dispatch, sergeant Lance and the anti-drug squad got an insider tip about a handoff down in the old manufacturing plant. These guys have a trail that stretch all the way to Coast City, but the last time someone tried to snitch, police found the guy strung up by his ankles over a bucket. So — y’know — be careful.”

“I’ve seen worse,” Sara said, and Tommy could imagine her swinging whatever lethal weapon she had like it was paper-light. “We can take him.”

Roy stuck his bare arm under Felicity’s nose like it was evidence. “I got chills.”

Unimpressed by his surprisingly pasty arm, she elbowed him (somewhat gently) back to his rotating chair. “Unless they’re the back entrance to Narnia — _shush_ ,” she said, before returning to the serious (and somewhat illegal) exercise of hacking a satellite that wasn’t hers. “The delivery truck’s turning into Grace Avenue, two minutes and it should be passing right underneath —”

“—me,” Diggle interjected, along with the reassuring click of his sniper rifle. “I’ll take out the wheels, and keep the Arrow from confusing recklessness and being brave. That about right?”

Tommy couldn’t help but smirk, imagining the disgruntled look on Oliver’s face — always the cactus in response to being teased.

“Gold star,” Felicity answered. “But we have a problem. They always have a dummy convoy and I can’t see a car that looks like theirs. Two seconds, let me —”

“I see them,” Sara interrupted. “Black Ford — two streets over. I recognize the number plates from the file. It’s them.”

Felicity trailed off in surprise, but Tommy was zeroing in on the supposed handoff site. “I’m picking up movement at the plant,” he said, and paused. “How do I turn off heat vision again?”

Rolling her chair over so fast that it bumped his, she reached around him and tapped something that made the images go back to normal. At which point she stared at the cluster of heavily armed figures waiting for the convoy, and so did Tommy. Because _whoa_.

“Is that —?” he began, but Felicity was already hailing Oliver.

“Oliver,” she said, her hand to her ear. “Their buyer — it’s _Frank Bertinelli._ ”

* * *

A bullet pinged off the railing, just inches from where Diggle’s hand had been two seconds before. “Detective Hall, Frank Bertinelli, the Arrow — all we need now is for the Huntress to show up and we’ve got ourselves a surprise reunion,” he said, taking down one of the dealers with a single shot. “Anything else I need to know?”

Oliver ducked just in time to avoid getting his head smashed in with a crowbar, sinking his elbow into his attacker’s gut and grabbing him around the throat in quick succession. Diggle’s gun went off twice as Oliver swung the guy over the railing — followed shortly by him smashing into a tall pile of crates on the main floor.

“Believe it or not — I don’t plan for these things to happen,” he said, giving his friend a look before climbing onto the railing himself.

“Don’t worry,” Diggle said, already braced to cover him. “I believe you.”

Whether that was a dig regarding his famously abysmal personal life, Oliver didn’t have time to ask, and jumped.

He swung through the air, the wire zipping through his fingers, and landed squarely in the middle of the fray. Gunfire peppered the concrete, and he dove for cover behind a wall of steel pipes — but he wasn’t alone.

McKenna looked over at him, her surprise lasting just about two seconds before it faded. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised to see you here,” she said dryly. “The last name _Bertinelli_ always meant you got involved.”

Oliver remembered just as well as McKenna did what happened the last time she and a Bertinelli had crossed paths. She’d been shot, and the damage had almost ended her career in the force. Now, her hand briefly touched her side, as though to reassure herself that the damage Helena had done was just that — _done_.

“I’m sorry,” he said, suddenly, as though that could make all the difference. As though it was the time and the place.

Amusement flickered across McKenna’s face. “Get us Frank Bertinelli, and we’ll call it even.”

Oliver nodded. “I w—”

They both ducked, hands over their ears, as the familiar sonic screech echoed throughout the cavernous factory. Nocking an arrow, Oliver looked out to see Sara leaping clear across a heap of rusted steel, her staff flashing silver in her hands. No worries there. The others were scattering, some pursued by the police, all except —

“I see him,” Oliver said, and took off at a run. “Felicity —”

“On it,” she answered, before he even needed to finish. “You wrecked their cars before the gunfight, but there’s a shortcut down to the train tracks I’m guessing Mr Ex-Mob Boss wants to take. Take the next alley and jump the staircase — you’ll come out in front of him.”

“Copy that.”

“Oh, and —” she hesitated, by virtue of the open channel “—try to _not_ die.”

Oliver cleared the staircase with a single heave. “I’ll do my best,” he said, aiming for Bertinelli’s legs. “I have plans tonight.”

The arrow exploded into steel cables that zipped around his ankles and sent him tumbling down the narrow slope, punctuated by a yelp of surprise and subsequent cursing. Oliver slid down the slope and walked up to the writhing figure, facedown in the dirt. He gave another shout of fright when Oliver yanked him back by the scruff of his collar.

A familiar face, unshaven and more lined since the last time they’d crossed paths, nearly a year ago, but Oliver recognized him just the same.

“Frank Bertinelli,” he snarled, “ _you have failed this city_.”

* * *

“Routine drug raid turns into a major crime boss arrest,” Felicity said, tapping Bertinelli’s picture on the virtual crime board to cross it out. “That’s like going salmon fishing and coming back with a white whale.”

Tommy shot her a look from the other side of the massive screen. “You have no idea how fishing works, do you?”

“Not unless it’s the _for information_ kind.”

“They’re here,” Roy announced, punctuated with another unnecessary eye-roll at their conversation.

Oliver was the first down the staircase, pushing back his hood as he did. “Bertinelli’s in secure lockup at an SCPD safe-house,” he said, exhibiting his characteristic lack of a greeting. “But we’re running out of time.”

“Maybe it’s the assassin training, but I thought someone making it into secure lockup was a good thing,” Sara commented, pausing at the foot of the stairs for Tommy’s hug. “Mind telling me what’s so special about one mob boss?”

Diggle snorted, and while everyone was turned to face him, Felicity felt a hand on her waist, and her fingers slipped back to brush Oliver’s. It wasn’t a kiss on the cheek or a hug (and thank _god_ , because Tommy would possibly combust from excitement), but their version of a _hello_ made something small and warm bloom inside her chest, the silent touching bases that reminded her how things had changed.

Well, maybe just the _one_ thing.

“Nothing,” Diggle said, and Felicity straightened up guiltily, hands behind her back, wondering if he’d seen anything. “It’s the mob boss’s _daughter_ we need to worry about.”

“Helena Bertinelli,” Tommy said, his tone making the extent of his recall abundantly clear. “Otherwise known as Oliver’s psycho ex-girlfriend with the vendetta against her father, who shot his then-girlfriend —”

“—who’s also now your girlfriend,” Felicity finished for him, and paused. “Wow, it’s like a Greek tragedy down here.”

De-masked and de-wigged now, Sara held up one hand — probably not as a reminder that she was one of said exes — but because she was still processing. “So you think she’s going to try and kill her father now that he’s in SCPD custody.”

“I know Helena,” Oliver said, with nothing but conviction in his voice. “She’ll try.”

Felicity glanced away before the uncomfortable feeling somewhere in the vicinity of her gut could make its way to her face, focusing on bringing up Helena’s file instead.

It had been at least six months since she’d opened it up for anything above casual reading, but the sight of Helena’s face — delicately shaped and snow-pale, in exquisite contrast to the crimson lips and dark siren eyes — still made her wrists and ankles tingle, an unfortunate reminder that the last time they’d come face to face, Oliver’s ex-girlfriend had left her hog-tied and gagged underneath her desk at Queen Consolidated.

Oh, and _after_ forcing her to hack the FBI secure database.

Helena, _one_. Felicity, _negative one thousand_.

Sara came up behind her to look at the screen, resting her chin on Felicity’s shoulder (almost a habit by now). “You gave her a code name,” she observed. “ _The Huntress_.”

“Psycho Crossbow Ex-Girlfriend was a little too long for the file,” Felicity snarked, and Oliver’s eyes narrowed, undoubtedly taking the hit for his questionable romantic choices.

Roy peeked at the screen too. “It’s not as if Snow White over there didn’t know her dad headed up the mob,” he said. “Why turn on him?”

“Dad had her fiancé killed, daughter wants to even the score,” Diggle said. “Don’t let her looks fool you. She’s lethal — picked up killing from the mob, cutthroat instincts from her father, and archery from the Arrow himself.”

Sara shook her head at Oliver, just one of the many signs of disapproval from his team members which he summarily ignored. “Can you track her?” he asked.

“I love how you assume I already haven’t been keeping tabs on her,” Felicity said, already typing. “And before you answer back, Digg agreed with me when I suggested it…about a year ago.”

In light of Oliver deciding to preserve his dignity by abstaining from comment, Tommy whistled at the crime scene pictures. “She’s been busy. Is that —?”

“Her weapon of choice? Yep,” Felicity said grimly, flicking through the file for last known sightings, packed full of grisly crossbow-inflicted wounds that didn't help her dislike of pointy objects whatsoever. “The FBI took him into witness protection after the SCPD brought him in, and she’s been torturing and killing members of pretty much any crime family who might know where her father is ever since.”

“We need to be ready for her,” Oliver said. “That means —”

“—knowing when she’s going to reach Starling,” Felicity finished for him. “I’ll see what I can find. In the meantime, unless there’s anything else, I have a huge binder of reading to get through…thanks to my bosses deciding to sue Kord Industries for patent infringement.”

“Sorry,” Oliver said, somewhat lamely.

Felicity picked her coat off the back of her chair and accepted the usual goodbye cheek kiss from Tommy. “I will see you guys tomorrow,” she said lightly.

* * *

The door slammed at the top of the stairs.

“I don’t get it,” Tommy said, so abruptly that Oliver hadn’t realized he’d already switched gears. “You can finish each other’s sentences, but you still won’t date.”

“What?” he said, while Roy snorted rudely in the background.

Tommy folded his arms. “You heard me. Why aren’t you going after her?”

Oliver turned away, careful not to make eye contact with Diggle, and took the training staff Sara held out. “I have…plans tonight.”

“With _who_?” Tommy asked, dubiously. “Everyone you know is present and accounted for, and you _live_ down here.”

Oliver rolled his eyes at the needless tenacity and tossed a weapon towards his best friend. “Are you going to ask me questions you already know the answer to, or are we going to train?”

He thought he’d handled the deflection relatively well, until Diggle walked past him to choose his own weapon and muttered — sounding very much amused — “ _smooth_.”

It was going to be a long, long night.

* * *

Felicity groped blindly for her mug of steaming tea on the window ledge, running a pink highlighter across the page while she sipped. It probably had something to do with her extremely long day, but the pile of lawyer-drafted sentences just didn’t read like English, and she was bleeding the stamina required to bully her brain into concentrating.

Now all she needed was an excuse like her mom calling and she’d call it a night.

The tiny, ancient TV was on in the corner, the scratchy sound turned to mute, but Felicity could tell from the continued coverage of Quentin Lance’s precinct that the press had caught onto Frank Bertinelli’s arrest.

 _Yay_. Yet another problem on their long, long list of to-dos.

Felicity tucked her hair behind her ear and looked out the window, highlighter tapping against the binder. There was something poetically and predictably awful about Helena making a reappearance just as things with Oliver were in the middle of an upswing, just like Moira’s blackmail bombshell about Thea’s real father, and a whole long list of examples of things that came crashing into the picture to screw it up.

But that was for later. She’d done the crimefighting time for the night, now it was real work — or getting real fired by a boss who genuinely hated her (a hatred that would reach impossible new heights, if Isabel ever got wind of what was happening with Oliver). She gathered her robe more tightly around her pajamas and pulled the binder onto her knees with a sigh.

The clock on her nightstand ticked quietly while she worked from the squashy armchair, papers piled high on the window elbow seat, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. Until she heard a soft thud, something that barely registered while she was in work-mode, reached out instinctively to steady her trembling mug…and saw Oliver outside her bedroom window.

Which made her jump — _hard_.

“Oh my god,” she said, pulling the sash window up to let him in, along with a blast of freezing night air that cut straight through her clothes. “Oliver, I know it’s been a full twenty-four hours since I told you this, but you _can_ use the front door.”

“Didn’t want to be seen,” he said briefly, bending to kiss her cheek.

For someone as broad and — well — _big_ as Oliver was, he still managed to climb through her poky window without much trouble, just as he had for pretty much every night since night _numero uno_.

Felicity picked a dead leaf off his jacket sleeve and tossed it out the window, where the wind spun it out into the dark. She also did the paranoid left-right check — more for the benefit of teasing Oliver than anything else — before she rolled the window shut and proceeded to climb onto her boyfriend, planting her legs on either side of his. His clothes were still icy from being outside, but everything skin-related was wonderfully, _blissfully_ warm, and Felicity’s perpetually cold fingers were already doing some stealthy exploration around the collar region.

Oliver looked like he needed a wattage gauge from the amount of smiling he was doing, and Felicity cupped his upturned face in her hands, initiating — not to mention indulging in — their first real kiss of the night. Even though pretending nothing was going on took up most of their days, and Oliver’s choice of nocturnal hobby involved risking his neck as a given, saying hello was always slow and unhurried, always gentle, the same kind of comforting that was him reporting back to the Foundry after a long night.

“ _Hi_ ,” she said, after.

Oliver’s hands had been on the window cushions before that, but they were now on her hip, fanned out across her thigh… “ _Hi_ ,” he answered, and the understatement of it made them both smile. Like idiots. Happy, dizzy idiots.

* * *

By Oliver’s count, he’d only been in Felicity’s house for ten minutes, but he could already feel the stress of the last twenty-four hours — manifesting itself as a constant state of heightened focus — recede into something warm and muted and comfortable, like it was the exact way things were meant to be.

Felicity had a habit of keeping her hands constantly occupied, whether it was playing with the collar of his shirt or his hair, or tracing a line on his face, she was always touching him, as though to make up for having to keep their distance all day.

“So who exactly are you worried about seeing us?” she asked softly. “Tommy parked in a car outside my house like that lacrosse player my freshman year of college?”

Oliver had been in the middle of unzipping his jacket, and he draped it over the armchair before turning back to her with a frown, finding it hard to visualize — on all levels — a Felicity Smoak that would tolerate an unwanted stalker. “Lacrosse player,” he repeated, endeavoring to keep his tone neutral.

Evidently not neutral enough, because Felicity squeezed her thighs around his middle. “You know, I _had_ something called a life before I started helping out with you and Digg,” she said, tugging playfully on his ear. “It was a lot of ice cream and hobby hacking, maybe the occasional college party, but I had a life.”

“Really?” Oliver said, shifting them both further in, until his back was leaning comfortably against the glass and Felicity was settled on top of him. “I can’t even _imagine_ what that would look like.”

“It was okay,” she said, picking at a loose thread off his t-shirt. “ _Present Day_ me has some pretty nice things to make up for it.”

Oliver laughed quietly. “Well, I’m glad to hear that.”

Felicity _hm-_ ed absently, her concentration elsewhere, and she didn’t seem to notice that Oliver had turned serious until he stroked the side of her face to get her attention. There was something else, something he knew instinctively they needed to address, and he didn’t want the night to end before they talked it over. “About today…about Helena…I know it’s not the best time — or the best thing —”

“—no,” she agreed, instantly sensing where he’d been going with the conversation (or attempting to). “Your very, _very_ gorgeous and lethal-at-killing ex-girlfriend — which I realize is kind of a redundant use of words, because _lethal_ already implies _excellent at killing_ , but anyway — in answer to your question, I completely and one hundred percent believe that anything involving a crossbow-wielding mafioso daughter will not end well.”

Oliver knew Felicity well enough _not_ to be fooled by the breathless stream of words, or the use of humor to downplay her insecurities as far as Helena was concerned. For someone as easy to fall in love with as Felicity Smoak, she had a surprisingly stubborn tendency not to make favorable comparisons when it came to herself, whether it was Isabel, or Helena, or even Sara.

He knew _why_ , but what he didn’t know was how to handle it. Sensitivity and honesty weren’t exactly aspects he’d excelled at in his previous relationships, and having to deal with his ex, _their_ history, didn’t exactly lend itself to a favorable outcome.

“I meant _you_ , personally,” he said, trying again. “Because we’re — you know — seeing each other.”

“ _Quietly_ ,” she stressed.

He inclined his head in acknowledgment of the qualifier. “And if Helena ever gets hold of that information, I don’t want you in harm’s way.”

A small line appeared between Felicity’s eyebrows, as though she’d taken it as an outright statement that she couldn’t handle herself against the Huntress. Which wasn’t what Oliver had meant to imply, at all.

“That’s an unfortunate coincidence,” she said, her tone neutral, “because I think you need me to find her.”

Oliver couldn’t think of anything else to say to that, except —

“You know I do,” he sighed. “Always.”

It felt like the period at the end of a sentence, and as though she sensed it too, Felicity dropped her shoulders so that her robe slid down to her elbows, then soundlessly to the ground. Oliver followed the smooth line of her bare arms from wrist to elbow to shoulder, and leaned forward to put his lips at the dip of her collarbone. She shivered at his touch, her fingers curled into his hair, and it was with a mixture of focus and surprise and wonder — _still_ — that he wrapped her in his arms and closed his eyes for her kiss.

Just them.

For now.

* * *

“You sure about this?” Roy asked.

Tommy zipped up his jacket and pulled the ski mask out of the pocket, patting it to find the corresponding eye and mouth holes. In his limited experience in bending the law on vigilantism, rooftops in mid-winter were for when someone wanted their more sensitive areas to fall off from the cold, and alleyways for people who wanted to compete with weirdly feral stray cats (and the occasional bum) for nonexistent dominance.

Thanks to a not-terrible sense of peripheral vision, he could tell that Roy was still watching him.

“Well, if I wasn’t, driving all the way out to the worst part of town was just the _best_ idea,” he answered, in a voice colored with the appropriate level of sarcasm. “Do you always have to wear that red hoodie?”

Roy ignored the jab, his skin ghost-pale against the grubby Abercrombie trademark. “You know Oliver won’t like this, right?

“Believe me, I know what my best friend does and doesn’t like — and this ranks just about as rock-bottom as drug lords and rabies,” Tommy said. “You chickening out on me, Harper? I thought you were raring to go — show the streets who’s boss, beating down gang leaders and crack dealers…and so on.”

Roy wore the kind of expression Tommy associated with hearing elderly relatives trying to talk about his subjects of interest. “Oh, I’m in. I’m just trying to figure out why you’re acting like me.”

That earned him a snort. “You should be so lucky,” Tommy said rudely. “Besides, they should know better than to leave spare ski masks lying around the basement.”

A car drove by, and they simultaneously ducked behind the trash cans to stay hidden, staying still and silent until it was quiet again. At which point Roy resumed the conversation as though nothing had happened. “Funny, I’m surprised someone like you doesn’t have a bunch of fancy ski equipment lying around — like a mask made out of alpaca, or hypoallergenic _whatever_.”

“Oh, I do.” Tommy pulled the ski mask over his head, trying not to think about how dumb he looked. “But that one’s for when my girlfriend comes over and decides to humor me. Nobody ever said Tommy Merlyn wasn’t raised as a gentleman.”

Roy pinched his forehead. “I already regret asking the question.”

“Good call.” Tommy craned his neck to see the street, as another black car pulled into the lot. “Is that the one?”

Roy nodded. “The plates match what I got off Felicity’s computer. Apparently she’ll let you go near the keyboard if you tell her it’s not about tweeting.”

“Or if someone like me distracts her with panda talk.” Tommy reached for the steel baton he’d stashed to the side, hefting the weight in his hand. “C’mon. Let’s go.”

“We’re gonna get in so much trouble,” he muttered.

True to classic form, the protest was more of a formality than something genuinely substantive, because broken glass and loose gravel crunched beneath Roy’s sneakers, followed by the sound of metal rattling as he scaled the fire escape to get to the pre-agreed vantage point.

A nagging part of Tommy (the one he associated with McKenna’s rational sit-downs and Felicity’s disapproval) had a feeling the Red Sidekick was right, but they were both in agreement that Oliver’s training schedule veered a little too much towards the _not-ready-until-I-say-so-which-might-be-never_ pacing, and they both had things they needed to work out.

Roy’s was the Mirakuru and an itch to stop lowlifes.

Tommy’s was pretty much the same, minus the Mirakuru, with the added motivation of real-time practice, where nobody was holding back because they were childhood friends, where there were no rules, and no do-overs. Where he could learn how to beat someone in a fight, for real.

So he wouldn’t lose to someone like Malcolm ever again.

The car was pulling close to the chain-link fence at his shoulder, and the headlights flared in his eyes, the wheels rolling to a halt.

“James Holder?” Tommy said, the weapon in his hand getting clammy from sweat.

The door opened. “Who the hell are you supposed to be?”

“You’ve killed eighteen people — three girls last month,” he continued, for (possible) lack of a cool opening line. “Extortion. Arson. You’ve hurt a lot of people around here.”

“Yeah?” The light silhouetted a set of broad shoulders, wide-set and heavy. “And what are you planning to do about it, jackass?”

“Police lockup, for starters.” Tommy took a step forward, which was a bold move, given how the Foundry computer had neglected to mention that the murderer guy was basically built like a pro-wrestler. “Then maybe Iron Heights for life, if you’re lucky.”

Something clicked. A gun, predictably. “Forgetting something, idiot? Guys like me don’t work alone.”

Other cars were pulling up, at least two, and counting. Tommy hoped Roy had a better sense of timing than his occasional one-liners suggested. “Neither do I,” he said, which was when a blur of red came hurtling down from the rooftop and crashed straight onto the hood of Holder’s car, splintering the windshield and leaving craters in the metal from the impact.

“Still think this was a good idea?” Roy asked, half-turned towards Tommy.

Who shrugged. “Too late to back out now,” he answered, and they both lunged.

* * *

Tommy was doing pretty well, all things considered. As it turned out, having a super-strong friend who healed fast was good for situations involving thugs with guns. If Roy went at them any harder, he sincerely expected to see the kid actually break concrete with his forehead.

Something flickered in the corner of his eye and Tommy swung around, snagging someone’s arm — gun attached — and slamming it into the bricks. The weapon skittered underneath the car, which Tommy thought was a genuine accomplishment — until the knife came out of nowhere and ripped the side of his jacket, snagging skin.

Heat flared across his ribs and he stumbled away, landing hard against the side of the car, cracking his knee on the hubcap. Pain shot all the way up his leg like he’d been shocked with electricity.

_Dammit, Tommy. Check for a knife._

Weirdly enough, the advice came in Diggle’s voice, like a GPS system with default _judging-you_ eyes.

“You stupid son of a bitch,” Holder said. “Do you have _any_ idea who you’re —”

Whatever insults he had left, Tommy never got to hear, because a piercing shriek shattered the night — along with any glass currently in one piece. He ducked out of instinct, hands over his ears as the windows in the cars exploded with the force of a small bomb, and someone landed on the hood of the dented car.

Silver hair, black mask, six-foot Bo staff.

All the thugs — the ones fighting Roy included — all stopped to stare at Sara, who, in all fairness, was a special kind of intimidating. “Who _are_ you freaks?” Holder said incredulously, shortly before Sara’s swing caught the side of his head and sent him spinning across the pavement.

“The kind of justice you can’t run from,” she answered, her voice deepened by the changer.

Tommy lifted his hand in a sheepish wave, and saw her eyes widen. His fingers were coated with blood, but it was too late to hide it, because she was already jumping down to kneel by him. She clicked off the voice changer and touched his face. “What did he do to you?” she asked, sounding like Sara again.

“In his defense — I started it,” Tommy said, reluctantly letting his hand get pried loose. “Promise you won’t tell?”

At that precise moment, Roy yelled and a gunshot rang out across the parking lot. Sara cursed under her breath and reached for her staff, pushing him back against the car.

“ _Stay here_ ,” she said, already racing over to help.

Tommy shifted awkwardly on the wet concrete, an arm pressed against the open wound, sitting against the car while Sara took on three thugs like she could have had one hand tied behind her back.

After what felt like five minutes, maybe less, Sara flicked her staff (pesky nosebleed residue), and glared at the two of them through her mask. “Explain,” she said. “ _Now_.”

* * *

Tommy dropped the forceps with a muffled curse, just as Sara ducked back into the club office — letting in a teeth-gritting wave of thudding music — and locked the door. “Thea’s filling in for one of the bartenders and Roy’s working his shift at the club — the kid’s lucky he heals fast,” she said, stooping to pick up what he’d dropped before Tommy could even reach. “Unlike you.”

“Low blow,” Tommy grunted, but he reluctantly raised his arm so that she could get at the cut. “How bad is — _argh_ — do you _mind_?”

“As a matter of fact, yes, I do,” Sara said, holding out the alcohol-and-bloodstained cotton in the palm of her hand. “You’re practically family, which makes patching you up after you decided to risk your neck — _without training_ — for no reason, just a little bit concerning. Why’d you do it?”

“Leave it alone, Sara.”

She pulled a stool over and sat in front of him, her version of digging in her heels. “No,” she said, simply. “I thought Oliver was the one with a sharing problem, not you. You used to tell me everything.”

“And you kept all the secrets — like how you were also sneaking around with your sister’s boyfriend,” Tommy said scathingly, and instantly regretted it. Not just because Sara wore an expression like he’d just slapped her, but because it made him sound like Malcolm. Singling out someone’s worst insecurities and regrets and using them to hurt.

He reached out to take her hand, and a part of him was unspeakably relieved that she didn’t flinch away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

Sara gave his fingers a squeeze, and she shook her head once, like it wasn’t the point. “Laurel would have said the same thing if she were still here,” she answered, matter-of-factly. “Can’t say I don’t deserve to hear it. But that’s my problem — and it’s not something anyone can fix. What’s eating at you is different. So are you going to tell me about it, or not?”

Tommy pulled himself up to sit straighter in the chair, wishing he had the energy to get out of his chair and break open one of the bottles in the stock shelves. Instead, he settled for the cold, incredibly unsatisfying truth. “For starters, it turns out my best friend’s sister is actually _my_ sister too, only I can’t tell her or she’ll end up hating her mom. Then there’s the fact that my mass-murdering, asshat dad isn’t dead, and I’m just… _trying_ to do something, and failing. Miserably. _Again_. But hey, that’s my M.O., right? Laurel kicked ass as an attorney, Oliver saves the city, and I — I forgot to check if the guy had a knife.”

Sara reached into her jacket pocket and brought out an ice pack, which she angled gently on top of Tommy’s swelling knuckles. The skin was bright pink and taut, stinging whenever he so much as twitched, and the sudden cold from the ice made him wince, but in a good way. “Sounds about right,” she said, dryly. “But if you don’t take it easy, you’ll end up hurting yourself. Like tonight. Then how are you going to work out your rage?”

“Alcoholism,” Tommy said, staring moodily at the first aid kit. Fighting empty-handed and armed, Sara and Oliver had the upper hand with. But bitter, self-deprecating wit was where Tommy Merlyn lived.

“Malcolm trained with the League of Assassins. He was taught by Ra’s al Ghul himself. I’ve seen him fight — there’s no way you could have beaten him.”

Tommy’s pride bristled at the memory of being kicked around the alley by Malcolm, even though he — like a moron — had been armed with the steel pipe, and Malcolm — not so much. “I didn’t even get _one_ hit in, Sara, that’s different.”

“And you’re frustrated.”

“I’m freaking _pissed!_ ” The ice pack went flying over the desk and into one of the shelves; Tommy could hear the bottles rattling in the sudden silence while he stared blindly into the dark, breathing hard. He rarely ever lost his temper — or shouted — that was something exclusively reserved for his volatile, assassin dad (yet another sentence he hadn’t thought he’d have to use).

Sara only looked at him. “Do you think hurting him is going to make this go away?”

“No,” he said, finally. “I’m not a killer.”

“No,” she agreed. “You’re not. But people don’t learn to fight, they don’t train so that they can be murderers. They don’t train to get themselves killed. Ollie trains for a reason. To protect the people he loves.”

It was like she was waiting for him to get to the answer on his own.

“Malcolm’s dangerous,” Tommy said.

An imperceptible nod. “He is.”

“And he’ll be back.”

“If having Thea as his daughter is as important as he thinks, probably.”

Tommy looked back at her, and Sara stared at him. “Then I want to get stronger. Because when he comes back — I’m going to protect my sister. And I’m going to make him regret he ever tried to hurt us.”

“But in the meantime, you have to stay alive for your sister — for Thea,” she said, like it was something she wanted him to know before signing on. “Because you have people who need you.”

It was Tommy’s turn to nod, and after a beat, during which Sara studied his face as though it had some kind of answer to her questions.

Finally —

“Need some help with that?” she asked.

It was times like these that made him realize how much he missed having Sara Lance around. “Hell yes.”

* * *

Phone screens were not meant to function as recipe books. Felicity was practically slouched over the kitchen island, peering at the cryptic instructions (what did _dense bread_ even mean?) and measurement units in tiny-spaced font. All with three fingers covered in egg yolk, a buttered spatula in one hand, and a weird smell coming from the cast-iron skillet (so heavy that she’d had to juice up on some espresso before she made an attempt to lift it).

Felicity turned back to the still-warm skillet and studied her effort at making French toast, currently resembling something beyond recognition, like she’d basically given it a cream-and-egg-yolk facial and finished the culinary spa package off with third-degree burns. Gingerly, she wedged the spatula under the blackened hunk of toast and flipped it over, as though it would help.

Spoiler alert: it didn’t.

There was a throbbing patch of pinkish skin on her palm from when she’d grabbed the skillet without thinking, and she sucked on it while she contemplated what to do about breakfast, namely its lack of edibility, an index that wasn’t even _counting_ impressiveness.

“‘Morning.”

Felicity looked over her shoulder to see Oliver at the staircase, obviously having woken up in response to the funky smell of _something-burning_. He was — surprisingly — wearing more clothes than he’d gone to sleep in (the feeling was mutual), and walked over barefoot to see what she was doing.

She swore his face froze a little at the sight of their supposed breakfast.

“It looks like…bread.”

She deeply appreciated him not phrasing it as a question.

“French toast,” she said, through her fingers.

Oliver looked like he was trying not to laugh, and borrowed the spatula — along with a dishtowel — to dispose of the evidence in the trash.

In the meantime, Felicity pulled up a stool near the kitchen island and dropped gracelessly into the seat. Not being able to kick physical ass was one thing, especially in light of the whole Helena factor, but something as ordinary as making breakfast according to a _recipe_ — she’d thought she’d have been able to do without screwing up.

 _Chuh_.

“There’s coffee,” she said, resigned to ride out the embarrassing experience of trying to cook her boyfriend breakfast. “And cereal.”

Returned from his waste disposal expedition, Oliver leaned his elbows on the counter and looked over at Felicity with a carefully blank expression. “You were trying to make me breakfast,” he guessed.

She _hm-_ ed into her coffee mug. “And in case you’re wondering, I don’t live off freezer meals and restaurant takeout by choice. I’m the type of person who needs to triple-check microwave popcorn instructions, or it ends up FUBAR. Oh yeah, I’m a _real_ catch.”

Oliver nodded attentively while pouring himself hot coffee. “Well, that doesn’t sound too bad. I could be in charge of the popcorn, and you could choose the movie.”

“ _Ha_ ,” she said darkly. “Hilarious. You should do standup.”

“I’m serious.” Oliver unwrapped one of her hands from around the mug and gently laced their fingers together, under the morning sunlight streaking across the countertop. “I don’t feel the way I do about you because you can make me food, I’m in l—”

Felicity flinched when his fingers brushed the base of her thumb, because she’d completely forgotten about the burn. “Sorry,” she said, turning her hand over to get at the patch of skin. “Skillet incident. What were you sayi—”

Oliver had her palm now, and he bent his head, but instead of what she’d been expecting — which probably would have _hurt_ — he breathed gently on the flushed skin, and the sleeve of her robe fell back to the elbow as he pulled her closer still.

“Does it hurt now?” he asked, in a totally different tone of voice.

Felicity had no clue whether he’d done it on purpose, but something languid and fluid and _confident_ had taken hold of her now, making the insecurities fade away like background noise.

“I should have stayed in bed,” she said, sliding her bare feet down to touch the floor.

“I think we can fix that,” Oliver answered, and Felicity laughed, pulling him by the hand towards the stairs.

* * *

“I need to get to the Foundry,” Oliver said. “I can’t show up to the office in last night’s clothes.”

It was a statement somewhat lacking in the requisite conviction, given what they were doing, and Felicity smiled against his mouth, pushing his wrists above his head in a firm consolidation of their relative positions. Suffice it to say that she had the upper hand, figuratively and literally.

Not that Oliver seemed to mind, doing his part in the sorta-asleep, all-kinds-of-messy kiss that had them both shifting underneath the sheets for a second round. Because they weren’t quitters, not in the slightest, and since he was already going to be late — why not make it _incredibly_ late?

“I mean…you could start a new trend,” she suggested. “Or just lie and say you’re spending the night with a gorgeous Mediterranean model.”

“Not my type,” he said, bluntly. “We both know that.”

Felicity laughed — a throaty, out-of-character kind of sound normal-her would have blushed at — and nipped at his ear, making him groan. Yet another Oliver-noise she relished the chance to tease out of him, notwithstanding telecommunications interference.

She heard the buzzing first, and broke off in the middle of what they were doing (Oliver gave a disgruntled noise at that point) to fumble for it. Her bra was on the floor, along with her underwear (plus Oliver’s dignity, maybe) and underneath his discarded shirt was —

“ _Phone_ ,” she said, to nobody in particular. She sat back, Oliver still very much beneath her, and answered it with a wink. “Hello?”

“Felicity?”

It was Tommy, who sounded surprised (maybe at her comparative chipper-ness in contrast to her regularly scheduled morning self) “Why are you answering Oliver’s phone?”

 _Frack_. Felicity frantically turned the phone over to check — extra scratches, a weird dent in the side — it wasn’t her phone, just the same model. “Uh,” she said, while her face heated like a skillet on the fire (no pun intended). “Must have grabbed his phone — _not_ anything else — by accident. My bad. God, this totally explains why this — uh — Serbian woman called me last night. Smoky voice. Very sexy. Not much English, though.”

 _Phew_. Oliver — both fortunately and unfortunately — was still distracted, running his hand slowly across her exposed skin. Felicity caught his hand just as it was about to shift lower from her belly and held it tight, pretending not to notice his grin.

“Oh. Was it Svetlana?”

“No.”

“Marija? Lena? Sofia? Oh — Elena something —”

“I can’t remember,” Felicity snapped, shooting Oliver a glare, as though it was his fault (which it kinda was, albeit retrospectively).

But the _you’re-dead-to-me_ glare seemed to fly straight over his (adorably ruffled) head, and instead of looking contrite, he was running a hand up and down her bare thigh, albeit with a quizzical expression.

“Cool, I guess I’ll call Oliver then,” Tommy said breezily. “Knowing him, he’s probably breaking concrete with his forehead or something. _Unless_ you’ve dumped that mystery boy-toy of yours and are secretly doing my best friend in the —”

“— _goodbye_ , Tommy,” she said, and hung up the phone — firmly — before returning it gingerly to the nightstand, feeling the need for hand sanitizer. “So apparently you’re _very_ familiar with the Eastern European modeling community.”

“Maybe the Baltics,” he answered seriously, and Felicity made an attempt to put her knee on his chest and _squash_.

Except he caught her leg and showed every sign of wanting to burrow under the covers to resume everything they’d been doing before the call, except for _one_ tiny thing —

As it turned out, Tommy _had_ been serious about waking everybody up. Oliver lifted his head from Felicity’s collarbone, nonplussed. “Where’s your phone supposed to be?”

“With you,” she answered, pointing towards the general direction of the stairs, where the distinct sound of her ringtone echoed up towards them. “ _Not_ in my bedroom.”

He shook his head and slid out of bed, shirtless and in a pair of boxers. She heard him go down the stairs and flopped back onto the mattress, burying her face in the pillow for a wordless — but very long — frustration-grunt.

They were literally the worst at this.

* * *

“Why are you out of breath?” Tommy said, suspiciously.

Oliver looked down at himself, and back up at Felicity’s living room. “Went for a run,” he answered. “Didn’t realize I had the wrong phone.”

“Huh. Interesting.” It was hard to tell whether Tommy believed him. “Want anything for breakfast? I’ll bring something down to the Hermit Cave — that’s the —”

“—Foundry, I know,” Oliver said, turning as Felicity padded down the staircase, barefoot and in his shirt. “No thanks — I have everything I need.”

He hung up and put the phone on a side table, while Felicity stared at it like it was some kind of ticking time bomb through her fingers. “We’re really bad at this, aren’t we?”

Oliver couldn’t plausibly disagree there, but he pulled her over to him with his hands in the small of her back. “That’s because we’re distracted by other things.”

Felicity’s worried expression faded, in favor of something a little more mischievous. “Such as?” she said, but he was already tugging her towards what he assumed was a soft rug, to pick up where they’d left off — since he was already late.

They made it about four steps in total before the living room echoed with the sound of a ringing phone. Two, to be exact.

Felicity pulled his phone out of the shirt’s front pocket, while Oliver reached back — reluctantly — for hers.

“It’s work,” she said, and stood on her toes to see the screen in his hand. “Huh, _also_ work.”

Frowning, Oliver let Felicity swap their phones, which were still ringing, furious, insistent, _shrill_. It shouldn’t have ruined anything about their morning, not after weeks' worth of them, but still. The kind of peace in Felicity’s house, in her bed, in her _life_ — the one outside the Foundry — it was easy, natural, to forget the chaos waiting for him outside.

As though she could tell what he was thinking, Felicity raised herself on tiptoes to kiss his cheek, and gave his hand a squeeze. “Usually when I run out on a guy because of work, I make it up to him later. What’s the penalty if both of us have to skedaddle?”

Oliver grinned at the prospect; she’d caught the downturn in his mood with just the right thing to say. “I think it’s safe to say we’ll probably figure it out.”

“Right answer.” She winked at him before turning her back to get the call, leaving him to do the same.

Watching her from across the room, Oliver put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”

* * *

Felicity slammed the cab door behind her and started up the white courthouse steps. Modernized design aside, the steel and glass building loomed overhead like an uncomfortable reminder that any one of them — Oliver, Diggle, Tommy — were all on the gray side of the law because of the Arrow.

Not to mention the fact that courthouses weren’t her favorite place to be — quiet and cool like a library in theory, but in her experience, associated with phalanxes of press reporters and cutthroat defense attorneys.

Another cluster of reporters were swarming at the main doors now, migrating like a swarm around a small group moving down the steps. Someone famous, probably. Maybe a millionaire divorcee, or an all-star defense team trying to get a murderer off the hook. Either way, Felicity planned to stay uninvolved.

As she drew closer to the doors, she realized that the reporters were actually being kept at bay by a security team, and emerging from the courthouse — blinking in the unexpected sunlight — was pretty much the last person she wanted to see in Starling.

Moira Queen was impossible not to recognize, agelessly elegant as ever in a cream suit, a single hand raised to her cheek to brush the hair out of her eyes, walking beside her daughter and the slippery campaign manager she recognized from the announcement party.

An uncomfortable tightness rose in Felicity’s throat, but she kept looking straight ahead, even though Moira was getting closer. Two immovable forces on a direct collision course.

“Miss Smoak.”

That same clipped voice, radiating authority. It had been a cold knife to her throat, the last time they’d been face to face. But Felicity would rather have run two marathons in a row than look like she was anything resembling afraid of Moira, because she wasn’t. She was…disappointed. Disgusted. Uncomprehending — of how a mother could force a choice onto her son the way Moira did, how lying came to her as easily as breathing, and how her single-minded logic had ripped Oliver’s world apart.

Felicity slowed, now, and came to stop on a step, so that her shoulder was parallel with Moira’s.

“Mrs Queen,” she said, and found a smile for Thea, who was waiting a short distance away — intentionally out of earshot.

“I had some campaign business at the courthouse,” Moira said, her tone light and impersonal, like they were two acquaintances discussing the weather, not a previous blackmailer and her would-be target. “I underestimated the amount of paperwork that went into announcing a bid for mayor. Are you here on company business? I hear there’s a patent issue between Queen Consolidated and Kord Industries.”

Felicity knew Moira’s strength was in masks, pretending that the veneer hid all the chaos and ugliness swirling beneath, but she wouldn’t play that game with her.

“What do you want, Moira?” she asked, simply.

Something glittered in Moira’s green eyes, and a cool smile fixed itself on her face now. “I want to know about my son,” she answered, in a way that seemed to mimic Felicity’s no-patience bluntness. “I assume he’s been spending his time in your company, now that he’s left home.”

“Oliver’s fine,” Felicity said, restraining herself from elaborating any further, not when words were a weapon with his mother. “He’ll _be_ fine.”

“I see.” Minimalist answer notwithstanding, Moira seemed to have taken away more from the subtext than Felicity had intended. “So he meant every word he said.”

The last part was almost in an undertone, the glimmer of wry amusement in it meant just for Moira herself, but Felicity knew better than to take the bait. “Good luck with your campaign, Mrs Queen,” she said, and continued up the steps.

She had a strange, prickling feeling that Moira’s gaze was fixed on her back, but when she glanced around, in the shifting shadow of the closing glass door, the silver-blonde head was vanishing into a sleek black car, which pulled smoothly and quietly into the mid-morning traffic.

As though nothing had happened.

In a sense, nothing had. Not really.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I mentioned I'd be doing the Clock King episode (2x14), but for various reasons, I decided to merge the episode with the Huntress one (2x17). A big part of the episode was Sara and Oliver as a couple and Felicity's insecurity (plus Lance family drama), which obviously isn't as easy to do since I decided NOT to throw that couple on the page (and because Laurel's six feet under). Hopefully you can see how the stuff from the Clock King episode presents itself here with Olicity, and if you can't, just pretend I got lazy and it's the Huntress episode rewrite :D  
> Also, Tommy's making some S3-Laurel-ish choices here, which I personally wasn't planning on, but it kinda feels natural to have him take that step. But Sara's around to help him, so that'll change things (which is the point of a rewrite I guess).  
> ANYWAYS. Until the next update!


	24. Trap, Sprung (Birds of Prey, Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! So it's safe to say that people are enjoying the fluffy stuff, YAY. Of course there won't be ANY more fluff coming up, so there's absolutely no reason to keep on reading ;)  
> Also, thanks for being so cool about me not doing the Clock King episode. You guys are the best.

Tommy seemed to be in the middle of some kind of streak — namely freezing his butt off in miscellaneous locations across Starling City. The weathered glass of the massive clock face was encrusted with about a centuries’ worth of grime, the kind that a wipe from his sleeve couldn’t budge, and despite the lack of caved-in ceilings, he could still feel drafts from unseen corners, whistling past his ear like someone’s breath.

Pretty. Freaking. Creepy.

“You’re early.” Sara’s voice bounced off the walls, and he looked around to see her dropping down from a rafter with catlike grace, landing on her feet with barely a sound.

“I mean — who wouldn’t want to spend some extra time alone in a creepy clocktower, am I right?” he said, stiffly removing his arms from beneath his armpits and walking towards her. “Did Oliver call dibs on all the nice real estate? I hear he makes Roy train in an old canning plant.”

“What can I say? I take care of my friends.” Sara’s teeth were a flash of white in the half-shadow. “Besides, I have a feeling Ollie might want his own space for now.”

Tommy blinked, in the middle of helping her pull down the dusty sheets shrouding the furniture. “What makes you say that?” he asked curiously.

Sara only smiled. “No reason — just a feeling.”

Before he could pursue the line of questioning any further, she gave the sheet a yank. It swirled towards the ground, freeing a cloud of dust that billowed like human breath in the sunlight streaming in from the cracked glass, revealing what she’d left sitting beneath it.

Namely what looked like a whole lot of weapons, training gear — even League armor.

“Whoa,” Tommy said, as she ducked to look for something on the lower shelves. “Does Oliver know you have your own arsenal up here?”

“You think he doesn’t keep secret weapons?” Sara answered back. She straightened up with a weathered black case in tow, which she dropped unceremoniously onto a nearby table.

The weight of the case sent a shiver across the floorboards, raising another breath of dust from the room. The cabinet was no exception, and Tommy saw a gleam of metal teeter in the corner of his eye, about to fall. His hand shot out instinctively to steady the thing, even though he had absolutely zero idea what _it_ was.

Sara took it from him without needing to be asked and set it back upright on the cabinet surface. It was some kind of metal cylinder, made from a hammered metal like bronze and covered in symbols from a language he didn’t know. For a moment, he thought it was some ancient grenade — or a funky mystical doohickey — but Sara only touched her fingertips to the words and pushed, making the surface spin.

“It’s a prayer wheel,” she explained, as they watched it rattle softly in the corner like a tiny clock. “Gift from a friend.”

The way she said it made him think that the word _friend_ was a guarded substitute for the accurate vocab, but he didn’t press the point. “It’s pretty.”

Sara smiled fondly. “I should move my stuff into my dad’s place, but I don’t want to get his hopes up. In case I don’t —” she hesitated, as though she’d managed to stop herself just in time. “He wouldn’t know what to do with all this junk lying around anyway.”

It was like Oliver all over again. There was a room for him back at the mansion, filled with a lifetime of memories and everything he’d ever known, but Tommy knew for a fact that it had stopped being home for his best friend ever since he’d gotten back from the island. Real home was the chest from Lian Yu he kept in the Foundry, next to his suit, his bow and arrows, alongside Diggle’s guns and Felicity’s computers.

Sara was doing pretty much the same thing. Home, but not really. Trying to fit the new dents and chips into the old mold, and just…not fitting. Always a little out of place.

“When you’re ready,” he said. “I’m sure your dad’ll be waiting.”

Sara brushed his cheek with the back of her hand, as though to thank him for being kind, and moved to open the case.

It sat there, a black bow, gleaming a little even in the low light.

“Looks like something my dad would use,” Tommy said.

“I know,” Sara answered. “It’s from the League. I want you to train with it.”

Tommy had been about to touch the bow’s sleek surface, but he drew back before he could make contact, his fingers snapping back into a fist. “What makes you think I’m an archer?” he said, with a touch of defensiveness.

“Ollie’s an archer. He also wouldn’t be half as good a fighter without that training. I could teach you how to use a Bo staff, I could teach you how to box, but being an archer trains you to focus — to filter out distractions until all you can see is where your arrow needs to go. It forces you to take a step back from the action and think, and calculate, and strategize. You’re impulsive, and that’s what got you hurt the other night, not because you weren’t good enough. It’s not about being like your dad or not — you aren’t, no matter what kind of weapon’s in your hand. It’s about what you do with what you have. Take it from the assassin: you are _not_ a killer, and learning how to use a bow won’t make you one.”

A pause, during which Sara waited, patient as ever.

“Do you trust me?” she asked.

In answer, Tommy curled his fingers around the bow. It was cold underneath his palm, and surprisingly light. “Okay,” he said, with a nod. “Teach me.”

* * *

Oliver pushed through the conference room door and checked his phone again. New emails and phone calls from a dozen different people, but nothing from Felicity so far. He knew she was meant to be in court more than once because of the legal issue with Kord Industries, and that she probably hated the courthouse as much as he did.

He was contemplating calling her when he stepped into his office, only half-paying attention to what his assistant said to him.

“Who?” he said.

“Your sister,” Thea answered, looking at him over the back of a chair. “Who hasn’t seen you in a week, by the way.”

Oliver hastily formed a contrite expression and bent to give his sister a kiss on the head. Her shoulders were stiff, a precursor to her being annoyed, which was just a short step away from angry. “Hi, Speedy — sorry, work just got out of hand. I know I’ve been getting home late —”

“— I was under the impression that you haven’t been home, period,” Thea corrected, folding her arms. “What’s going on? And _don’t_ say it’s work.”

Oliver took his time getting to an answer, seating himself in his chair and pulling it closer to the desk, all the while aware of his sister’s laser-sharp scrutiny. “I’ve just been…preoccupied. That’s all.”

“Are you avoiding mom? Are you avoiding me?” she pressed.

“No — of course not,” he answered, hastily. “It’s not that.”

She threw up her hands. “Then why aren’t you coming home, Ollie? We’re your family and we haven’t seen you for ages. Do you know what happens when you’re not around for movie night? Mom makes me watch the ones _with subtitles_. And she wants to discuss them afterwards!”

Thea looked so outraged by the last part that Oliver had to do some quick, very quick calculations, namely about his sister’s general ability to keep a secret. “I’m…I’m seeing someone,” he said, adjusting his tie. “It’s — uh — new, so please, don’t tell anyone. Especially not Tommy.”

Contrary to his expectations, Thea’s response was an instant of surprise at the sudden change of topic, followed by a look of unmistakable smugness. “So you’ve been sleeping over. Just — the one girl? Blink twice for yes.”

Oliver gave her a look. “You knew?” he said, now vaguely annoyed.

“Educated guess,” she said, visibly enjoying herself now. “What’s she like?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know, Speedy, _human_.”

Undeterred by the sarcasm, she continued with the line of questioning, true to the Queen tradition of incredible stubbornness. “Did she go to college?”

“Does it matter?”

“Is she pretty?”

“Same answer.”

“Is it Felicity?”

“Y—no,” Oliver said, and decided to repeat himself. “ _No._ ”

Thea snorted, and reached into her pocket for something. Her hand reappeared with a small envelope, and she slid it onto his desk. “ _That_ — is your invitation for the party this weekend,” she said. “Plus one’s included, so bring your girlfriend if you want to. I’ll take it as a _y-no_.”

Oliver glared at her. “Why are you throwing a party?”

“ _We_ ,” she corrected. “Queen family tradition. Someone comes back from the dead, we throw them a party. In this case, we owe Sara an embarrassingly big hoopla.”

Oliver made no move to touch the invitation. “You won’t tell Tommy.”

“About what?” Thea said innocently, and stood up to go. “Well, I’m sure you’re dying to get on the phone and tell her. Say hi for me.”

“Speedy…”

She blew him a kiss, still beaming smugly as she went. Oliver heaved a sigh, partly in resignation, partly in relief. Because at least the answer had stifled suspicions about why he’d stopped coming home, even though he hadn’t meant to tell anyone quite yet.

 _Tired_.

Lying drained him, like being with Felicity had diminished the resistance he’d built up towards selective untruths. Oliver reached up and loosened the knot of his tie, and leaned forward to check his schedule for the evening.

He needed a night off.

* * *

It was official — training dummies hated Felicity Smoak. Either that or Oliver and the guys had done something weird to the foundation, like pour solid lead into the hollow parts, because no matter how much she punched, the most it seemed to do was shudder. Possibly in response to her nonexistent upper body strength.

That being said, after barbed cross-examinations and everything else that was a full day in court, it was incredibly therapeutic to punch something — _hard_.

Apparently the same logic didn’t apply to kicks, because the front of Felicity’s leg collided with the padding and went numb for a split-second, just long enough for her to lose her balance and grab the leg in question, wincing.

One of her earphones fell out, giving her a front row seat to a string of muttered profanities. Things that never happened to Sara — or Helena, for that matter, who probably turned unruly dummies into porcupines — hopping around with self-induced pins and needles. Felicity was in the process of shaking her leg to get rid of the prickling sensation in her skin, the surest sign that there was going to be a _spectacular_ bruise the next day, not to mention a solid reason to wear pants, when something touched her shoulder.

She spun around with a yelp, and her arm went blindly swinging out in a completely reflexive imitation of what she’d been doing before.

Her forearm collided with Oliver’s open — intercepting — palm and made the loudest slapping noise humanly possible, leaving them to stare at each other in mutual disbelief.

 _Oh_.

Felicity yanked out the other earbud. “Sorry,” she said, retracting her arm (ow). “Sorry — I think I bruised a bone, if that’s a thing — and then you scared me, and when I get scared, I go _blargh_ —”

“You’re training.” Oliver’s eyes were on the annoyingly immovable dummy. “You’re not supposed to have a session today, or I wouldn’t have —”

That struck her as a little off, because the last time she’d checked, Oliver was all for rules and standards down in the Foundry, but not to the point of timetabling slots for using the equipment. At which point she noticed him looking her up and down, which made _her_ look herself up and down, and —

 _Oh_.

 _Ground rules_. Felicity took stock of the double-laced black sneakers, workout tights, and the sleeveless top, attire squarely in _no-no_ zone, as far as appropriate outerwear for being alone in a locked basement was concerned. Maybe it was a mental block kind of thing, but she’d selectively blanked on herself in workout gear, and on a side note — all the mint chocolate chip ice cream and dignity transplants in the world could _not_ have convinced her to strip down to just a sports bra. Like, _never_.

“Gym clothes, Oliver,” she said, a point slightly dampened by self-consciously crossing her arms in front of her chest. “It’s what people wear to — you know — _exercise_. Sweat. Punch things.”

“Oh.” He gave his head a little shake, making no move to lose the suit jacket (probably a good idea). “How’s that going?”

Felicity bit back a laugh, her leg throbbing from the failed swing-around kick. “ _Great_. Expecting my award for _Best Badass_ any day now.”

The humor seemed to snap Oliver out of the weird funk, and he blinked. “Show me.”

She gave him a look. “Uh, pass.”

He returned with one no less dubious than hers. “You’re training, right? Show me your punch.”

“That’s like…being asked by Albert Einstein to roll out some theoretical physics, or — _Bill Gates_ and programming —”

“ _Felicity_ ,” Oliver had both hands up. “I just want to help, I promise.”

After a second, she sighed, and resumed positions in front of the dummy, her back to him and arms up. Feeling incredibly stupid — among other things — she drew her arm back and punched.

Knuckle contact notwithstanding, the dummy barely even wobbled. Felicity glanced around, and Oliver was in the middle of removing his jacket, draping it across one of the tables.

“What are you doing?” she said. “Ground rules. Breaking. Me. Wearing this.”

“I think I can control myself with the possibility of anyone walking in on us,” he said matter-of-factly, rolling up his sleeves up to the elbow (oh _god_ ). “Do you remember what you said about the network I set up when you first saw the Foundry?”

Felicity paused, wondering if a long-awaited burn was on the way. “Vaguely something about the eighties — Madonna and leg-warmers.”

Oliver smiled at the ground, not quite looking at her. “Similar situation here. Seeing a punch that —”

“— _hey_ —”

“— could be so much better,” he continued, more diplomatically, “hurts me. So I’d like to help.”

“Would you,” Felicity answered, but it was enough to make her throw him a conspiratorial look over her shoulder, and resume her raring-to-go stance in front of the immovable dummy.

Oliver — like it was some kind of unspoken pact — kept both hands behind his back, but he used his foot to nudge her right one forward, moving her legs slightly further apart and studying her like he was piecing out a puzzle. “A good punch needs a solid foundation, so plant your feet. You’re used to being on the move because of how you’ve been training, and that’s good because you’re small, but this exercise is to build up strength, and control over that strength. Try again.”

Under the precise circumstances they were in, Felicity would have taken the secret to her grave — the fact that _teacher mode Oliver_ was just about as arousing as him in a crisp business suit, but she only cleared her throat and focused in on the spot she wanted to hit with her fist.

Her arm whipped out and the dummy actually rattled this time, as much a surprise to her as it probably was to him.

She whooped without meaning to, and Oliver was smiling when she glanced back. “Not bad,” he said. “John has his work cut out for him.”

Felicity made a noise of pure skepticism while he circled around to the other side of the dummy, bracing it with both arms. “I know why I’m punching the living daylights out of an inanimate object, but why are you down here so early?” she asked.

Oliver didn’t answer immediately, watching her throw a few more punches. Until Felicity paused, eyeing him expectantly over her raised fists, and he shrugged. “It’s not because I had a long day in court,” he said dryly.

“Family?” she guessed.

The brief glimmer of surprise was as good a _bingo_ sign as any. “My sister knows I haven’t been coming home. She thinks I might be avoiding —”

“—Moira,” Felicity said, jumping in without quite knowing why. Maybe she didn’t want to make him feel like he had to call his mother something different, just in case he thought she wouldn’t be okay with it.

Moira was his mother. She always would be. It was just…complicated. And simple. Which in itself was complicated ( _gah_ ).

Felicity reached out to stop the dummy from quivering and leaned closer, her chin on one of the wooden arms. “So what did you say?” she asked.

Oliver tucked a stray hair back from her face without comment, like it was already an absentminded habit. “I told her I was seeing someone.”

Felicity clapped a hand to her mouth to stop a shaky laugh. “No,” she breathed. “Did you mention me?”

“Not exactly. She guessed.”

“Then why do you have another line —” She put her thumb squarely in the middle of a temporary wrinkle, not the first in an overcrowded forehead full of constant worries “—right here?”

Oliver didn’t shake off her touch, but his gaze flicked towards the floor, as though in guilt. “I never wanted to lie to Speedy.”

“You didn’t,” she pointed out. “Not technically.”

Even to her, the attempt at comforting him fell flat, because neither of them had the particular moral high ground to be the authority on truth-telling, what with their choices in the realm of work and personal.

Felicity didn’t know what to say, so she did the one thing that might — just on the off-chance — make him feel better. She ducked around and put her hands on his face, standing on her toes to press his lips gently to his.

“You’ll tell her the truth,” she said, and she didn’t just mean about Malcolm. “One day. When you’re ready — and she’s going to love you for it.”

Oliver didn't say anything in response, but she felt his arm come around to encircle her waist, pulling her closer still. He kissed her again, and this time it was with a real, visceral _need_. Enough to make her pull back a little, catching her breath.

“Let’s go home,” he said hoarsely, and she nodded.

She didn’t have to say anything else.

* * *

“ _Chateau lafitte Rothschild,1982_ ,” Felicity read, turning the wine label towards the fireplace. Her experience with wine commercials was sparse to say the least, but she couldn’t really think of any mentioning how having the product close to a genuine — non-electric, _toast-a-marshmallow_ — flame made it look even better. Even in her strictly non-fancy stemless glasses, the wine was a deep, almost luminous red from being near the dancing orange fire, moving amber lights caught in a bell jar glass.

A dreamy, hazy kind of night.

Oliver shifted slightly beside her, his fingertips still tracing an invisible line down the length of her naked spine. Body language was his thing, and she could tell from the way his hand felt — graceful, loose — that the stress from before had gone away. “I thought you liked red wine,” he said.

They were both on her living room rug, _sans_ clothes underneath a checkered afghan, half-dozing in front of an _excellent_ fire he’d experienced no trouble whatsoever in starting by himself (not a euphemism). Given her lack of outdoorsiness (code for not liking splinters), her fireplace normally went unused except for occasions of extreme ceremony.

For example, taking a night off with her boyfriend.

Felicity looked over her shoulder at him, propping herself up by her elbows. “I do,” she answered, and he smiled for no reason — or maybe all the reasons, she couldn’t really tell. “It’s just…for a guy who likes vodka as much as you do, I kinda expected you to _not_ know what you were doing with a wine cabinet. Or an on-call _sommelier_.”

In response to the not-so-subtle teasing, Oliver reached for her wrist and pulled her down to him with an almost-growl, and Felicity laughed at the scratchy kisses all over her throat and jaw. One thing led inevitably to another, and eventually they ended up back where they’d started, just a little more out of breath and flushed. She pushed her hair — the messy, unruly spill of it — back from her face and leaned down to kiss him again, tasting summer wine on his lips and the tang of their sweat.

When she pulled back, Oliver had a different look on his face — faraway, and maybe a little startled, as though he was remembering something that took him by surprise. “My dad took the whole family to Bordeaux one summer,” he said, softly, his gaze following the path of his hand down her bare skin. “He taught me how to choose a good year.”

There was something unspeakably sad about the way he talked about the past, as though he was prying something of himself away using his bare fingers, but Felicity knew the right thing to do was listen. Oliver deciding to share about his past was an occasion few and far in between, not to mention usually prompted by something godawful happening in the immediate present.

This was different.

This was… _them_.

“Sounds like a good summer,” she said quietly. “You must have really loved him.”

“Everyone loved him,” he said, with a slight shrug of his shoulders. “My mother. Walter. Even Malcolm. There was something about him — something… _golden_. I remember how he could talk to someone and make them feel like they’d been friends for years, even it was someone he’d just met. It was amazing.”

Oliver looked her in the eye, suddenly, and reached up to touch her cheek, holding it in the palm of his hand. “There’s something about you too, you know,” he said, in a way that made her think he meant _golden_ too.

Felicity took a lock of hair between her fingers and tickled the tip of his nose with it. “I dye my hair, remember?” she teased. “Fool’s gold.”

Oliver shook his head, sitting up slightly to kiss the backs of her fingers, the scruff tickling her skin. “Not like that,” he insisted. “When I walked into your office — it was the opposite. I didn’t feel like I knew you at all. I felt like an idiot, because I’d missed out on _years_ of knowing you, being with you — and I wanted to make up for all of it in a heartbeat. Even if it meant bringing you into a dangerous life. Even if it meant you might walk away, knowing what you know about me.”

The thought of Oliver feeling silly — and eager to know someone like her — made Felicity smile, but hearing that he’d ever believed she could walk out on him was just…unthinkable. To her, anyway. “Took you long enough,” she whispered.

Oliver smiled sleepily, and put his lips to the back of her hand. “I always get there in the end.”

They were both sleepy but reluctant to doze off, still too distracted by the prospect of each other and an uninterrupted night. Felicity tried not to arch like a petted cat with Oliver's hands all over, but she wasn’t going to file a complaint. There was something incredibly satisfying about the way he was always touching her, as though he couldn't quite get tired of it.

"I love your skin," he said, and she swore her heart skipped — stupidly, irrationally — at the _l_ -word, even though he'd meant it offhandedly, because _of course_ he had.

"No scars for me," she said resignedly, latching onto a safer topic. "Unless you count getting my wisdom teeth gouged out of my jaw during freshman year. Not enough Novocaine in the world to make badly impacted teeth a good thing."

Oliver laughed, and she did too, opening her mouth to show off the non-glorious war mark. Cue more kisses, and laughter, and touching. But gradually the mood grew dreamy and contemplative again, and because she wouldn't have changed a single thing about his body, not the way it was, Felicity lingered especially on the scars, kissing each one of them within reach.

She paused now on a knotted scar in Oliver’s muscled shoulder, rubbing her thumb along the mottled edges. “Would you tell me if I asked?”

He’d bent his head slightly to watch her trace his scars, and wordlessly, in response to her question, he nodded.

“The tattoos,” she said. “The dragon. Was that from Lian Yu?”

“Shado had one on her shoulder. After she died, it became a reminder,” he said, in a flat, ironed-smooth voice. "Of why."

_Shado. Sara. Laurel._

_Helena._

“I have another question.”

The natural frown he’d relaxed into shifted towards a smile. “Wouldn’t be you if you didn’t,” he answered.

“Helena,” she said, and watched his face grow a little more still. “John says she’s the only woman you’ve ever trained. Why?”

They were looking at each other now, the languid haze of the night slowly draining away. Felicity knew it had the potential of sounding vaguely petty, bringing up something Oliver didn’t want to relive, partly because she’d always wondered if there was more to Oliver’s tacit step back to let Diggle handle her own training, rather than doing it himself like with Roy, or Tommy.

“It was a mistake,” he said, finally. “We were both…in the same place. I was trying to make good on my father’s wrongs as the Hood, and she wanted revenge for Michael. I thought that if I could set her on the right path to justice, killing her father wasn’t going to be the only thing in front of her, not anymore.”

Felicity stayed silent.

“I was wrong. She only wanted him dead — she still does. I just gave her another weapon to focus her rage. _I_ created the Huntress, and a part of me doesn’t want to risk creating something else — something darker.” The corner of his mouth curled into a humorless smile, before lapsing back into the frown. “I don’t have a track record of bringing out the best in the women I date.”

“So you think that by training me, you’ll turn me into some kind of… _dark Felicity_ ,” she said, trying not to find the thought _Twilight Zone_ -weird, even though dreaming up an evil version of herself felt like an exercise in the absurd.

Oliver’s fingers slipped through her hair with a whisper. “Helena sees things in black and white. You’re either with her or against her, and getting justice only works if it means she gets revenge for what her father did. That’s not you.”

Felicity made a face. “What would _Evil Me_ even look like? More leather, probably. Maybe a different haircut.”

The out-loud wonderings made Oliver chuckle. “I don’t think you have a dark side,” he said, his hand roaming beneath the blanket again. “Haven’t seen it so far.”

“I have my moments,” she said vaguely. “We all have secrets. I might have been a hero in my past life too, you know.”

“Were you?” Oliver asked. “What kind?”

For a moment, she genuinely considered it. Telling him about Cooper, and MIT, and the girl she’d left behind in Vegas. But introducing yet another ex into the already crowded conversation — not to mention the very real possibility of tears — wasn’t something Felicity wanted to do at the moment.

“The kind that turned out not to be,” she sighed, finally. “I’ll tell you all about it one day. Just…not tonight.”

After a beat, Oliver nodded, and tugged her gently back down to him.

“But thank you for sharing,” she said, looking up at his face.

“I want to. I always do.” _Just_ —

Felicity stopped the words with another kiss, and rolled over onto her back with her arms around Oliver’s neck, because it was enough that he was trying. Enough that he was letting her in, even if it was just a little. That he trusted her.

“ _Oliver_ ,” she laughed, feeling him shift lower. “What are you —?”

He shushed her with a ticklish nuzzle of her stomach, moving further down the whole while. She felt his hands around her ankles, his head nudging her thighs apart, and let her neck fall back, her hands reaching above her head to grasp at the corners of the soft rug.

Time went a little loopy after that, soft noises and heavier breathing, and Felicity was only dimly aware of returning to herself because Oliver had stopped. “Hm?”

“Phone,” he said, looking over towards the coffee table.

 _Frack._ Felicity turned on her side and reached clumsily for her cell, tugging the blanket around her body with one arm. “It’s — um — the alert I put on the Huntress’s file,” she said, shaking her head to clear it. Behind her, Oliver went still. “Michael Staton’s name was used to rent a car in Blüdhaven. I’m patched into the car’s GPS, and it’s headed on a straight track back to Starling.”

She palmed her phone and they looked at each other, reluctant to end the night, but knowing it was incredibly selfish to _not_ do anything else.

“It’s Helena,” he said, with the same certainty that made the warmth from before dissipate in a sudden chill.

Felicity got to her feet, starting to hunt down their clothes. “You have to go. Get the team together — I can coordinate from here. We’re short on time as is, and she’s moving fast.”

Oliver kissed the side of her head. “I’ll make it up to you.”

Felicity smiled in spite of the worry. “You’d better.”

* * *

Oliver could still feel Felicity against his chest, the vibrating shivers in his body when she laughed. He could see her above him, her hair tumbled around her face in a dozen shades of brown and gold, like wheat in the high summer, the smile playing around her mouth even when they kissed...

But enough of that. Not tonight.

They were at the outskirts of Starling, waiting to make the ambush on Helena’s car. According to Felicity’s projections, the car was taking the fastest route into the city, and the road they’d chosen as the interception point happened to be easy to obstruct, with a chain link fence and good vantage points from the rooftops.

He glanced across the road to check on everyone’s positions. Diggle was with Roy on the fire escape, and Tommy was on the rooftop — a combination he hadn’t wanted to test out on the streets, especially because of how green the latter two were. But he wanted to avoid any bloodshed as far as possible, and having someone to rein in Roy and the Mirakuru was the better option.

“Did you have a good night?” Sara asked, in a tone of voice that made him glance over at her, sharply. “It’s pretty rare that you’re not already in the Foundry when everyone gets called in.”

“I was at the office,” he said, shifting his bow to his side.

From the way she tilted her head, he could tell she didn’t believe him. But she let it slide. “I still think we should have cased the perimeter,” she said. “Something doesn’t feel right.”

Oliver agreed, but they’d been short on time. “It’s now or never,” he answered.

“What if _she_ knows that too?”

“Incoming,” Felicity said suddenly. “It’s the Huntress.”

* * *

Felicity glanced from one laptop to another. She’d set up her workstation at her kitchen table, black wires and signal relays, ready to help the team however they needed it. That should have been reassuring, knowing that she was prepared.

But even though they were the ones setting the trap for Helena, it felt like the other way around, like _they_ were the ones about to be surprised.

She couldn’t explain it. Maybe it was something about Helena — since the woman always had a backup plan, courtesy of her extensive experience in being the lone target for a _lot_ of unfriendlies. It didn’t help that Oliver and the others barely had the time to get in position for the ambush, but Felicity had made up for that with satellite scanning — putting the emphasis on detecting heat signatures from waiting hostiles.

Five warm bodies — five friends.

They were alone.

“ETA ten seconds,” she said.

“Copy that,” Oliver answered, and she heard the hiss of an arrow. “Get ready to engage.”

She open and closed her hands once, twice. _Ready_.

 _Please don’t let this go to hell_.

* * *

The car tore around the corner with a screech of tires, and Oliver fired a wired arrow across the street, just as Diggle mirrored the action. The mechanized anchors in the arrowheads burred into the brick with a puff of dust, the cables intersecting the main road and gleaming black in the glare of the oncoming headlights, a razor-sharp deterrence to stop a car from attempting to drive straight through.

“Move in,” he said, and Sara stepped out from the alley, her staff crossed imposingly behind her back.

Just as silently, Diggle and Tommy appeared on the other side of the car, weapons raised.

The car engine revved, as though it was about to reverse, but Roy walked out in front of the taillights, his skin white under the glare.

Oliver swung down from the rooftop and landed on the hood of the car, the arrow in his bow directed at the tinted windshield.

“Helena,” he said, “it’s _over_. Get out of the car.”

He heard the click of changing gears and jumped, before the car swung around with the kind of force that would have sent him flying. Undeterred, Sara smashed her staff into the back windshield and leapt onto the roof of the car as the wheels screeched, about to accelerate straight into Roy.

A calculated risk, but one that paid off because of the Mirakuru. Roy — in a display of impossible reflexes — brought his fists down and they smashed dents into the metal hood, smoke rising off the tires as he held the car where it was.

Everyone else was visibly taken aback, even Roy himself, but Oliver strode forward and grabbed onto the driver’s side door. “Helena — get out of the car!” he shouted again.

Nothing happened, and he yanked the door wide.

 _Click_.

“ _Ollie!_ ” Sara whirled in a blur of silver and threw her staff in the way of something that sparked off the black metal. The trajectory was skewed, but Oliver still twisted just in time to avoid the projectile that came flying towards him.

A sharp edge grazed the side of his neck — too fast to let him feel the pain — and he landed on his hands, otherwise unharmed.

The crossbow bolt, at least a foot long and wickedly sharp, was embedded in the brick wall ten feet away, a reminder of what should have happened to him.

“Thank you,” he said to Sara.

She was breathing hard, and they nodded at each other once, before everyone closed in on the driver’s side of the car.

Empty. Everything.

“Rigged crossbow,” Diggle said, slicing through the tripwires with the knife in his belt and yanking to dislodge the weapon. “She played us, Oliver.”

A trap.

“Felicity,” Oliver said, but she cut him off before he could finish.

“She was controlling it remotely,” she said, in the tiniest voice. “I’m sorry.”

Oliver had made a mistake too, and he wanted to tell her that. But he was hailing an empty line, because she’d already ended the call.

* * *

Felicity watched Oliver from across her workstation. A patch of red had already soaked into the collar of his gray t-shirt, so dark that it looked almost black, but instead of flinching while Sara finished up the stitches to the two-inch cut at the side of his neck, he just looked irritated.

“I can do it myself,” he grumbled, and Tommy — always hovering nearby in situations like these — rolled his eyes so far back it looked painful.

Unfazed by the moody vigilante resisting medical attention, Sara pulled on his ear to hold him still. “Your neck makes public appearances too, Ollie,” she said, drawing the suture through with forceps. “The sooner this closes up, the better. Trust me, scars from crooked stitches aren’t fixed by good makeup.”

“Any prints?” Diggle asked, and Felicity realized she’d stalled in the middle of the forensic analysis, centered around the grand pool of two in the tiny category of usable evidence. The crossbow bolt was nixed for a lack of anything usable, which left the crossbow that could have killed her boyfriend.

All because she’d made a stupid, _stupid_ mistake.

“No,” she said, and coughed to cover up the awkward pause. “Helena wiped everything. Nothing but smudges.”

There was a sudden rush of movement from the other side of the computers, caused by Oliver taking the chance to shrug off what he perceived as excessive coddling (otherwise known as emergency medical assistance). Sara had barely snipped the last stitch before he was yanking off the bloodstained t-shirt, in favor of a clean one held out by Tommy.

Who paused, and ducked around to scrutinize Oliver’s bare back like he’d spotted something. “Are those _scratches_?” he said abruptly, and Felicity almost dropped the ten-pound crossbow onto her foot.

“Careful with that,” Diggle said, returning it to the table surface. “It’s evidence.”

“Did you have a fight with a cat or something?” Tommy said. “Was it the stray Thea keeps feeding? I keep telling her not to, but she heard from some restaurant guy in Chinatown that cats are good luck. Even if they have fleas and might give you rabies. Speaking of — have I been vaccinated for rabies? Not the point. What happened to you?”

“Looks like cat claws,” Sara said, disposing of her rubber gloves with an inexplicable grin. “Right, Ollie?”

“What?” he said, visibly irritated again. “No — it’s probably brambles, or…tree branches. I go running in the woods.”

Tommy blinked. “There are woods in Starling?”

“Yes.” Oliver got to his feet and crossed over to where Felicity and Diggle were standing. “Did you find anything?”

“Apart from partials and a migraine,” Diggle said, “not really.”

Oliver’s gaze shifted to Felicity, and there was a wordless question there — unrelated to anything they were doing. She pulled off her rubber gloves and shrugged, avoiding direct eye contact. “I could try running the make and model to see where she might have got it, but if it’s anything like the car she rented, it’ll take longer than we have to crack.”

“What does that mean?” Tommy asked, while Sara continued to study the crossbow.

“It means that the car dealership Helena used was a front. I mean — it _is_ a car rental service, but their clients are mob bosses and drug lords and arms smugglers, so every inch of their servers are Blackhawk-level encrypted. It’d take me a couple of hours to crack the encryption —”

“—that’s good,” Oliver said.

“— _but_ since the code scrambles itself as a failsafe, it’s at least another two days to put the information back together using my programme, much less comb through the haystack for a needle we don’t even know we’re looking for. Which is assuming she even left anything useful for us to find — the less likely option, especially since the name Michael Staton was her way of throwing a decoy our way.”

“So in English,” Diggle said, “a dead end.”

Felicity nodded. “She outsmarted us — actually, let’s not be charitable here — _me_. This is my fault.”

“That’s not true,” Oliver said, which didn’t help. Neither did the look he gave her, the _We Need to Talk Now_ number that Felicity honestly didn’t have it in her to follow through with, not with the guilt and everything else sizzling a black hole at the pit of her stomach.

“If it helps,” Sara interjected, flipping the crossbow over, “it’s not anyone’s fault. And I think I found something. Do you have a blacklight?”

Felicity nodded and reached into one of the drawers. “Chemical residue?”

Sara shook her head, passing the violet beam smoothly over the underside of the crossbow. “See that?” she said, indicating what looked like a cluster of tiny dots showing up phosphorus white. “Arms dealers use it to mark their weapons so they know who sold to who. I have an old contact in the city — he might be able to tell me who sold the crossbow to Helena.”

“Sweet,” Tommy said. “I mean — not. You know what I mean.”

“Let us know what you find,” Oliver said quietly.

Sara nodded. “Get some rest. There’s nothing else you can do tonight.”

Felicity swore she might have gotten a wink from Sara before she turned away, punching numbers on her phone to the top secret League contact.

“Tommy, how about we take a look at that alley?” Diggle said abruptly. “Sounds like that stray cat might need some help.”

“But the cat scratched Oliver,” Tommy pointed out.

Diggle didn't seem to hear that last part, and tossed him a massive flashlight that Tommy nearly dropped on his foot. “ _Fine_. I guess it won’t hurt to bring it in for a couple of shots. Vaccinations — _not_ tequila. I’m not insane.”

“Sure, you aren’t,” Diggle promised, not so gently steering him towards the exit. “See you guys in a bit.”

Felicity couldn’t imagine doing anything other than toeing the invisible line, so to speak. She busied herself with putting away the tools in her forensic kit, even though Oliver was still standing on the other side of the table.

Sara’s voice was faintly on the far end of the Foundry now, in a language that sounded vaguely like Turkish. Yet another one of her impressive skills — along with superhero reflexes that narrowly saved Oliver from a crossbow bolt to the eye.

“I’m sorry,” she said, very quietly.

Oliver exhaled all at once. “Why? It’s not your fault. I’m the one who wasn’t thinking.”

“I _missed_ the car being on auto, Oliver. That’s like…amateur. _I’m_ the amateur here, and I’m not supposed to be. You relied on me to make sure we could catch her, and instead —” she stared at the fresh stitches on his neck “—I got you hurt.”

Without even looking to check whether they were being watched, Oliver uncrossed his arms and took her hand, before she could pretend to be busy with cleaning up again. “It’s not exactly the first time I’ve been shot with an arrow,” he reminded her. “And I’ve already learned my lesson from shouting at you after a bad night. I wasn’t angry with you the last time, either.”

Felicity felt her mouth twist in a stubborn frown, staring down at her hand, stiff and unyielding as a block of wood underneath Oliver’s. “You don’t get it. You — you’re _you_ , and I’m me, and that’s fine, but tonight just reminded me that we’re just…so unlike each other. Worlds apart. _Galaxies_. You're this...billionaire CEO who gives political speeches and goes to shiny parties and nothing ever breaks your outside face. I'm the dork who can barely handle work functions in dresses other people usually have to choose for me, I'm still figuring out my job as I go and that's fine, Oliver, I get that people come from different places.”

He didn’t move, utterly intent as he listened to what she was saying. Which made Felicity self-conscious, her brain in hypertensive overdrive, and it occurred to her that she was running through a familiar theme. Not just in her words, either.

Moira’s.

Along with anyone who ever saw her and Oliver together, most likely. Though it was hard to imagine them ever getting that far, especially after what just happened. Felicity knew it was beyond silly to take Moira’s words as gospel, because she didn’t know half the things Felicity knew about her son. But Felicity hadn’t realized how much she’d cared about their differences until it almost hurt Oliver out in the field, _badly_.

“I always thought that the one thing we had in common was our life in the Foundry,” she continued. “Because you're the Arrow and I'm the person who helps you be — _you_. But I didn't do that tonight. I almost got you killed, and it turns out that I can't even do the one thing I'm supposed to be good at. Sara can get weapons analyzed, you and her practically have the same scars, you guys can fight back to back and it’s like —”

She hesitated, pulling herself back at the very last second from saying something she’d regret.

“I’m not saying you should be with her,” she said, softly. “But maybe you should have chosen someone more like Sara, not me.”

“ _Felicity_.” Oliver leaned forward, and a part of her wanted to meet him in the middle, but she stayed where she was, rooted.

“I think I’m gonna head home,” she said. After a moment of hesitation, she reached up and brushed the back of her hand across his cheek. It was meant to be comforting, but to her it felt stilted. “I have to be in court tomorrow.”

“Do you really mean that?” Oliver asked.

He wasn’t talking about her going home, or having to be in court, and Felicity knew it. “No,” she said. “Yes. I don’t know.”

Oliver’s gaze felt like it could have burned her up from the inside, which was why Felicity gently slid her hand free from his grasp, and let the hand fall back to her side. “Good night,” she said.

He didn’t say anything back, but she knew without having to turn that he was staring after her as she went.

* * *

As far as guilt-ridden tossing and turning with no sleep went, Felicity’s night wasn’t on the list of worst ones she’d had thus far. She’d sat up a couple of times in the dark, thinking she’d heard something outside her bedroom window, but it turned out to be nothing.

Or just a stray cat.

Which was all just great, because she was about to have to spend half her working day in court, and deal with the thorny question of Helena Bertinelli for the rest of it.

All _great_.

“Morning, gorgeous,” Tommy said.

Felicity did a double take. She’d been too busy with her guilt spiral and the security check that she hadn’t noticed him sitting on one of the nice courthouse chairs, elbow resting on the back like he belonged there. Not that it was massively surprising, since Laurel had probably been in and out of courthouses with an unsolicited childhood friend in tow for most of her career.

Still.

Ignoring the paper coffee cup he held out to her, Felicity plopped herself beside him on the chairs. “Please tell me you didn’t get yourself slapped with an ankle monitor since I last saw you,” she said, and jerked up his pant legs to make sure.

Just socks, and a surprising lack of leg hair (pin in that for later). “Can’t say that’s the first time a girl’s pulled on my pants,” Tommy said nonchalantly, grinning even harder at the dangerous look she shot him. “Relax, I’m checking in on you. I know how nerved-up you get when Oliver comes back with a boo-boo in the field.”

He waggled the coffee again, and Felicity accepted it with an intentionally blank expression. “I messed up last night,” she said.

Tommy made a noise under his breath, like he meant _try again_. “That’s not why you’re being weird.”

In response to her knotted eyebrows, he gave her a teasing bump on the cheek. “Don’t death-glare me,” he said. “Take it from someone who has _way_ too much experience with being insecure — you’re overthinking it. I haven’t seen Oliver look at anyone the way he looks at you, even if she happens to like crossbows and the greasepaint raccoon thing.”

“Sara, Helena, Laurel, McKenna — sorry, weird, I know — but it’s like…everyone Oliver’s ever been with is someone who can kick ass, and I’m… _not_ like that, at all.”

Tommy exhaled at the ceiling. “I really should get my advice tattooed onto my forehead. It’s like I keep saying to you two dummies — because _trust me_ , Oliver’s been on that spiel, especially when you were fooling around with that CSI dork, but that’s besides the point — which is: _opposites attract_. You’re not the same, and that _works_. Obviously not enough to stop you from doing the whole _denying-feelings-slash-a-boner-for-each-other_ …thing, but he’s far gone, and so are you. Whether you can smash through a sandbag or make one tiny mistake after saving his ass a thousand times — literally doesn’t matter, like at all.”

It was _that_ kind of heartfelt speech that reminded her how the tabloid stories (and the _Yelp_ reviews) had less than nothing on the real Tommy Merlyn. Felicity was also aware that her mouth was half-open (embarrassingly), and she fidgeted with the cup of coffee while she considered what she was about to say. “Listen, Tommy…uh, Oliver and I a—”

“Well isn’t _that_ a surprise,” he said abruptly, and got to his feet, waving. “Here for my arrest, detective?”

McKenna had been by the coffee cart, and she made her way over now with an expression of reserved optimism Felicity was pretty sure came with the combo of Tommy and law-related settings.

“Hey,” she said, with a brief smile in Felicity’s direction. “Did he get himself in trouble again?”

Tommy straightened up from the greeting kiss. “I’m right here,” he said indignantly.

“Don’t worry,” Felicity said, disregarding the protest. “Company stuff. We’re suing a competitor, and the powers that be decided to send me to represent R&D.”

McKenna raised her eyebrows. “Sounds like you need a drink that isn’t coffee.”

“You know me too well.”

They exchanged glances of mutual amusement, and Felicity swung her bag off the chair without paying too much attention to her aim, nearly whacking a lawyer-ish person striding past them (he gave her the stink-eye for that one).

“So what brings you to court?” Tommy asked. “Shouldn’t detectives be out there fighting crime and taking names?”

“Mm.” McKenna nodded. “Sure, that’s the fun part they tell you about before you sign up. But the _really_ fun part is the paperwork and showing up for arraignment hearings.”

“The _lie_ ,” Felicity said, in mock-horror. “Who’s being arraigned?”

“Frank Bertinelli,” she answered, which made both Felicity and Tommy freeze. “They moved up his hearing to today. I’m the arresting officer, and I was the one running the investigation on the family before I had to take a leave of absence.”

Tommy gave Felicity a brief sidelong look, one that meant _bad_. “Why — uh — why so soon?”

“Pressure from the feds, probably,” McKenna guessed. “I don’t like it — the best thing to do would have been letting the press forget all about him. This attracts too much attention.”

Felicity agreed, and almost as if on cue, there was a stir from across the lobby — near the entrance. McKenna was on her feet in a second.

“What the hell?” she said under her breath.

“That’s…” Felicity had only ever seen his picture in a file, but even taking into account the extra wrinkles that came from being on the run, Frank Bertinelli was impossible to miss, being marched in by armed police officers through the security scanner.

“Detective Hall — 52nd Precinct,” McKenna said, holding up her badge as one of them passed by. “Why are you bringing him in from the front entrance? Every camera in the city’s parked out there.”

“Orders, ma’am,” he answered, with a shrug.

Felicity reached into her pocket for her phone, hesitating. What was the Team Arrow code for _Bad Feeling, Standby for Bad Stuff?_

Bertinelli was being put under the public eye to attract attention. But why?

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Tommy murmured in her ear, and she nodded.

“We should call the others.”

“Practically panic-texting them from my pocket.”

Felicity was about to make an excuse and duck out of the way to call Oliver, but she heard something that made her pause. It was a stir almost too imperceptible to catch, but all three of them — McKenna, Felicity and Tommy — looked down at the small dark shape rolling rapidly towards the group surrounding Bertinelli.

Evidently McKenna recognized it on sight, because she reached for her gun. “ _Get down!_ ” she yelled.

Tommy seized the back of Felicity’s coat and dragged her towards the floor, just before white smoke exploded across the courthouse lobby. The fog hissing from the smoke canisters — the sheer volume meant there _had_ to be more than just one — held as dense as a solid and rolled rapidly to engulf the space, turning people into vague shapes, movement into disjointed echoes.

The hand beside her knee was Tommy’s, and he was practically bent over her like a human shield, his head turning left and right in the murk, just as on edge — but _blind_ — as she was.

They all were.

McKenna was crouched in front of Tommy, her gun held in a perfectly steady grip. “Stay calm,” she said, without taking her eyes off their murky surroundings. “We’ll get through this.”

She tensed again at the sound — a rush of guns being drawn. It meant the officers clustered around Bertinelli were on the alert, but the reassurance lasted less than a second before she heard the hiss of something being fired, and a guard went down with a yell of pain, followed by another. And another.

Then, a ringing, eerie silence.

Until —

“Hello, daddy,” said a voice.

The mist was dissipating, and Felicity looked up to see a figure moving easily through the swirling haze. The crossbow in her hand gleamed, black and dangerous and pointed straight at Bertinelli’s chest. “Sorry I’m late,” said Helena. “But you’re a hard man to find.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BOOM. But you were probably expecting that. Fun, fun stuff.


	25. Courthouse Lockdown (Birds of Prey, Part III)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Arrow 100 everybody!  
> So I've cut this update into two parts because of length. Both parts are up today, but I just split them in two so you don't have to read 16K words in one sitting (shudder).  
> Thanks for the response to the story so far, it's been really encouraging to see happy comments because of happy Olicity :)

Tommy Merlyn had been in his fair share of hostage situations. Some of those situations had involved more or less the same people — i.e. himself, that one time McKenna was there with the Hoods, Felicity helping behind the scenes so that Oliver could beat the living crap out of the douchebags…

God, Oliver.

Even if the moron was still stuck in the _Not Gonna Make My Move_ -quicksand, Tommy had zero doubt whatsoever that his best friend would straight-up murder him if anything happened to Felicity on his watch.

Which wasn’t stressful, like at all.

In a weird, unsolicited, and _godawfully_ timed moment of clarity, it occurred to Tommy that temporarily borrowing Frank Bertinelli from SCPD custody and hog-tying him up somewhere as bait might have been the fastest and — weirdly — the safest option to draw Helena out.

The key phrase being _on their terms_ , which this — a courthouse full of civilians and smoke grenades, not to mention his cop girlfriend in the crosshairs — was most unequivocally _not_.

Helena kicked one of the officers aside, completely unfazed by the crossbow bolt sticking out of his chest, and walked towards her father. Granted, the last time Tommy had seen her in person had been at an Italian restaurant during one of the most awkward double dates in the history of ever, but some leather and a microfiber mask didn’t change the fact that he was looking at Helena Bertinelli. An R-rated version of Snow White, only with a _massive_ backlog of unresolved rage and daddy issues (heh, didn’t _he_ know the feeling).

“You can drop your gun, officer,” Helena said suddenly, and Tommy tensed. “The only person I plan on killing today is my father.”

In spite of the two SCPD uniforms dead at Helena’s feet, McKenna still stood her ground, her gun straight and steady. “Step away from him, Helena,” she said. “I won’t ask again.”

That seemed to get her attention, and her sharp eyes flicked McKenna over. Judging from the smile that curled her mouth, the recognition was definitely mutual. “ _Detective_ ,” she said, breathless with mock surprise. “Back on your feet. Sorry, I wasn’t expecting to see you again — not after I left you bleeding out all over my father’s lawn. Still got the scars?”

“My only concern is making sure everyone gets the justice they deserve,” McKenna answered, and to anyone who didn’t know her as well as Tommy, they wouldn’t have heard the tremor of anger in her voice. “That includes Frank Bertinelli, whatever wrongs he’s done you. He deserves to stand trial for what he’s done, and you don’t need more blood on your hands.”

Helena laughed, baring her sharp, white teeth. “Should I listen to her, daddy?” she asked, gently pressing the head of the crossbow into the front of his shirt. “Should I let some federal judge put you away for life, and walk away with my hands clean?”

“Your hands were never clean,” Frank said, his lip curled in disgust. “I only feel sorry for you, tearing our family apart over some —”

“ _Michael_ ,” Helena spat, her eyes crackling with fury. “His name — was Michael, and _you_ had him killed. A man I loved, and you _took_ him from me.”

The elemental rage at facing the person who’d stolen someone she loved — and still loved — was something Tommy knew a little too well, and he was on his feet before he fully realized what he was doing, walking towards her.

“Tommy,” McKenna warned. “Stay out of this.”

Behind him, he could sense Felicity silently willing him to do the exact same thing. Lucky for him, he’d always been slightly terrible at following instructions.

“Helena,” he said, and she swung around, crossbow in hand. He held his hands up, all without taking his eyes from her face. “Don’t do this. You probably don’t remember me, but —”

A smirk curved her mouth. “The rich boy,” she sneered. “We really are going for a surprise reunion here, aren’t we? Where’s Laurel? Don’t tell me you and Oliver finally sorted out your issues.”

Ignoring the calculated stab, Tommy shook his head. “I know what it feels like to want someone dead for taking away what’s important to you, but killing your father’s different. You can’t come back from something like that.”

“She doesn’t want to, son,” Frank snarled, pushing back against Helena’s crossbow. “Do you, Helena? What are you waiting for? You’ve been hunting me for years! Now’s your chance — what are you waiting for?”

Flapping his mouth in a dangerous situation was pure Tommy Merlyn, but even this struck him as incredibly stupid. Apparently not to Helena, because her brow furrowed like she’d realized something, and she shifted Bertinelli’s suit jacket aside.

Something long and black was taped to the silk lining.

 _A_ _wire_.

“Trap,” Felicity breathed, and Tommy looked around at the gigantic _crash_ of something hitting the floor.

Followed by footsteps. A lot of footsteps.

“Helena Bertinelli — you are under arrest! Drop your weapons and place your hands behind your head!”

She was turning left and right as officers filed in to encircle a wide perimeter, standing between civilians and armed with sighted rifles. Bertinelli was laughing, swaying slightly where he stood with his hands mockingly held high. “Before you ask, sweetheart, I would have done it for free,” he said.

Tommy loosed a quiet sigh of relief at the sight of Helena surrounded. Even if she was missing a screw or two, she _had_ to realize that taking on a squad of SWAT officers ten to one — with a crossbow of all things — was next-level stupid.

He really should have reserved his surprise for later.

“Helena Bertinelli!” the officer bellowed again. “You are under arrest! Drop your weapons!”

Helena tilted her head, and a slow smile played around her mouth, sign number one that something was going very, very wrong. “Do you remember what you used to say to me, daddy?” she asked. “ _Always_ be prepared for anything.”

Before Tommy could so much as think: _uh-oh_ , she’d hurled something across the ground. “ _Now!_ ” she shouted.

Smoke gushed into the air again and Tommy dived towards the floor at the sound of gunshots. People were screaming — sharp cries and shrieks of pain — and he could have sworn that the ones returning fire weren’t even in SWAT uniform.

“ _Tommy!_ ” Felicity yelled, and he turned.

The first thing he saw was the semi-automatic poking through the mist, and the rest was a blur of instinct and knee-jerk reaction — so to speak. Tommy swerved to the side and clamped a hand around the shooter’s gun-toting wrist, praying that he remembered the thing Sara had taught him about how to pop someone’s hand out of socket.

A sickening _crunch_ , and the gun clattered to the floor. Tommy stared at it in surprise, then back at the guy, before realizing that he still had one functional hand and was about twice as pissed pre-wrist dislocating.

“You son of a b—”

No-Wrist never got to finish his sentence, because McKenna elbowed him in the head and slammed her knee into his nose in short order. He dropped like a stone, and Tommy had never wanted to make out with someone more than that exact second.

His girlfriend, _not_ the unconscious thug with the nosebleed.

Who was currently staring at him with disbelief. “Where’d you learn to do that?” she asked.

_Uh-oh._

“Uh — good reflexes?” he said lamely.

“ _Reflexes?_ Are you —”

“We have to get out of here,” Felicity interrupted, saving him from having to make up a full and (probably) terrible excuse. McKenna started to lead them towards the entrance, but all three of them jerked back at the sound of gunfire coming from the direction of the doors, and Tommy shook his head. “Not safe. C’mon — I think I still know my way around this place,” he said. “They’ll never find us.”

McKenna kicked the semi-automatic aside and checked her handgun. “Lead the way,” she said, and he chose to believe that the unease in her voice was because of the situation.

 _Just_ the situation.

* * *

Oliver was finding it hard to concentrate on the meeting. The reliable combination of Isabel leading the discussion and a heavy binder full of dense reports was something he’d gotten more or less proficient at over time, but today the task was proving especially difficult for reasons he was deliberately trying not to think about.

Even though the empty chair beside him was a simple, offhand reminder that he and Felicity were in two different places, in every sense of the word. Had she meant to end it? Did she want to?

The bandage underneath his shirt collar chafed at him when he shifted slightly. Another reminder of an unfinished thought between them, a lingering question.

Why did she think he deserved to be with someone else?

“What happened with Kord Industries is an example of why we need to step up security measures,” Isabel said, turning a page while she talked. “Losing a key prototype made their stock _plummet_ , and no one sees it stabilizing anytime soon. Unfortunately for us, we can’t take advantage of that gap in the market because our skeleton key project was de-funded. Is that accurate, Oliver?”

A pause.

“ _Oliver_.”

He looked up, and hastily picked up the thread of the discussion again. “The skeleton key project was shut down once a comprehensive review of the possible adverse implications was completed,” he explained. “If modified, it didn’t just decrypt hostile code, it could be utilized to breach vault security systems.”

“I didn’t sign off on it.” Isabel had phrased it as an inquiry, but Oliver heard the sharpness.

“I did,” he said. “I initiated the review — in my capacity of supervising Queen Consolidated’s R&D.”

The tension of the moment didn't go unnoticed, and Isabel’s eyes narrowed slightly, but it went silently dismissed. “I think we’ve covered enough ground for today,” she said, getting to her feet. “Moira, I wasn’t aware you’d be stopping by the office.”

Oliver looked down the length of the conference table. His mother was standing in the open doorway, smiling slightly as though seeing Isabel again was a genuine pleasure. “Please, don’t stop on my behalf. I just wanted to speak to my son.”

Their eyes locked from opposite sides of the room, and for a moment, Oliver saw the coldness in her gaze to match his. Still, he straightened up, buttoning his jacket with a gracious smile. Like mother, like son.

“I will see you all tomorrow,” he said, pausing only to gather up his briefs.

As he slid the binder from the table, Isabel murmured: “Family squabble?” in a moment of unwelcome clarity.

Oliver didn’t answer, but walked out to join his mother in his office. They smiled at the attendees of the dispersing meeting as they passed, murmuring greetings and reflexive courtesies in a show of mindless habit, and it was only after Moira watched Isabel disappear into her office that she dropped all pretense of warmth.

Fair enough. Oliver felt they owed each other that much. Not to pretend.

“Do you need something?” he asked.

“Your sister plans on throwing Sara a party at our house. I was told you’d accepted your invitation, and a plus one. Will Miss Smoak be attending with you?”

Oliver faced the window, squinting slightly against the glare so that she couldn’t see the anger flickering in his eyes. “I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

“You may have severed all ties with me as your mother, but the house — as ever — remains _mine_ ,” she said. “ _My_ house, Oliver, and I have the right to inquire as to its guests.”

He could tell that he’d made her angry, but Oliver only felt the guilt as a painless nudge. Devoid of any power over him. “You forfeited any right to talk about Felicity in front of me the moment you threatened her, and if she wants to attend, she will. Because she’s not afraid of you — and neither am I.”

“Yes, she made abundantly clear when we had our encounter on the courthouse steps yesterday,” Moira said coolly. “Except in her case, she has the decency to remain civil when speaking to me.”

Oliver shook his head, gritting his teeth so hard he tasted metal. His mother had spoken to Felicity. Again. Always Moira, throwing complications into their relationship because it suited her. Felicity may have had her insecurities from the start, but Oliver was willing to bet that the incident had brought those insecurities to a forefront just as Helena had presented herself as another problem.

Which meant Moira was at least in part to blame.

“I promised I would act the part of your son for the campaign. That includes being — as you said — civil in front of house guests. Now if you excuse me, I have work to do.”

Moira opened her mouth to answer the curt dismissal, but there was a tap on the door before Oliver could hear it.

The sight of Diggle was almost a relief from the icy tension in the room. “Sorry, Mr Queen, but there’s something you need to see.”

Oliver walked silently past his mother to join Diggle out in the waiting area, where he’d borrowed his absent assistant’s computer for something. “Why are you showing me the news?” Oliver said, not without a shade of irritation. “I have to —”

Diggle silenced him with a raised hand, and turned up the volume. It was at that moment he read the scrolling headline —

_HOSTAGE CRISIS AT CITY COURTHOUSE_

“Helena Bertinelli, the fugitive daughter of renowned crime boss Frank Bertinelli, was reportedly the target of a SWAT operation that took place at the Starling City Courthouse earlier this morning. Sources tell us that Mr Bertinelli’s public arraignment hearing was a means to draw Ms Bertinelli out of hiding, in the hopes that she would make an attempt on her father’s life. She is currently wanted on twenty-four counts of first-degree murder, sixteen counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and numerous other charges accumulated over a year of being on the run. However, on being confronted at the courthouse by the SWAT officers, Ms Bertinelli was reportedly joined by armed associates — who had been posing as civilians at the scene. Mr Bertinelli managed to escape, and is currently being held in police custody. We are told that his daughter has taken hostages and withdrawn to a fortified wing of the courthouse, where she intends to make her demands. There is no word yet on when that might be, or what those demands might look like. We bring you now to our on-site correspondent, K—”

Oliver was already dialing. His head was throbbing, blood in his ears, a tremor running through his hands — which _never_ shook.

“Tried that,” Diggle said, as all he got was Felicity’s recorded message. “They must have signal jammers in place.”

“What the hell are we going to do, John?” he hissed. “Felicity’s in there — _with_ Helena.”

“I know.” Diggle shook his head. “If she recognizes Felicity, she’ll be a prime hostage to draw in the Arrow.”

“For what?” he asked.

“Do you honestly think the police are going to hand Bertinelli over?” Diggle returned. “Not a chance. And when she realizes that, who do you think the Huntress is going to ask to help her?”

“Oliver?” Moira was at the door now, looking worried. “Is everything all right?”

His expression went blank. “I have to go,” he said, and strode past her to the elevators, because Moira was someone already lost to him.

Now his mind on the one person he refused to lose.

* * *

When Felicity started her day, it was safe to say that she’d thought the biggest problem on her plate was a prolonged patent trial, and/or the gigantic sinkhole that had opened up in her relationship with Oliver. Not trying to avoid capture by armed thugs, who were all working for — surprise, surprise — Oliver’s gorgeous but genuinely unhinged ex-girlfriend. Who’d probably shoot her on sight, just for kicks.

In summary: not great.

“Are you sure you know where you’re going?” McKenna asked, which seemed like a fair question, given how they’d been walking/wandering for twenty minutes.

“Don’t quote me on it, but I _think_ there’s a hiding spot down here,” Tommy said, inching forward with one hand brushing the walls. “Laurel’s office used to be somewhere —”

He cut himself off when a flashlight beam sliced through the dimly lit corridor. Felicity yanked him back around the corner and pressed herself against the wall, her heart in her throat. McKenna put one finger to her lips and they all listened, dead silent and deathly still, as the footsteps drew closer.

They stopped, but near. Two of them. Heavy. Armed.

 _Please turn around_ , she thought. _Please_.

“Did you hear something?”

Tommy’s hand slid lower down the wall, to the fire extinguisher sitting on the stand. Felicity silently loosened her grip on his sleeve, as though she knew what was about to happen.

Then the flashlight was in her eyes.

“What the —”

Tommy swung the fire extinguisher like a two-handed bat and knocked the rifle clean out of the thug’s hands. The other one grabbed Felicity around the arm and swung her around with painful force. She collided with a glass wall, her elbow and hip slamming into the solid surface with a jarring shock that went all the way up to her brain like lightning. Her ears were ringing while his hands closed around her throat, and her attempts at kneeing didn’t seem to be getting him any higher than the thigh.

_Frack, frack —_

“Hey!”

Felicity heard a sickening squelch and a yell of pain that coincided with the meaty hands around her throat releasing in one explosive gasp. She landed on her knees, choking for breath, and it was only when a drop of blood landed on the back of her hand that she realized what McKenna had done.

Stabbed him in the neck with a pen. And as if that wasn’t badass enough, McKenna only twitched her fingers in response to his murderous stare. “Come on,” she said, her hands raised. “I’m not afraid of you.”

He went at her with a roar, and she ducked under the wild swipe of his blind swing, catching him around the middle and throwing off his balance so that he landed on his head behind her, at which point Felicity — now on her feet, rasping, and _pissed_ — shoved a loaded filing cabinet over like the cherry on top of a _Totally Not Worth it Sundae_ , where it conked him clean out.

“Nice one,” McKenna said.

Felicity didn’t have the breath to thank her for being kind, especially in response to her godawful flailing. “Tommy?”

He waved from underneath a table. The guy he’d been fighting was unconscious, but Tommy lifted his arm to show them the pieces of broken glass embedded in the skin. The blood oozing was dark and steady, and Felicity didn’t like the look of it at all.

“Oh frack,” she said. “We need to move. Where’s the office?”

Tommy jerked his head. “Down there — _argh_ —” McKenna pulled him back onto his feet, gently holding his arm level. “Thanks.”

“You’re gonna be okay,” she said, brushing his cheek. “We’re gonna get through this.”

He managed a weak smile, but Felicity could tell that he was in pain — and losing blood. Her hands were somehow slick with it, and she fumbled blindly at the doorknobs until one of them turned, and they all stumbled into the sudden cool of a stranger’s office.

McKenna lowered Tommy into one of the chairs, and Felicity was about to close the door when she turned back. “Wipe the knob,” she said, with a surprisingly level voice. “Your hands have blood on them. We can’t leave any traces if they come investigating.”

Felicity nodded, and bunched up a handful of her coat to clean the smears off. Then she shut the door, and sank into a crouch with her shoulders shaking. McKenna had rolled up Tommy’s bloodstained sleeve, and a police-issue flashlight was between her teeth, shining on the wound. Felicity silently took it from her so she could have both hands free.

Tommy flinched as he flexed his fingers on the injured arm. “It looked like a lot more fun when you were patching Harper up,” he said.

McKenna touched his face again. “Save the black humor for later. Right now, we need to get some pressure on your arm — and we can’t do that with glass in the wound.”

Tommy flinched, and looked around the room until he saw the bottle of whiskey on the sideboard. “Do your worst, babe,” he said, leaning over to commandeer the booze.

Felicity and McKenna gave each other a look over Tommy’s bleeding arm. It was going to be a long day.

* * *

“I can’t find Merlyn anywhere,” Roy said, jumping the last two steps and landing on the Foundry floor. “Thea said he mentioned that he headed out early, which either means he’s been body-snatched by aliens, or —”

“—we have to assume he’s in the courthouse with Felicity,” Oliver said, staring at the news without seeing any of it. “Where’s Sara?”

“She said she was going to talk to her father.” Diggle lifted the lid off the sniper rifle, and Oliver reached his arm out to stop him.

“No,” he said. “Nobody dies tonight.”

Diggle looked at him with a healthy measure of skepticism. “I seem to remember you telling me that before — until Helena went after Felicity, and you changed your mind.”

“The Huntress is my fault — _my_ responsibility,” he repeated. “I won’t kill her if it means I can make that mistake right.”

“Oliver, she wants to kill her father because he had her fiancé murdered, and it’s blinded her to anything else but revenge. That’s on Frank — not you, and I think it’s high time people around here stopped taking on the sins of the father.”

Oliver gave him a hard look at that. “Are you saying I’m biased?”

“I’m saying that you don’t always think so clearly when it comes to your own guilt,” Diggle answered, his voice even. “But do I think Helena should be put down? There’s a courthouse full of innocent civilians — including your best friend and the love of your life — she’s using as leverage. I think that speaks for itself. She’s too far gone, Oliver.”

“We thought Sara was too far gone when she first came home,” he argued. “We were wrong.”

“Sara has her family to ground her. Helena wants to kill the only one she has left. Don’t you understand, Oliver? She has _nothing_ to lose, and that makes her more dangerous than Sara could ever be.”

Oliver disagreed with that. “You don’t know Helena like I do,” he said, but deep down he knew Diggle was right.

Except —

Helena _was_ him. She’d been almost exactly where he stood, trying to use a vendetta to make sense of a loss, to distract himself from the wreckage of everything that used to matter, to mean something.

He’d seen that loss and given her the means to hone it into a sharper weapon, an infinitely more dangerous one — without making sure that she meant to use it for the right reasons. Justice was only justice to Helena if it meant that her father lay dead at her feet, and Oliver was trying to find another way.

Another way out of an impossible situation.

“Oliver —” Diggle began, and he couldn’t hear anything else.

“What do you want me to say, John?” he shouted, rounding on his friend. “Yes, there’s a part of me that wants to put an arrow in Helena if she touches Felicity, but I can’t do that. I promised Tommy that I’d try to find another way, and if it comes down to the promises I’ve made and the wrongs I need to make right, I don’t know what I’m going to do. Are you happy now? I don’t know!”

The last echoes of his shout lingered on in the ensuing silence, during which Diggle faced Oliver with an expression of unbearable sympathy, while Roy looked wide-eyed at the outburst, observing a conflict that ran too deep for words.

“I’m sorry,” Oliver said, heavily. “I didn’t mean to shout.”

“Yes, you did,” Diggle said flatly. “But Sara just sent us a message — and you’re not gonna like it.”

He leaned over to see it, and his face darkened. “We need to go. Now.”

“What are you going to do?”

Oliver’s hand closed around his bow, but he didn’t answer. Because he didn’t know.

* * *

Felicity pushed the bottle of whiskey out of reach, relieved to hear liquid sloshing around on the inside — which meant that Tommy hadn’t managed to get completely hammered during the agonizingly slow process of getting him patched up without the proper first aid provisions.

They were alone behind the desk, just the two of them. McKenna had been gone for two minutes by Felicity’s count, to clean up the hallway outside the office and hide the bodies. Tommy had been too distracted to lodge an effective protest, and she’d gone — promising to be back in ten.

A minute felt like hours.

They were in hostile territory, and it had been actual hours since Helena had shot up the courthouse lobby. There was no way of getting the news — her cell signal was dead — probably courtesy of jammers they'd brought with them to block any calls for help, and the landlines were down (she’d checked the office phone), just in case anyone had the bright idea to call for help. But Felicity knew that if her guards had come sweeping the courthouse, it meant that they’d taken over and were planning to fortify, which would only be the case if Helena hadn’t managed to shoot her father through the heart, execution-style.

Fortification meant waiting out the police, and most probably — hostages.

Maybe it was just Felicity’s unpleasant experience with Helena’s methods, but she had zero intention on adding herself to the stock of leverage against the SCPD and Frank Bertinelli’s life. Unfortunately, no phones meant any chance of the team stumbling conveniently onto their location was close to nil, and even _if_ a rescue mission were on the cards, a civilian hostage situation meant that the courthouse perimeter was locked down. No way in, no way out.

_Frack._

Tommy had fallen asleep for a couple of minutes, and he jolted awake when Felicity re-applied pressure to his bandaged arm (repurposed from parts of his ripped sleeve and a spare pocket square they’d found in a drawer).

“McKenna?” he asked.

Felicity poked her head out from under the desk to check the hallway. Blinds were drawn over the windows, but as far as she could tell — uneventful. “Not yet,” she said. “We must have messed up the corridor pretty bad.”

“ _God_ ,” he groaned. “Don’t even mention it. So — _lame_.”

“What do you mean? You took out a gigantic dude — a whole one. By yourself. With a fire extinguisher. If that isn’t some Sara-level badassery, I don’t know what is.”

Tommy hefted his injured arm. “I fell on some _glass_ , Felicity. And it wasn’t even during the actual fight.”

“You’re talking to someone who failed at kneeing someone in the crotch,” she said bluntly. “Getting some glass in your arm after winning a fight is still a _win_.”

The helpful comparison against her self-defense fail seemed to convince him, at least for the moment, and Felicity went back to pressing on his wound. “Hey,” he said, suddenly. “About what you were saying before — about kicking ass, and Oliver’s dating track record — it’s not true, you know. You kick ass just fine.”

Felicity wanted to pinch his cheeks and tuck him into a warm blanket burrito for being so selflessly cute, trying to reassure her against her (completely selfish) insecurities while the world was going to hell. “You’re sweet. But my finishing move is pushing over heavy objects,” she said, her hand on his face. “Let’s just leave it at that.”

“C’mon, Felicity, you know that doesn’t change how anyone in the team sees you. You’re twice as badass behind a keyboard. Like a _bazooka_ — or whatever that is in computer speak. And not that this is helping us at all, but I’m pretty sure that everyone’s just running around the Foundry like headless chickens because you’re not behind the computers to stage the rescue mission. Oliver’s probably already crashed one of the terminals, and Harper’s either gonna be panic-tweeting or surfing for p—”

She leaned over and impulsively kissed his cheek. “One problem at a time, Merlyn. What are you gonna tell McKenna when she asks about the new moves? _Don’t_ ,” she added, before he could deliberately misinterpret the question for the purposes of another innuendo.

“No idea,” he answered. “She already knows I’m helping the Arrow out, but I don’t think that definition extends as far as learning how to dislocate someone’s wrist — still can’t believe that happened, BTW.”

“You need to tell her,” she said quietly. “Lies and long-term relationships don’t mix with the kind of lives we lead.”

Tommy gave a humorless laugh. “I watched Oliver lie to Laurel — and to me. Trust me, I know the drill.”

“Is it worth it?” she asked, and she didn’t mean McKenna. “Taking another step — becoming…like the Arrow, or whatever it is you’re doing. You’ve seen what it does to Oliver. Is it really — worth all of it?”

“I just know that I can’t be the same Tommy Merlyn I’ve been all my life. Being down there with you guys in the Foundry these last few months — it’s like I finally know how to do things differently. To be _me_ , differently. I can’t explain it, but it’s not just about protecting my sister, and the people I care about. My dad’s done so much harm to the city — maybe it’s my turn to try and offset that balance, you know?”

Felicity wondered if patterns were just made to repeat themselves. Oliver and his father’s list. Now Tommy and Malcolm Merlyn’s twisted debt to Starling City, for the Glades disaster and all the hurt he’d caused, the lives he’d lost.

“Sins of the father,” she murmured. “That’s how Oliver started out.”

“I know.” Tommy had always been good with black humor. “Queen and Merlyn. Two peas in a pod.”

The rattle of the doorknob — a sudden sound in the silence — made them both start, but instead of turning the whole way, it fell silent again. Tommy started to rise, but Felicity grabbed him by the sleeve when they heard the voices.

“Don’t shoot,” McKenna said, her voice loud and steady. “I’m alone.”

“A _cop_ ,” one of them sneered. “What the hell are you doing down here?”

“I heard the shooting and I got out of the way,” she said. “Any chance we can pretend you guys didn’t see me?”

There was a thump, like one of them shoved her (Tommy tensed again, and Felicity held him steady). “Nice try. C’mon — let’s get her upstairs with the others.”

The footsteps died away, and Tommy swore — quietly, but furiously. “We have to get her out of there.”

“And the other hostages,” Felicity prompted. “Helena probably isn’t going to keep them as a whole unit if she doesn’t get what she wants.”

“Great.” Tommy winced, and started to get up. “Tell me something I don’t know — wait, what are you doing?”

Felicity let her coat drop to the floor. Thank god for the small mercies — namely her having had the unintentional foresight that morning to ditch the pencil skirt for black work pants, ankle boots, and a sensible blouse, albeit blood-smeared with Merlyn DNA at this point (that sounded wrong). “Oh, I’m coming with you,” she said. “You are _so_ not leaving me behind in this office.”

Tommy put an arm out to stop her from getting up. “Felicity, Oliver’s going to flip his noodle if anything happens to you.”

“Ditto,” she answered. “But I think we both know that Oliver eventually makes his peace with the people he cares about doing what they have to do.”

“How are you still _not_ dating?” Tommy demanded, reliably missing the point as per usual, but accepted her help to get back on his feet.

* * *

Tommy’s arm was throbbing, and he had less than zero idea of where he was meant to be going. When Laurel had taken him on a tour of the courthouse, he’d been (unfortunately) distracted by the sight of her in a high-waisted pencil skirt, not the minutia of the architectural layout. But in his defense — her guided tour, along with most guided tours, didn’t include the fun trivia section of _Hey, In Case You’re Ever in a Hostage-Taking Situation, Use These Rooms_.

Which didn’t help him at all.

Felicity tapped him on the arm, pointing at a wide-open door and signs of a struggle. She was armed with a detached steel table leg, picked up from one of the many pieces of broken furniture they’d passed, like breadcrumbs leading them back to the core of the Bertinelli operation. Tommy had broken the head off a mop handle, which wasn’t that glamorous either, but he’d been training with Sara lately and some of her moves had rubbed off on him, including her preferred weapon.

Again, hopefully.

“Hey!”

Tommy shoved Felicity back and dodged just in time to avoid a knife wound to the shoulder. The serrated blade flashed again as their attacker went for another strike, but before Tommy could try a swing with his injured arm, the guy went down like fresh timber.

A woman in black leather and a silver wig rolled behind him and locked her arms behind his neck, holding on with gritted teeth until his feet stopped kicking and he twitched into unconsciousness.

“Sara,” Felicity said. “Oh my god. How did you —?”

“League of Assassins, remember?” she answered, and pulled her in for a hug. “Thank god you’re both okay.”

Felicity pulled back at that reminder, ignoring his silent under-throat-slashing motions to _not_. “Tommy’s arm —”

“I fell into some glass,” he said, wincing as Sara immediately turned his arm over to see. “Where’s Ollie?”

Sara made a face. “I didn’t exactly tell him I was coming in here until I was already inside. You know what he’s like, with —”

“—Helena,” Felicity finished, looking like she’d been punched in the stomach. “What’s he going to do?”

Sara looked at her. “Probably the right thing.”

It may have been the consistent pain from his arm, or the blood loss, but Tommy didn’t understand what any of that was supposed to mean. Except that Sara was currently leading them out, and speaking to someone over the comms. “I have them,” she said. “We’re headed to the egress point at the south wing.”

Tommy dug in his heels at that. “ _Wait_ ,” he said, and Felicity didn’t look any less outraged. “What about the hostages?”

* * *

"What about the hostages?”

That, in Felicity’s opinion, was a completely valid question, one she assumed Sara had known the answer to when she’d dropped in to save their necks. But Sara blinked, and Felicity shook her head. “Honestly. I leave someone else in charge for _five minutes_ and it’s like the Hunger Games out there,” she said, and took out her phone.

A few swipes here and there, a working comm signal later, and Felicity had the Foundry on the line. Tommy for one looked thunderstruck when she held the phone to her ear, like it hadn’t occurred to him that her phone could piggyback off the encrypted radio signal. “Hi,” she said. “It’s me.”

“Felicity,” Oliver breathed, and her heart did a weird thing between a flop and a skip. “Are you all right? Are you hurt?”

Well aware that Sara was hearing every word, Felicity tried to keep it brief. “No, but Tommy took some glass in his arm.”

“Get out of there.” Oliver’s tone wasn’t the kind that invited debate. “ _Now._ ”

Fortunately, one of Felicity’s strengths was not responding to flat-out orders. “McKenna’s one of the hostages — she was at the courthouse with us when it all went down. Tommy’s not leaving her behind, and I agree. We can’t just save our own necks and leave everyone else with Helena. She’ll kill them.”

“Felicity —”

“Oliver, if you were right here, right now, you’d be doing the same thing.” She turned her back to the others, noticing that Sara was tactfully helping Tommy re-bandage his arm more securely. “Look, I know I’m not like Helena — or Sara — I know I can’t fight like them, but —”

“—Felicity,” he interrupted, like he knew what she was about to say. “That’s not why I’m worried. I’m worried because I l—”

“—then you need to trust me when I say that there’s a plan.” She had been looking at one of the wall signs, one that specifically pointed in the direction of the security room. Which meant computers. Which meant a whole new ballgame. “It might not be a great plan, but it’s something I can do.”

Felicity expected a pause, but Oliver’s answer was surprisingly quick. Just not the one she’d expected. “I don’t… _doubt_ you, Felicity. I want you to know I never have. I never will.”

She looked down at her feet, a tightness rising in her throat. “I know,” she said hoarsely. “We’ll talk about it later. I promise.”

“Home?”

She smiled, in spite of everything. “Home.”

Sara and Tommy were both waiting when Felicity turned back around, palming her phone while her mind went berserk in all the (hopefully) right ways. Cell signal jammers. Every one of the hostages probably still had their phones on them, minus a working signal. If she could disable just one of those machines and turn all the phones back on — _voila_ , a working map to find where the hostages were being kept, plus tracking the movement of Helena’s crew.

“So what’s the plan?” Sara asked, and Felicity took a deep breath, sensing the responsibility being passed into her hands. Oliver and the others were all on the outside. This rescue mission was her calling the shots.

“First things first,” she said. “We need to get me in front of a computer.”

* * *

“I don’t get it,” Tommy said, as they crept through the corridors with Sara in the lead. “If you can do everything that you do on that tablet thingy you carry around — but on your phone — why even use the tablet in the first place?”

“It’s like Oliver knowing how to shoot a gun,” Felicity said. “Why still stick with the arrows?”

“Because _The Bullet_ doesn’t sound as superhero-y as _The Arrow_?” he volunteered.

Felicity rolled her eyes. “The biggest cluster’s at the conference room — two doors down. Be careful, they’re all armed to the teeth.”

Sara was reliably unfazed at the reminder that all she had was a more weaponized version of a stick. Giving the Bo staff in hand a twist, she separated it into two and flipped the other around towards Felicity. “You’re gonna need this,” she said.

Felicity looked at it in surprise, because her involvement in the plan was specifically the defensive-passive kind, freeing the hostages while Tommy and Sara caused a distraction. “That’s yours. I couldn’t — I wouldn’t even know what to do with it.”

Tommy had taken borrowed one of Sara’s retractable ones, and he knocked it nervously against his leg for emphasis. “Just swing the blunt end at the dummy’s head,” he advised. “That’s how I do it.”

Sara hadn’t moved, waiting for Felicity to take the weapon, and still hesitating, she did. The metal weighed heavy in her hands, and what Oliver said to her abruptly sprang to mind. Something about planting her feet and a good foundation.

Also the part about being small.

Some of the guys were easily three times her size, but Sara always took them on without a second thought. Maybe this was a tiny bit of what it felt like to be her. _Fearless_.

“I’m scared too, you know,” Sara said. “I just don’t let it control me.”

Felicity managed something of a smile, even though it felt more like a grimace. “When you get to the Huntress,” she said, because it was important, “kick her ass.”

Sara nodded, and they all got into position. She reached into her belt and took the sonic device in hand. Felicity studied her phone screen, following the lone figures circling the cluster. Eight thugs in total, and Helena was leading the pack.

As an added bonus, the glass doors weren’t soundproof, so they could hear every word.

Helena was negotiating with whoever the city had put in charge of the hostage situation. “Sergeant, if you won’t hand over my father, I’ll have to start doing as I promised — killing one hostage for every hour he still isn’t dead in a box. And I’m a woman of my word. Just ask _him_ ,” she said, and slammed the phone back into the receiver. “Sorry, detective Hall, it was nice catching up with you, but it looks like you’ll be the first one out.”

“Not a goddamn chance,” Tommy growled, and Sara moved.

The sonic device landed with a muffled thud on the carpeted floor, and right on cue, it released a banshee cry that made it rain glass. Sara was the first into the room, clearing the waist-high window frame with a yell, and her swing sent a six-foot thug crashing into a conference table.

Tommy went straight for Helena, forcing her to defend herself. Felicity — a little less well-versed in the mechanics of focus-targeting — reacted on instinct and swung the reinforced steel staff at some guy’s middle when he came at her. The impact made him fall to his knees, spitting, and she backed it up with a solid conk to the head.

A guy landing unconscious at her feet was a surprisingly good start to everything, not to mention a massive surprise.

 _Okay_ , she thought to herself, _maybe this isn’t so bad_.

Now about the plan. Felicity hastily scanned the chaos for McKenna and found her lying on her side, gagged and bound around the wrists like the rest of them. She’d been writhing furiously in an attempt to get free, and sat up with a furious gasp when Felicity finally managed to get the knots loose.

“You okay?” she asked. “Did they hurt you?”

McKenna shook her head. “Helena was about to start killing off hostages because the FBI wouldn’t hand over her father,” she said, and her eyes alighted on Sara — practically a feat of the impossible as she took on three thugs on her own. “Wasn’t expecting the reinforcements. You really have some…interesting friends.”

Felicity pulled McKenna to her feet. “You have no idea,” she muttered.

* * *

Tommy didn’t remember ever doing so much multitasking in his life. There was controlling his arms and legs for the fight in front of him (with the added bonus of sharp weapons and no video game do-overs), keeping an eye on the peripheral happenings (Felicity working to free the hostages, while McKenna kept the thugs at bay), not to mention the Big Boss Fight, which was Sara gradually working her way over to the Huntress.

Who — true to super-villain form — seemed okay with watching the good guys struggle.

Tommy’s arm was killing him, and he only narrowly managed to avoid getting shish-kabobed by a combat-grade knife, ramming it hand and wrist against the wall with a painful crunch. By the time he managed to knock his attacker off his feet, his shoulder muscles were aching from exhaustion, but he saw Helena reach for a gun lying on the floor, and he moved.

His footsteps made her turn, and she dodged neatly underneath his swing, slamming the side of her leg into his ribs and twisting away.

Helena wore a mocking look on her face as she sized him up. “Should’ve guessed that Oliver’s best friend would pick up the annoying habit of meddling where he’s not wanted,” she said, brushing her hair carelessly from her face. “Detective Hall mentioned you two are an item now. So what happened to sweet little Laurel Lance? Oh, that’s right — caught under a collapsing building.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this, Helena,” Tommy said. “I don’t know you like Oliver does, but I know what it’s like to lose someone you love, and fixate on the one person who made it happen. Wanting them dead. _I know_ what that’s like.”

“Your father’s already dead,” Helena snarled, all pretense of mockery gone from her face now. “From what I hear, Oliver killed him.”

Tommy shook his head. “That’s not what happened.”

“When will you boys get it into your head?” she snarled. “ _I — don’t — care_.”

Then she attacked him, and Tommy didn’t realize just how trained she was until her fist sank into his stomach and she judo-flipped him by his bad arm to land on his back. Before he could even register the change in perspective, he was suddenly being hauled up against her like a human shield, a knife point pressed to his throat and her crossbow in hand.

There was a breeze on his neck, and from the flapping of the curtain behind him, he could tell that they were in the shadow of the broken window, and Helena was waiting for her moment to strike.

It came in the form of a gigantic crash, from Sara slamming one of Helena’s thugs into a wrecked table. The two women faced each other, a showdown just seconds away from happening, and another smile twisted Helena’s mouth as she appraised Sara. “And who are you supposed to be?” she asked.

“Let him go,” Sara said. “He’s not the one you want to hurt.”

“That’s right,” she answered. “Like I told the sergeant, I want my father at my feet — or I’ll make the streets run red with blood.”

“Killing your father won’t change what happened,” Tommy said, despite the knife poised to sink into his jugular. “But you’ll never be able to come back from this.”

“I can’t stop, because here’s the thing, Tommy,” Helena whispered, turning her head slightly so that she was breathing against his cheek. “Once you let the darkness in — it never comes out.”

Before Sara could move, Helena raised the crossbow to shoot, and she hurled the half-staff like a javelin, knocking the weapon clean out of her grip. Tommy didn’t realize that Helena’s arm had slipped out from around his neck until she was suddenly in front of him, and her elbow caught him squarely in the stomach, forcing him backwards —

Instead of colliding with the wall, he felt nothing behind him except empty air, and Tommy’s breath caught as the momentum took him straight through the window at his back.

He heard someone yell his name — McKenna or Felicity, he wasn’t sure — but he was falling, easily, weightlessly, the air whistling past his ears as the ground rushed up to meet him. In the agonizing seconds where Tommy was more or less sure that he’d reached the end of his inexplicable luck, he had a sudden impulse to close his eyes.

Thank god he didn’t.

Another shape had dived out the window after him, and he felt a strong grip curl around his wrist, pulling him close. A cloud of silver hair was in his face — Sara, her teeth gritted in concentration — swung something in her arm, something black and rope-like that ended their fall with an abrupt jerk and a short thud into the concrete.

First things fist — Tommy Merlyn was not dead. But he felt like he’d rolled down a whole flight of steps, and all the air had been forced out of his lungs by the landing. There was something hot trickling slowly down his wrist, probably the stupid glass cuts again, but suddenly a hand was bracing him, feeling for a pulse.

A green hood appeared above his face, characteristic thunder face in full _Arrow_ swing. “Ollie,” Tommy breathed in relief. “I’m okay — I’m — _wait_.”

His head snapped back towards the gaping window, just as Helena’s face vanished back into the courthouse. A heavy lead weight seemed to have commandeered anything lower than his esophagus, something that felt a lot like dread. “McKenna — Felicity — they’re still in there.”

Sara, breathing hard, looked Oliver in the eye and some kind of understanding flickered between them. “I’m sorry, Ollie,” she said. “I had to save him.”

“I know.” Oliver stared at the window, his jaw clenched like he knew what was coming next. “And I have to save her.”

* * *

Felicity had seen Tommy fall almost in slow motion, and when Sara leapt straight out the window after him — no hesitation whatsoever — she’d been relieved. But she hadn’t had the time to make sure he was all right. McKenna had seen the whole thing, and she caught Helena by surprise, sending them both crashing into a row of chairs.

The fight was short and sweet, ending with McKenna on her back and Helena throwing punches with no signs of stopping, and Felicity — sending another hostage racing for the door — glimpsed Sara’s weapon lying on the floor beside Helena’s crossbow. The metal was still warm to her palm, and she held it out in front of her now.

Due to the circumstances, she was pretty sure her presence had gone unnoticed by Helena’s tunnel vision (in full _Patricide_ mode).

Needless to say, what she planned to do would change that, big time.

Helena’s hand was around McKenna’s throat now, and Felicity spoke up. “Hey!” she said, and Helena turned.

Felicity’s swing — aimed for somewhere around the shoulder area — ended up catching the side of Helena’s mask and sent her rolling towards the side, off of McKenna. Undeterred by the straight-to-face hit, she rose lithely from a crouch, pulling the torn mask away from her eyes with one hand, while the other reached up to feel her cheek. A bright red scratch gleamed against her snow-pale skin, and her fingertips came away shiny with blood.

_Frack._

“And here I thought Oliver had a type,” Helena said, her voice low and dangerous.

Felicity was in no way prepared for what happened next. Fast as a striking snake, Helena advanced, and she swung again out of pure reflex. Only this time, Helena caught Felicity by the wrist, twisting the arm behind her back until the staff clattered through her numb fingers. A kick sent her stumbling forward onto her knees, and before Felicity could even catch her breath, Helena’s fist cracked into the side of her skull and she landed on her back, dazed.

The edges of her vision were blurring now, and she felt her temple throb in time with her heartbeat, blood trickling down the side of her face. Helena’s smiling face was above her now. “I know I’ve said a lot of things today, but it’s good to see you again, Felicity,” she said.

That was the last thing she remembered before everything went dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **PSA: THERE IS ANOTHER PART AFTER THIS. PLEASE KEEP READING IF YOU WANT TO :D**


	26. Hero Moment (Birds of Prey, Part IV)

Diggle was patched into the police frequencies, and from what he was hearing, it wasn’t good. “They’ve swept the building — no sign of Helena. Sounds like they swapped disguises with the hostages and slipped out.”

Tommy tried to struggle off the ground, but Roy put a firm hand on his chest and held him there — Mirakuru strength was something even enthusiasm and adrenaline couldn’t beat. “What about McKenna?” he asked. “Is she —”

“Fine. They’re saying she’s the only SCPD officer to survive the attack. Bruises and bumps, but she’ll be okay.”

Tommy sagged in relief. “Thank god.”

Oliver was staring out over the rooftops, at the chaos of the courthouse square below — news vans and flashing cameras and police cars blinking red-and-blue. Sara joined him at the ledge, standing shoulder to shoulder. “Do you think she took Felicity?”

“I know Helena,” he said shortly. “She’ll do anything to make sure she’s the one who ends her father. I’m just waiting for the call.”

“Speak of the devil,” Sara said tonelessly, as he pulled out his phone. Unknown number.

Oliver didn’t bother with the vocal scrambler. “Helena,” he said. “Where is she?”

“Safe. For now,” she said, in the same self-satisfied purr he remembered.

“Hurting her won’t get you what you want.”

“No, it _really_ will,” she answered. “You never were the type to let a friend pay for your mistakes, right?”

“She has nothing to do with this.”

“I agree, which makes what I have to do highly regrettable,” she said. “But it’s a simple trade, Oliver. One I know you can’t turn down. My father for Felicity. I’ll see you at the old Ace Chemicals plant at midnight. Try not to be too predictable.”

She hung up with a click, and Oliver turned to face the others. “Move out,” he said. “We’re getting Frank Bertinelli.”

* * *

Helena tossed the phone back to one of her booted thugs and turned back to Felicity with a surprisingly warm smile, ignoring the latter’s stony glare in response. “I know I said _friend_ ,” she admitted, shifting a few loose hairs away from Felicity’s face. “But I wasn’t completely sure what else to call you. _My father for the IT girl_ doesn’t really have the same ring to it.”

Felicity lifted her head. The ropes around her wrists and ankles were tied so tightly that she was starting to lose circulation, and judging by the rhythmic throbbing in the vicinity of her left ear, Helena’s punch had opened up a cut somewhere on the side of her face. “Oliver’s going to stop you,” she said flatly. “No matter what you say to him.”

“Oh, he’ll try,” she agreed. “But that’s boring — and predictable. What _I’m_ interested in is why he’ll trade one of his sidekicks for my father’s life. I _was_ bluffing, you know. Tommy would have been the better hostage — childhood friend, and all that. But you should have _heard_ the way Oliver sounded when I mentioned you. What’s going on there?”

Felicity only glared at her, and Helena tapped the crossbow against her knee, visibly thinking — or taunting, like a cat toying with a mouse. “See, now I’m thinking about when it all changed. Oliver never used to try and kill me — not for real — but then I paid you a visit at Queen Consolidated and left you tied up and gagged behind a desk,” she mused. “Next thing I know, my ex-boyfriend’s shot an arrow straight at my heart.”

Silence. Only Helena seemed to take it as confirmation, and she parted her lips in another wide smile, punctuating it with a throaty — not to mention irritatingly sexy — laugh. “So that’s the way the wind blows,” she said, and shrugged. “Funny, I just always thought Oliver went for the tall and strong type. The blonde — you know, the one who jumped out the window — _she_ looked like she might have put up a fight, but you — you barely lasted two seconds against me.”

Felicity flicked her eyes at the glorious scratch on Helena’s porcelain skin, cut neatly along the curve of her cheekbone. “You might want to get a few stitches on that,” she answered, and Helena’s dark eyes hardened to flint.

“I really hope I don’t have to send you back in a box,” she said. “Then again, Laurel _was_ the great love of Oliver Queen’s life, and look how that turned out. Maybe I won’t have to.”

Felicity turned her face away, feeling her skin crawl with something resembling hatred. “He’ll stop you,” she said softly. “I know him.”

“Here’s the thing, Felicity,” Helena said, tipping her head to one side with a little coy smile, “so do I.”

* * *

“You’re making a huge mistake!” Bertinelli spat, stumbling from the armored SCPD truck. “Helena’s going to kill me!”

Quentin looked relatively unimpressed, checking the handcuffs behind Bertinelli’s back to make sure they were secure. “Yeah, well I lost five officers today because of you, so I think I can make my peace with that.”

“Thank you, sergeant,” Oliver said, taking Bertinelli by the arm.

“This scumbag nearly got my son killed,” Quentin said, and looked at Sara. “My daughter too. Whatever you have to do to make Helena stop — do it.”

Sara glanced at Oliver in response. “It’s probably a trap, you know,” she said.

Oliver’s fingers dug into Bertinelli’s arm without thinking, hard enough to make the man flinch. “Helena never does anything halfway.”

Sara took his tone of voice as a cue, and swung the staff behind her back. “I’ll take upstairs. Backup’s already inside.”

They nodded at each other, and disappeared into the shadows. Oliver felt his insides twist from the longstanding argument. If it had been Count Vertigo, or the Dollmaker, or anyone else who’d taken Felicity as a hostage — he wouldn’t have hesitated. That was a matter of history and personal experience. He’d killed the Count rather than let him hurt Felicity. There was nothing in Helena’s track record to suggest she’d soften her killing edge for someone she sensed was important to Oliver, not if it got in the way of her vendetta against her father.

How many more reasons did he need?

The abandoned plant was a maze of industrial equipment, cast iron and impossible to move, twisted shadows sporadically illuminated by a passing light. Oliver felt Bertinelli’s unease as they moved further into the metal jungle, his breath catching whenever they passed something that looked vaguely like someone lurking out of sight.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said, while Oliver dragged him on. “Whatever she’s offered you — I’ll double it.”

Bertinelli had no idea that he was being traded for Felicity, but just the implication that there was a price in the world that could be set for someone like her — it made Oliver’s temper, already on edge, flare dangerously.

“I’m not interested in money.”

“You’re supposed to save the city, right? You’re making a huge mistake, handing me over to her. This isn’t —”

“I protect my city from people like you,” Oliver growled. “I’d be doing them a favor if I let your daughter kill you.”

That seemed to shut him up, and they were suddenly at an open area, a miniature courtyard lined with broken crates and empty steel shells. Bertinelli stumbled forward when Oliver gave him a push, his footsteps stirring up dust as he turned from side to side, searching for his daughter the way a cornered animal looked for the hunter.

“Helena?” Oliver said, and his voice echoed up to the rafters, rusted chains swinging slightly in an unseen breeze. “I have your father.”

“Good,” came the answer, and Oliver swung around, an arrow loaded to fire.

Helena emerged from the shadows behind them, a crossbow in hand. Oliver shifted in front of Bertinelli, shielding him from Helena’s aim.

“Where’s Felicity?” he asked.

Helena rolled her eyes a little like he was being predictable, and snapped her fingers. All at once, he heard the sound of four — six — guns being drawn, and in the silence that followed, the muffled sounds of a struggle. His gaze snapped to the upper level overlooking the courtyard, and saw that one of the gunmen had Felicity around the throat. Gagged, her hands tied behind her back, she was still putting up a fierce struggle, her expression furious enough to kill, and his instincts sharpened, responding to the danger she was in.

“I had to shut her up,” Helena said, as though Felicity was a plaything she’d grown almost fond of. “Talks a _lot_ , that one.”

“If you’ve hurt her —” he began.

“I haven’t, but I will if you keep dragging out the trade,” she snapped. “All this trouble for a man who bled the city dry to build his mansions and his shiny crime empire. You and I haven’t always seen eye to eye, Mr Arrow, but I thought we’d at least agree on this. My father _deserves_ to die.”

Oliver was still looking at Felicity, who jerked her head once. He nodded in answer, and turned back to face the Huntress — his mistake.

“Maybe,” he said. “But not at your hands, Helena. If you kill him, it’ll change you. Forever.”

Helena’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Everything I’ve done — it’s been to get justice for Michael. If that’s the price I have to pay, then I’m happy to see it through to the end. Even if I have to get _you_ out of my way.”

“Helena —”

“I’m out of patience,” she said, and looked up. “Do it.”

There was a thud, and a sudden shriek. Felicity was arched against the railing, her bound hands gripping the rusted metal as she was pushed onto the metal ledge. It was a sharp drop, twenty feet at least, and if she didn’t control her landing —

“I hope she doesn’t break anything too permanent,” Helena said coolly. “It’s a long way down.”

Oliver turned his aim on Helena. “Let her go,” he said. “ _Now_.”

“I think we both know that’s a very poor choice of words,” she answered, just before the Canary Cry pierced the air.

* * *

Last-minute sonic distractions from helpful friends were their bread and butter, but Felicity was finding it hard to stay positive when she was about to lose her balance and hurtle into a fall that would probably break her legs — if not something more permanent in the vertebrae region. Her palms were slick with nervous sweat, clamped hard onto the railing underneath her while the rest of her upper body curved dangerously over the side. The thug in charge of making Helena’s point had been braced to let go, and when the Canary Cry hit, he’d gone down with a grunt. But the vibration from his landing shook the metal beneath Felicity’s hands, and she felt the delicate balance tip, at which point she fell over the side — with a sharp scream.

Her eyes closed out of pure reflex, but instead of landing on cold, hard concrete, something seemed to hurtle at her from the side and she collided with something solid — and most definitely alive. Felicity briefly registered that it was Oliver who’d caught her, before they hit the ground with enough force to jar her teeth in her skull, and rolled to an abrupt stop — raising dust around them — against a wall of ancient pipes.

A chain rattled in the air, swinging madly like a pendulum, and she realized that he’d cut off her momentum by swinging to catch her mid-air.

“You’re insane,” she gasped as he sat up, pulling her behind cover and out of the line of fire.

And there was plenty of it. Guns going off everywhere. Helena’s father was nowhere to be seen — he’d probably taken off as soon as the chaos started, something Helena was bound to notice, and —

The flechette sliced neatly through the rope around her wrists, and Oliver ducked his head to look at her face. “Are you all right?” he asked, as if it was actually important in the scheme of things.

“Oliver, you have to get her — Helena’s dad — ” she stammered, her hands held out in front of her as though she wanted to give him a starting shove. “You have to go.”

He caught both her hands and held them against his chest. “Are you all right?” he repeated.

Felicity was torn between an absurd desire to hit him and hug him, but she opted for neither, and kissed him full on the mouth, short and hard, and _god_ did she mean it. A _thank you_ and _I really, really like you_ and an _oh my god we could die here_. A jumble of conflicting elements that were — always — quintessentially them.

“One hundred percent,” she answered throatily. “Now _go_.”

Oliver nodded, and took off into the shadows.

The Canary Cry had long since died down, but it had accomplished the goal of complete and total chaos in the Huntress’s gang, and Felicity looked around just in time to see the thug who’d given her the shove crash into a pile of broken crates. Sara landed soundlessly in the courtyard using one of the chains, and she turned around, one hand held out to Felicity.

“Need some help?” she said.

Felicity wasn’t the most angry person, but being kidnapped and used as a hostage did wonders to her disposition in terms of having things she needed to hammer out. Glancing to one side, she noticed a rusted socket wrench lying beneath one of the maintenance hatches, and slid it into her palm.

“Thanks,” she panted, accepting Sara’s help to get back on her feet. She was dusty, sweaty, and completely disheveled, but _god_ was she pissed.

Sara — in her trademark intuitive way — seemed to sense this, because her smile turned a little dangerous, and she twirled the staff at her side. “Give them hell,” she said.

* * *

“Where’s — Oliver?” Diggle asked, between furious swings against Helena’s tag-teaming thugs. “Did he —”

Felicity cracked the wrench into a kneecap, dropping the guy into a crouch, and Diggle finished him off with a nose-breaking right cross. “No idea,” she panted, while he flipped the other one over and punched him in the throat. “He might be after Frank. Or Helena. Didn’t…get that many words in.”

Diggle smirked in spite of the situation. “I’ll bet.”

A crossbow bolt pinged off the column in front of them, and Felicity looked around to see Helena’s dark head disappearing into the iron maze of pipes and abandoned machinery, followed shortly by Sara’s silvery one in silent pursuit.

It wasn’t as if she doubted Sara, but there was a part of her that knew Oliver didn’t want Helena to die, and Sara — in contrast — wasn’t as particular about that turn of events. Especially in the heat of the moment and protecting the people who mattered to her.

Felicity couldn't believe she was actually about to _do_ something that would even remotely help Helena Bertinelli, a stance she was having a tough time feeling particularly magnanimous about, given the general state of her bumps and bruises.

“Go,” Diggle said, pulling out his gun as another thug approached. “I got this.”

Felicity nodded and raced after them, hoping she wasn’t too late.

* * *

Frank Bertinelli didn’t take long to apprehend, and Oliver had left him unconscious and upside down, hanging by his ankles in a place Helena wouldn’t think to look. That left him with only one problem, and he hoped that she wouldn’t force his hand.

He moved carefully throughout the upper levels, wary of the uneven floors and rusted metal, his bow poised to fire at the slightest sign of movement. Sara appeared first, stalking across the floor below like a lioness after her prey, but there was still no sign of Helena.

Something shifted in his peripheral vision, and Oliver fired into the dark. His arrow clanged off a solid pipe, and Helena swung a kick at his head, forcing him to duck. They grappled furiously with each other then, a tangle of limbs and attempts to subdue the other, until Helena rolled away to the side, swinging the hair off her face. They stared at each other then, both in a crouch, and Helena smiled, taunting him without words, like she’d already won.

Oliver followed the direction of her stare and saw that she’d handcuffed him to a solid steel pipe.

“You always did let your guard down around me,” she observed, and pulled a handgun from her belt.

He braced for the inevitable shot, but she winked at him and turned towards the floor below, where Sara had reappeared, evidently failing to find Helena in her search of the ground floor.

Helena took aim, and Oliver twisted.

“Sara!” someone shouted, but it wasn’t him.

The gun went off with a roar.

* * *

Assassins and trained vigilantes weren’t great at leaving tracks for ordinary people to follow, so Felicity had caught up with some difficulty, jogging as much as she could manage with aching muscles and a throbbing headache.

She’d been starting to get the crawly feeling along the back of her neck until she’d reached a patch of light and saw Sara standing in the clear, surveying the shadows like she was listening for something.

Suddenly she whirled, and Felicity jerked back, the butt of the (very jaw-breakable) Bo staff just inches from her chin. Sara was about to say something, but Felicity caught a glint from somewhere behind her, and high up.

_Helena._

Felicity moved without thinking, and slammed into Sara so they both hit the ground. She heard the bang and a rush of heat like a passing bullet, then they made impact with an expected thud. For a second, Felicity only heard her heartbeat in her ears — before a flash of blind panic set in.

“Sara — Sara, are you —?”

Sara bent over her, and Felicity breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of her visibly unscathed. “You saved my life,” she said.

“No…problem.” Felicity felt winded for some reason, numb, but that numbness did a shocking backslide into _pain_ when she tried to sit up. Heat, all along her shoulder and back, and she gasped, landing clumsily on her side.

Sara turned her over to see, and Felicity flinched when her fingers found the general source of the actual agony. Conveniently somewhere out of her line of sight, squarely in her shoulder blade. “You’ve been shot. Don’t move, I’ll —”

Unfortunately, that wasn’t exactly an option, given the circumstances. She grabbed Sara by the arm.

“Helena — she’s —”

She never got to the end of that sentence, because suddenly Oliver was on the upper level with Helena, tackling her with a roar, and the two of them were fighting for real.

* * *

Oliver had dislocated his thumb to get out of the handcuffs, and the first thing he did was swing his bow at Helena’s wrist to knock the gun clear. It spun out of her grasp and fell towards the floor below, and then his hand was around her throat.

Blindingly, beyond-all-reason, _angry_.

“Helena,” he snarled. “Stop this. _Now_.”

“You never could get me to stop, Oliver,” she said, and brought both arms down to break his hold. “You know I won’t, so there’s really only one thing to do — kill him, or kill _me_.”

Oliver stared at her with sudden clarity, and he realized what he had to do. “I’m sorry, Helena,” he said, and then he lunged.

She parried his first blow with ease, but Oliver had meant it that way, and she missed the arrow sinking into her leg, through skin and muscle, until it reached the precise spot of the nerve. She went down with a gasp, clutching her leg where the arrow protruded, and he went on his knees beside her. Numbness would be spreading down her leg, but before that there would be shaking, the disorienting sensation that her body couldn’t seem to support her weight. For someone like him, it would be nothing short of agony. Which meant it would be the same for her too. “Femoral nerve,” he said. “You’ll only hurt yourself if you keep moving.”

Helena stared up at him, breathing hard, like she couldn’t believe that he’d actually done it. “You —” she said, and there were tears in her eyes. “You told me you were on my side.”

“I am on your side,” Oliver said, and touched his collar to open the comm link. “Sergeant, I have the Huntress.”

Quentin’s reply was a garble of static, but Oliver wasn’t listening. Helena didn’t flinch from him when he took her hand. “My father — he’s alive?” she said shakily.

Oliver nodded. “I couldn’t let you kill what was left of your soul.”

Helena managed a humorless laugh, even though a tear rolled down the side of her cheek. “Takes one to know one, right?”

Oliver was momentarily taken aback, because he’d almost forgotten it. How easily Helena could see through him, almost as if she could read his mind. But it was the darkness they’d always had in common, an understanding formed by chaos and pain and loss — not anything else. Not the light.

Things had changed, and Oliver wasn’t the same person Helena had met a year ago.

“I found someone to harness the light inside of me," he said, quietly, "however little of it I had left. You need to find someone who can do the same, because I can’t be the one to save you, Helena. Sooner or later we’d just tear each other apart.”

Her eyes moved slowly across his face. “Love her that much?” she asked, in a quiet voice almost heartbreaking in how lonely it was.

Oliver didn’t answer — not in words, anyway. It was impossible to tell whether he’d gotten through to her or not, but Helena lifted her chin, and took a slow, deep breath.

“You’ll see me again, Oliver,” she said, and it was a promise.

He turned his head slightly. Voices, footsteps, orders being barked and weapons at the ready. Oliver looked back at Helena again, but they both knew there was nothing left to say. Even so, she was staring after him as he backed into the shadows and left her, alone in a wavering pool of light.

* * *

Oliver took the Foundry staircase at a run. “Felicity?” he said. “Are you —?”

“ _Here_ ,” came the feeble-sounding croak, and he strode past the glass cases to find her sitting at one of the steel worktables, holding a blanket to her chest with her shoulders bare, blood dried in reddish-brown tracks all the way down her right arm. Her face was drained of color and he could see that she was in pain, just trying not to show it.

“Why aren’t you in the hospital?” he demanded, and rounded on Diggle and Tommy, who both had their backs turned to Felicity — presumably for modesty’s sake. “Why’d you bring her back here?”

Unfazed by the fierceness in his voice, Sara only reached past him for a clean pair of forceps. “Ollie, it’s a clean wound,” she said reassuringly. “We took some X-rays to make sure there weren’t any fractures. I’m not a doctor, but she’ll be fine.”

Felicity turned her neck slightly to smile at Sara. “And you guys made fun of me because I wanted an X-ray machine down here.”

It was clearly meant to make everyone laugh, but Oliver was finding it incredibly hard to see the humor in the situation. “You should be in a hospital,” he said.

Despite the pain, Felicity still sat up a little straighter in disagreement. “You guys never go to the hospital,” she reminded him, and pointed with her good arm to a worktable on the other side of the room. “See that? Emergency operating table, when Digg had to patch you up because your mom shot you. I remember because I was helping.”

“Moira shot y—? Oh, wait. Never mind.” Tommy hastily turned to face the other way at Oliver’s dangerous glare. “I always forget that part,” he muttered, holding up his bandaged arm and inspecting it like it was a piece of fascinating art.

Sara tapped her foot against the floor, one hand on her hip. “Look, Ollie, if you’re gonna stay on this side of the room, you need to start helping out. That includes not growling about going to hospitals. If you’re still worried, I’ll let you hold her hand. Deal?”

“Doctor Sara’s _strict_ ,” Felicity said, in a hushed voice.

Oliver couldn’t tell if Sara was teasing him, but when faced with the option of being stuck on the opposite side of the room, he stiffly pulled up a chair to sit across from Felicity, and reached for her hand. His first impulse upon touching her skin — still warm, thank god — was to brush his lips to the back of her knuckles, something he suppressed only just in time.

Felicity smiled at him like she’d noticed, like it was their secret, and the hard knot of tension inside his chest began to loosen, if only just a little.

“Try not to move,” Sara said, opening a fresh packet of sutures. “Ollie does it faster, but he tugs.”

“I could help,” Tommy offered, and there was a muffled thump like Diggle had hit him. “What? I promise I won’t do them weird on purpose.”

Felicity laughed and lowered her head onto their hands — hers and Oliver’s — staying so still that he knew she was dreading the first prick of the needle.

“Did they give you something for the pain?” he asked, and she tensed at the first stitch, a small gasp she quickly bit back.

“Digg gave me a couple of aspirins,” she said, her face still hidden from view. “They’re taking a lot longer to kick in than I thought.”

Oliver turned slightly to look at Diggle, who shook his head and mouthed _oxycodone_ , which made Tommy hastily convert his laugh into a cough. “You’ll feel them…eventually,” Oliver said lamely, trying to recall what he’d learned about body mass and ideal drug dosages in biology. “Try not to think about it.”

“Have you met me?” she asked, with a hint of her usual humor. "What happened to your hand?"

Oliver glanced down, having genuinely forgotten. The base of his left thumb was still swollen from him dislocating it in order to get out of the handcuffs, far from the first time it had happened, and easily fixed with some ice. "Helena," he said briefly. "It's a long story."

Felicity sat up. “What happened with her? Is she okay?”

Oliver sensed everyone’s immediate interest, which made him avert his gaze, running his thumb along the inside of Felicity’s palm, something only she could feel. “The damage to her leg isn't permanent. They got her into secure lockup after a medical evaluation, away from her father.”

Sara shook her head slightly, still suturing. “That’s not how I would have done it.”

“I’m glad you did,” Felicity said, quietly. “It was the right thing to do.”

It was the kindest — and least expected — thing he ever thought she’d say about Helena, a pressure point for her own insecurities, not to mention the reason she’d been shot in the shoulder and nearly killed in the span of twenty-four hours.

But now wasn’t the time or the place to tell her that, though Oliver meant to, later and in private. Along with making sure he made up for everything that had happened between them. Still, they were stretching the boundaries now, touching each other under the pretense of a medical situation, even though Felicity was tracing the lines in his skin the way she did when they were alone.

“Do you know where she’s going on trial?” Diggle asked, breaking the momentary pause.

Oliver shook his head. “The sergeant said the commissioner decided to hand her over to another agency at the last minute,” he said. “Something about an initiative for special prisoners.”

“Hey, at least you stopped her from doing something irreversible,” Tommy pointed out. “That’s a win, right?”

In the scheme of things, Oliver was finding it hard to believe that. Felicity gave his hand another surreptitious squeeze, and he felt himself warm to her smile. “Don’t talk yourself out of this one,” she whispered. “You always know how to take the shine off a victory.”

“Doesn’t feel like it,” he admitted, and his gaze went to her shoulder. “You'll probably have a scar after tonight.”

Felicity craned her neck to look, something she seemed able to do without pain, even though the same gesture should have made her wince before. “Oh,” she said. “You know, I always wanted my own scar. Not from getting my wisdom teeth out. So I guess that’s a win for me too.”

Oliver wondered if he was imagining the slight slur in her speech, or if she was just making another attempt at brevity. Smiling, Sara brushed the side of Felicity’s face fondly. “Thank you for saving my life — I wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t taken that bullet for me.”

“No problem,” Felicity said, almost as a sigh. “You guys are always running around saving everybody. I just did my part.”

The slur was most _definitely_ there now. Oliver had just begun to wonder if Felicity was the type of person who talked uncontrollably while on prescription-grade painkillers when Sara snipped the last suture and smoothed a sterile bandage in place over Felicity’s shoulder. “All done,” she declared. “Try not to put any pressure on that arm, okay? That includes driving yourself home.”

Felicity beamed and let the blanket wrapped around her chest drop to her waist, exposing her bra and lack of a shirt with an uncharacteristic absence of shyness. Oliver immediately shot out of his chair — so quickly that it probably looked like he’d been zapped with static — and went looking for the box of butterfly stitches to cover his knee-jerk response.

“You can borrow one of Ollie’s shirts for now,” Sara said, and he turned back — box of stitches in hand — to see Felicity wriggling her arms into a spare work shirt of his, still remarkably careless with hiding her bare skin. “Those aspirins are kicking in, huh?”

“Really?” Felicity blinked up at Sara. “I don’t feel anything.”

Tommy was definitely laughing now, and Oliver shot a glare in the general direction of his best friend’s back.

“Hold still,” he said, and Felicity closed her eyes — stiff as a mannequin — while he swabbed the cut on the side of her face with an alcohol pad and carefully pasted two stitches along the split in the skin.

Just because everyone’s back was turned — even Sara, who’d conveniently gone to dispose of the medical waste — Oliver silently brushed Felicity’s cheek after he was done.

Clearly a bad idea while she was on oxycodone, because she relaxed into his touch with a satisfied huff. “S’nice.”

Oliver managed to smile back, a gesture that was short-lived because she unclenched the hands holding the front of his shirt closed, letting it fall open. He whipped around again, this time on the pretense of looking for something — anything — that didn’t require him to look in the same direction as Felicity half-naked, wearing his clothes.

Despite the obvious therapeutic effect of the painkillers, this was a contradiction of his usual behavior that didn’t escape the patient, and she sat up. “ _Ol-ver_ ,” she said, stumbling over the middle syllable. “Why are you looking the other way? You’ve already seen all my goods.”

It was like everyone’s gaze focused in on the back of Oliver’s head, laser-sharp. “No, I haven’t,” he said hastily.

Tommy snapped his fingers. “What about that time I made you guys change in the mudroom?”

Felicity frowned. “ _Nuh_ , that’s n—”

“That must be it,” Oliver interrupted, silently willing Felicity to take the cue. “But I was looking the other way.”

Luckily for him, Felicity tried to get off the chair while buttoning herself up and slipped, stumbling into the table and giving him a reason to take her firmly by the arm.

“Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you home. I’m heading back here afterwards anyway.”

Tommy wagged his bandaged arm. “I’d offer, but I’m disqualified by default.”

“Don’t forget this,” Diggle said, tossing Oliver his leather jacket, which he draped around Felicity’s shoulders. “It’s cold out there.”

“Snow?” Felicity said, with such hopefulness that it was impossible not to crack a smile.

Unfortunately, Oliver could think of a variety of things that might escape her mouth if they stayed in the Foundry while she was high on pain medication. “Come on,” he repeated, leaving no room for argument. “You need to sleep it off.”

“My _hero_ ,” she mumbled, and he had to dodge — pretending that he’d dropped her car keys — when she tried to kiss his cheek. “Wh—?”

She sounded so hurt that he quickened their pace to get out of the zone of scrutiny. “I’ll make it up to you when we get back, okay?” he whispered.

“You’d _better_ ,” she whispered back, like it was a conspiracy.

* * *

Felicity had never been shot before, but getting driven home in the backseat of her own car by someone else, a blanket tucked securely around her legs and Oliver’s soft leather jacket huddled around her like a warm hug — that part wasn’t so bad.

“Those aspirins,” she said, forgetting whether it was to herself or to a larger point.

Oliver gently slipped his arm underneath her legs, and curled the other around her back. “One, two —” He lifted her off the backseat and nudged the car door shut with his leg.

Felicity wondered if the floaty sensation was because she was being carried, or because they’d walked into a gravitational lapse zone where Newton’s laws were just a little fudgy. She _knew_ those laws — hell, she could recite them backwards and upside down, just for kicks. “Keys,” she said, poking the front of Oliver’s shirt like it was a doorbell.

Oliver had a smile on his face as he fitted the keys into the front door and carried her through to the house, flicking on switches like he already knew where everything was. “Couch or bed?”

For some strange reason, Felicity felt something flutter in her stomach at the second option, like champagne fizz, and pointed at the ceiling. “ _Bed_.”

Again his mouth twitched, but he got her up the steps without comment, without so much as tripping over any lumps in the rug, or getting annoyed by her trying to play the drums on the banisters for no particular reason. She turned over like a burrito when he put her gently on the mattress and immediately started to writhe her way free of her clothes, because pajamas were for beds, and a bullet to the shoulder was no reason to relax that longstanding requirement.

Just like back in the Foundry, Oliver seemed to be avoiding eye contact while she changed, focusing on picking up the clothes she’d dropped to the floor and Felicity — in her underwear now — frowned. Her neck felt weird and floppy, and her attempt at leaning against the headboard to watch him be cute and fastidious ended with her bumping the back of her skull against the wood. Not that she minded — her headboard was intimately acquainted with all kinds of bumping. The inappropriate thought made her laugh, and she put her hands on Oliver’s face, almost instantly getting distracted by the sandpaper feel of it.

“Hi,” she said, rubbing his jaw like it was one of those plush blankets. “ _H-i_.”

Oliver sat on the edge of her bed, still avoiding eye contact with anything below the neck (which, again, didn’t make a whole lot of sense to her). “I’m sorry I took so long to get back to the Foundry,” he said. “I shouldn’t have left you alone.”

Felicity moved her head from side to side. “Arrow stuff, right?” she said. “S’not like you meant to.”

Oliver still looked a little sad, stroking her forearm with his broad, warm palm. “How are you?”

Felicity pondered the question — a serious question — and felt her mouth turn downwards. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

His brow crinkled. “Why?”

The reasons felt like they were long and complex, even if the apology had been instinctive. Felicity rubbed at her eyes and made a small noise of frustration, because it felt like all the good words slid away from her fingertips as soon as she got close to them, which wasn’t what she wanted — not for this. But she couldn’t help it, so she settled for the simplest — truest — version of what she wanted to say. “You had to choose,” she managed to say, finally. “Between me and her. I always end up making you choose. S’not fair.”

“Felicity,” Oliver said, taking her hands in his. “There’s never a choice to make. It’s you, it’s always been you, and it’s… _always_ going to be you. I know I don’t always make that clear, it’s just…all of this is new to me, and I’m trying — I promise, I’m trying.”

He’d said that to her before, though she couldn’t quite remember when and where, only that the warmth in her chest and the smile on her face was something he’d given her then, too. In the absence of coherent words, Felicity leaned forward — tentatively, shyly — and hoped that Oliver would understand her. He did, his serious expression melting away, and their lips touched in a gentle kiss that made her smile all over again.

“You need to put some clothes on,” he said seriously. “You’ll catch a cold.”

Felicity wanted to keep kissing him — the lip parts anyway, maybe elsewhere if she felt adventurous — but he was already putting an oversized T-shirt over her head, so she wriggled obediently through the collar until her head poked out the other side. Then it occurred to her. “I _saved_ someone,” she whispered, not entirely sure if it was a hundred percent real.

“You did,” he confirmed. “You saved hostages at the courthouse too, not just Sara.”

She made a _pfft_ sound under her breath, in the middle of trying to free her arm from one of the sleeves. “That was Tommy and Mc-McK—” (Had McKenna’s name always been that hard to say?) “—lady badass. I just hit someone in the downstairs area.”

Oliver helped her put both arms through the right holes (hah, _dirty_ ) and gathered her face in his hands again for another kiss. Felicity _hmm_ -ed in lazy satisfaction, like a cat getting its ears rubbed, and pulled on the front of his shirt.

“Stay with me?” she said, because she didn’t want him to go.

Oliver nodded immediately, and she scooted further into the bed to let him climb on.

“Does it hurt?” he asked, careful not to let his weight rest on her shoulder.

Felicity shook her head and pulled his arm around her waist. It felt like ages since they’d been like this, and she wanted to talk, to ask questions and hear stories like that night in front of the fire, laugh and kiss and _share_ , but as soon as her head touched the pillow, she felt herself drift off into a dreamless sleep.

* * *

Oliver had seen Felicity tipsy. He’d also seen her actually drunk (two bottles of good wine and an insufficient supply of popcorn). Those situations usually led to laughing, maybe a little bit of dancing if there was music (old songs were her favorite), and her being extremely generous with her kisses. But he’d never actually seen her high enough to try and challenge the gravitational laws she could recite backwards and by heart, or ask him solemn and insightful questions about the power of panda bears and jogging.

The thought made him smile all over again, and he looked down at a sleeping Felicity, his head propped on his hand. She gave a soft, snuffly breath and turned her face into his chest, her arms squeezing gently in an unconscious gesture of reassuring closeness. Her cheeks were already flushed from the heat of having him fully dressed under the covers, but Oliver didn’t want to disturb her by moving. He brushed her hair back from her face, careful not to disturb the butterfly stitches.

They needed to talk — just like he’d promised — but not tonight. Even under the (unknowing) influence of strong painkillers, Felicity’s insecurities were still tenacious in the extreme, to the point where despite being shot in the shoulder, her first instinct was still to apologize for a choice that was never her fault to begin with. As though she still didn’t fully believe that she was worth it to him, that _he_ was the one who couldn’t believe that she’d chosen him.

That in the worst of times, she was the one he looked to as a reminder of what it meant to be strong.

It was in his chest now — that feeling. Warm and bright and beautifully nerve-wracking, and Oliver pressed his lips to her forehead. “I love you,” he said quietly, not caring whether she heard it or not.

He’d make sure she would, sometime, somewhere. Because they had all the time in the world to themselves.

* * *

Felicity pulled her mug of coffee towards her and nursed it with a preoccupied frown, not because Oliver was making breakfast with his back turned to her (in a gray t-shirt no less), or the invitation to Sara’s _Congratulations For Not Being Dead_ party at the Queen mansion that evening (currently lying open on her kitchen island), but because she’d had the _weirdest_ dream.

The many and seemingly unrelated scenarios included one where she’d let the cat out of the bag regarding her and Oliver in a circus-related way that she was still trying to puzzle out, while conscious and in full possession of her wits. _That_ baffling train wreck aside, the dream that kept her distracted was a quieter one, fuzzy around the edges but otherwise incredibly real, where Oliver had brushed the hair back from her face and whispered, _I love you_.

Which was _seriously_ weird.

“Those weren’t really aspirins, were they?” she said.

Oliver slid two perfectly golden-browned pancakes onto her plate and served up a dish of fresh strawberries, visibly fighting a smile. “Not really.”

Felicity popped the top off a bottle of ibuprofen and downed two of the pills with her coffee in a pointed gesture of defiance, wincing as she picked up her cutlery to start eating. The downside of _not_ opting for the controlled-substance drug was the fact that she most definitely felt the gunshot wound, and in case it was in dispute — it was way easier to be happy about having a real scar when she was high as a free-flying psychedelic kite.

Good thing there were pancakes to wash down the shame.

Oliver was always comfortable to eat in silence, so when he set down his fork and knife after a few bites and cleared his throat — a classic _Oliver_ sign that he was about to say or do something awkward — Felicity looked at him expectantly, chewing slowly on her wedge of strawberry.

“I know that yesterday was…”

“ _Crazy_ ,” she volunteered. “Unhinged. High-octane. Stressful. All of the above.”

“Right,” he said, smiling a little like he could tell that she was teasing him. “I also know that having Helena back in the picture, with everything that’s going on between us, it made you feel like we don’t — that we aren’t — a _good_ fit…for each other. Because we’re too different. Did you really mean it?”

Felicity stared at her outstretched fingertips. They were stained red from the juice, and she touched them to her lips, considering Oliver’s question. “Sometimes I do,” she said. “I can’t help it — that’s the way I am. I over-think, I analyze, and most of the time it helps me come up with great ideas, and be really good at my job, but sometimes it makes me doubt whether something as — _good_ as this — whether it can really…last, you know? I mean, sometimes, the words at the back of my head…they don’t even feel like mine.”

Oliver waited, patiently, as though he knew there was more. Felicity hesitated. “I ran into your mom at the courthouse the other day,” she admitted. “I guess seeing her just brought all of it back, and deep down…I guess I know she’s right.”

“But,” she added, and Oliver lifted his head suddenly. “Someone reminded me that the differences don’t matter as much as what we have in common — which is the fact that I really, _really_ like you, Oliver. _Not_ that I’m saying you really, really like yourself too — I’m not calling you a narcissist — though I could see how that might happen, I mean, have you _looked_ at yourself in the mirror? Which is _not_ my point —” Her hands were covering her face now, and she peeked out from behind them, wincing “—can I have a do-over to make it?”

Oliver’s smile was bright enough to give the sunshine a run for its money. “Not a chance,” he said stubbornly, and he was off his chair, putting his arms around her from behind — careful of her bandaged shoulder, always careful. She closed her eyes when he kissed the side of her cheek, huddling into the warmth of his touch. “I wouldn’t change a single thing about what you just said, because —”

“— really? I would,” she muttered mutinously.

“— I’m in love with you.”

She froze, and turned her head to look him in the eye, because _holy frack_ those pills had better not still be wreaking havoc in her system. “You — what?”

“I said I’m in love with you, Felicity,” he said. “I think I have been from the start, and whatever this is — whatever comes next — I’m all in. I just…wanted you to know, that’s all.”

Felicity heard the hesitance, the insecurity mirrored in Oliver too, and it reminded her that they were both getting started with this, whatever it was. Still trying to find their way, whatever ups and downs came next. She reached up to hold his face in her hands, and he closed his eyes just before their lips met. It was the kiss they should have had the night before, but they were more than happy to make up for it now.

“I’m in love with you too, you know,” she whispered.

Oliver smiled against her mouth, and bent in one seamless motion, lifting her into his arms.

* * *

“So is this what normal people do in the afternoon?” Oliver asked, absently twisting a curl of Felicity’s hair around his finger.

The tiny, square TV in the corner of her bedroom was the kind of old that made her eyes hurt if she looked at it for too long, but she was stupidly sentimental about some things (chipped glasses and questionably tasteful sweaters inclusive), and the perpetually dusty TV was one of the first things she’d ever bought with her first paycheck. Ergo, it was there to stay — barring some kind of explosion or child-ghost clawing its way out of the screen (unlikely, which was her point).

Not that Oliver seemed to be complaining about the viewing quality of the _Gilmore Girls_ rerun (if he even knew what it was), and Felicity wasn’t averse to cuddling her extremely undressed boyfriend, cozy under the covers on a cold day.

Stirring from a half-doze at his question, she made a sleepy noise against his bare chest. “You have to be more specific — watching old reruns, or fooling around with boyfriends?” she said, her voice husky from being quiet for too long.

Being cheeky got her a nuzzle at the top of her head from Oliver. “Both,” he answered.

“ _This_ ,” Felicity said, raising herself on one elbow so that she could look at him, “is a hard-working employee taking a well-deserved personal day after escaping a messy hostage situation while on company time. Speaking of — shouldn’t you be at the office? What would Maleficent say if she knew you were with me?”

The Disney reference probably went over his (adorably ruffled) head, but Oliver seemed to take the hint from context. “My assistant can tell her that I’m taking a long lunch, and in a meeting with a corporate partner that ran _very_ late.”

Felicity matched his smile with one of her own, and he tilted his chin up to meet her halfway for a lazy kiss. “You don’t care who knows, do you?” she laughed.

Oliver shook his head slowly, following the curve of her back with his fingertips. “No,” he said, and paused. “Do you?”

Felicity took her time to consider the answer. Keeping things quiet had been her idea to begin with, not because she couldn’t stand the idea of the _I told you so_ s (from Tommy, mostly) and the jokes about babies and them acting like a married couple (Tommy again), but because…it was _them_. They’d made out all frantic and furious in an alley out of some incredibly unresolved feelings, avoided and almost stopped talking to each other altogether after that, and saying _screw it, let’s be together_ felt — at the time — like something long overdue and about-to-be-amazing…but also like they were signing a release form before going skydiving.

Taking a risk. A huge one.

It was easy to pretend that she’d done it for the sneaking around and making out in dark spots, and maybe a part of her really liked that, but the real reason why she’d done it was to give them some space. For a _something_ that was just starting out, being under a microscope and inside a circle as tightly-knit as Team Arrow was...just too much pressure.

The key qualifier being _past tense_.

Because Felicity didn’t feel that way, not anymore. Not after what she’d said to Oliver, and what he’d said to her.

“No,” she said, stroking the corner of his jaw. “I don’t.”

Oliver’s eyes always crinkled before the smile could reach his mouth, but Felicity — in some weird, inexplicable impulse — decided to beat it to the punch by pressing her lips to his, and the silliness of the moment made them laugh into the kiss. “ _Shh_ ,” she whispered, and pulled him towards her.

Despite the not-at-all-subtle cues for Oliver regarding the fooling-around agenda, he held back, and Felicity looked up at him with raised eyebrows. _Eh?_

“Does it hurt?” he asked, so earnestly that Felicity entertained the brief notion that he — _Oliver Queen_ , of the notorious romantic history — had forgotten how making out generally worked.

Then she noticed that his eyes were on her shoulder, and she tried (but failed) to suppress her amusement at that one.

“What?” Oliver blinked, nonplussed in the extreme. “What did I say?”

Still laughing, Felicity shook her head and reached up, drawing his face down for another kiss. “Shouldn’t you have asked me that _before_ we went to bed?” she answered.

Oliver’s worried expression turned sheepish. “Sorry,” he said. “Did it hurt?”

She shook her head again. “A little bit,” she whispered. “And not enough to stop.”

* * *

Later, _much_ later, Felicity woke from a genuine nap to the sound of rustling. The first thing she noticed was the sun slanting across her bedroom floor, and the second was Oliver sitting on the edge of her bed. He was fully dressed — disappointingly — with his back to her, and she guessed from the springs creaking that he was attempting to fish one of his shoes out from underneath the bed. A completely common occurrence after spending the night.

And most of the afternoon ( _oops_ ).

He finally sat up with his other boot and started on the laces, at which point Felicity decided to stop pretending she was asleep.

“Are you running out on me?” she croaked, her bare arms curving across the patterned sheets as she stretched, like a sun-soaked cat, the back of her hand resting on her forehead while she blinked lazily at him.

Oliver shushed her gently. “I need to change before Sara’s party,” he said. “Can’t show up in last night’s clothes.”

“I thought you didn’t care if anyone knew,” she pointed out.

“It’s not that,” he said, and bent over the sheets to kiss her. “My sister put a dress code on the invitation.”

Felicity chuckled at that and reached for her robe, pulling the folds closed around her before she scooted towards the edge to sit by him. “ _Or,_ ” she said, looking at the bottom drawer of her dresser and running through the mental catalogue of all the sweaters she could move to her closet, leaving an empty drawer.

Oliver tilted his head in curiosity. “Or?”

“Or…you could leave some of your stuff here,” she suggested. “Then you wouldn’t have to keep running back and forth.”

Oliver had gone incredibly still, and Felicity didn’t release the breath she was holding until she saw the corners of his eyes crinkle with an impending smile. “I’d like that,” he said.

* * *

The sun was starting to set when Felicity held up a pair of chinos, an expression of mock-horror on her face. “When did you wear _these_?” she said.

“Those go back in the drawer,” Oliver said, refolding a sweater she’d tossed into the cardboard box at the foot of the bed.

Felicity was kneeling in front of the dresser — under the pretense of helping him pack some essentials for her house — but she seemed to be more intrigued with the exercise of rooting around in the masses of evidence from his old life. “You really went all out with the _Frat boy_ aesthetic, didn’t you?” she said, still digging. “I feel like I shouldn’t be going through all this stuff without HAZMAT gear.”

“Funny,” he said shortly, adding a shirt to the small pile he was taking with him. “Do you want the sweatshirt or not?”

That got her attention, and she grabbed protectively for the gray zip-up hoodie she was so fond of stealing. “How’d it end up back here?” she asked, draping it around her like a blanket.

“Must have gotten mixed in with the laundry.” He pulled one of the boxes closer to the door. “I’ll take this one down to the car.”

“Are you sure it’s okay for us to be up here?” she asked, glancing at the bedroom door with a tinge of nerves. “I mean, the party doesn’t start for a couple of hours, and your mom —”

“— knows how I feel about you,” he finished. “She’ll just have to make her peace with that.”

Felicity sat on his duvet, smoothing her hand against the blue stripes. The bed was a heavy wooden frame from generations before, surrounded by sculpted molding and wall fixtures that were older than all of them combined. “Are you sure? Walking out on all of this?” she asked, and he knew that she was taking in his house — his _life_. “It’s…you.”

In response to the question, Oliver walked over to her and knelt, so that he was looking up into her face. “This is me now,” he said. “And I’m happy to be.”

She smiled, and leaned forward to kiss him. “You know what would make me _just_ as happy?” she asked.

“What’s that?”

“If you got me something to eat,” she said, crinkling her nose. “I never finished those pancakes you made me.”

“Whose fault was that?” he murmured, and she laughed, showing every sign of wanting to pick up where they’d left off, but he got back to his feet. “I’ll be right back.”

The house was quiet when he left his room, closing the door behind him. But as he made his way down the stairs, he heard voices — male and female. “Thea?” he called. “Did you bring Roy? Thea?”

“Oliver?” His mother emerged from the drawing room, a binder in hand. “What’s the matter?”

He stayed where he was, at the foot of the steps. “I didn’t know you were home.”

Moira’s face instantaneously lost its worried expression, retreating into something cooler, icy, as though he’d reminded her of where things stood. “As I said, Oliver, this is my house. If you’d rather not see me, then the simple solution to that would be to stay away. But if your intention in coming here is to start another quarrel, I’m afraid it'll have to wait until after my meeting.”

“Mrs Queen?” said a voice, and Oliver barely noticed it over the overarching tension between mother and son, a fierce clash of wills that showed no sign of resolution, not even close. “Is everything all right?”

Moira was the first to break away, and gave him a look as she turned on her heel. Oliver silently shook his head at the ceiling, because he knew without having to be told that he’d gotten himself in a position for a mandatory introduction, to whomever she was meeting with.

“Yes, thank you for asking,” Moira answered, as Oliver followed her into the drawing room, schooling his features into something resembling civility. “My son just stopped by. Oliver, I’d like you to meet one of the very generous donors to my mayoral campaign.”

 _Money._ As if he should have expected anything else. Oliver braced himself for the obligatory smile and polite chat, until he heard something he never thought he’d ever have to hear again, not in his lifetime.

“Sweetheart, this is Slade Wilson,” Moira continued, words that made him stop dead in his tracks. “Mr Wilson — my son, Oliver.”

Moira’s guest was sitting with his back turned to them, in front of a coffee table spread with papers and a silver tray of tea. For a brief, excruciatingly drawn-out second, Oliver took in the broad shoulders beneath the crisp suit, the tanned skin above the collar, dark hair turning silver at the temples, and willed it not to be true.

Slade Wilson was dead. He had to be. Oliver had put an arrow through his eye himself, and nothing — nothing in the world — could justify why a ghost could be sitting in front of him right now.

But then the man turned, and it was Slade’s familiar face that met Oliver’s disbelieving scrutiny, deceptively poised and courteous as he rose to meet his hostess’s son. If Oliver had any doubts as to whether Slade had changed — that he wasn’t the man, the _monster_ he remembered from their last days on the island — it evaporated as soon as he saw the slow, mocking smile gleaming at him through the mask. The mask Slade had adopted to get himself into the mansion, always the trained spy, with the lethal skills of an assassin.

Nothing had changed.

Oliver’s hand was already outstretched, and Slade snatched it in a crushingly tight approximation of a handshake, but he refused to flinch.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Slade said, and there was no doubt in Oliver’s mind that he’d come to Starling for a reason. “ _Mr Queen_.”

It was a message, menacing and deliberate, conveyed through nothing more than a razor-edged smile.

 _Time to settle an old score, my friend_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PHEW. So that's 2x14 and 2x17 out of the way, and now Slade's back in the picture (whoop). I know I changed a lot of things, but hey, it's a rewrite :)  
> Unfortunately, I might need to take a break until mid-December because of exams, so I really won't be able to promise any updates until after that. That being said, I don't think I ended it at a TERRIBLE place, I mean we all know what happens at the mansion once Slade shows up, don't we? :D  
> I'll admit I'm not entirely sure what episodes I want to do next, because my plan really only went as far as the Huntress episode, so I'll have to rethink some things during my little break (oops).  
> Suggestions and feedback, as always, are incredibly appreciated. Thanks for sticking with the story so far!


	27. Choices (The Promise)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Helloooo. I know I said I wouldn't be updating until mid-December, but it turns out I managed to write fast enough to have this ready. Either I'm seriously under-prepared for some finals or my brain's being nice and cooperating with me ;)  
> Edit as of Arrow 5x09: WHAT WAS THAT MID-SEASON FINALE. WHAT WAS THAT. MY EMOTIONS. BEING ATTACKED. ARROW WRITERS.

Three seconds.

Three seconds was all it took for Oliver’s mind to race through the list, though to him it felt like centuries. All the people in his life who had no clue — not the faintest _idea_ — how much danger he’d put them in. His mother, standing in the room next to a man who could snap her neck with a single hand. Thea, at the club and expected home at any minute for a party she’d planned for family. Tommy, Sara, Diggle…

 _Felicity_ , waiting for him upstairs.

He should never have brought her to the mansion, but it was too late now.

“What are you doing here?” Oliver asked, so brusquely that Moira instantly frowned, and hastened to remedy what she saw as a complete lapse in manners.

“I’m sorry, Mr Wilson, my son can be terribly blunt when he speaks,” she said, touching his arm. “Oliver, like I explained before, Mr Wilson has made generous contributions to my campaign, and I invited him here to explain some of my policy proposals in person.”

“Any reason to meet the candidate this city deserves,” Slade answered, with a laugh that made Oliver’s skin crawl. “I very much enjoyed the tour of your family’s lovely home. There was a painting you pointed out to me — your late husband’s favorite — was it not?”

He paused, as though trying to recall the name, but Oliver knew better. There were many things he distrusted about Slade, and his memory wasn’t one of them.

“Ah,” he said, finally. “ _The Promise_.”

Moira beamed. “Robert did love that painting. We’ve received many offers from private collectors, but I’m afraid I’m rather the sentimental type — I could never be persuaded to part with it.”

“Of course,” Slade agreed. “Something that important needs to be cherished and protected, never lost.”

“That’s a lovely way to put it, Mr Wilson,” Moira said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Oliver?”

He knew it was her implicit warning for him to mind his manners. “Very much,” he said, after a beat, and saw her shoulders loosen slightly. “Dad loved that one.”

“Then it must stay in this house forever,” Slade said. “I believe that losing a loved one means that we who are left behind have the _obligation_ to honor their memory.”

Oliver’s gaze locked with Slade’s at that, in response to the underlying warning. Their shared memory of the girl with the warm smile and kind eyes — now a ghost that haunted them all. “As long as we remember what they were in life,” he said, very quietly.

Slade’s eye narrowed slightly, but he didn’t comment. “I believe you have company, Mrs Queen,” he said. “I heard voices from the kitchen.”

“Oh?” Moira glanced at the ornate clock on the marble mantlepiece. “This evening’s soiree isn’t meant to start for a few hours, at least. I thought this family had a habit of lateness — not excessive punctuality.”

Oliver had a feeling he knew who it was, which gave him every incentive to make sure they all stayed exactly as they were. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said, lightly, because the safety of someone he couldn’t bear losing depended on it.

* * *

Felicity had gotten lost. Not in the fairytale _lost-in-the-magic-castle_ way, but the _crap-this-house-really-needs-to-have-visitor-friendly-wall-maps_ -type lost. And holy frack, was the mansion big. Oliver’s room seemed to be located smack in the middle of identical hallways lined with the same porcelain vases and weather-inappropriate greenhouse flowers, with the same sepia-toned oil landscapes in the same ornate _older-than-you_ frames. And as though wandering the miniature castle wasn’t disorienting enough, the carpeting beneath her heels muffled everything, including the sound of helpful Good Samaritan footsteps.

Kitchen. She just needed to find the kitchen — and _not_ because her stomach was aching for food and being kind of a whiner about it, but because it had only belatedly occurred to her that it was a missed opportunity to watch Oliver cook.

Which was a whole different kind of sexy.

“Okay,” Felicity said, facing a stained glass window and a polished suit of armor ( _really?_ ) “This house may be a rich-person maze, but kitchens are _still_ on the ground floor, right?”

Unless it was the _Downton Abbey_ house, in which case — frack again.

Given the black tie specification for Sara’s homecoming party, not to mention the still-healing bullet wound in her shoulder, Felicity was in one of the few dresses she owned that actually _came_ with sleeves, a cocktail option that had black lace down to the elbow. That being said, the bandage was starting to chafe at her skin in a distinctly twinge-y way, and Felicity strongly considered the possibility of calling Tommy and asking for directions — i.e. _how to get to the kitchen without running into anyone._ Except that would entail explaining over the phone why she was at Oliver’s house, not couch-potato-ing with a bottle of ibuprofen and a bullet wound in her shoulder.

“Hello?” said a voice, and she jumped.

“Oh,” she said. “ _Hi_.”

The person who’d spoken was a tiny, brown-haired woman in a uniform (again, _really?_ ), neat and pressed and undoubtedly a member of Moira Queen’s household staff, which should have made her a special breed of scary, but her eyes crinkled around the corners in a way that suggested she might be kind.

“You are Mr Oliver’s friend?” she asked, undaunted by the awkward pause.

There was something pleasant and warm about the way she spoke (accent and all), and Felicity’s nerves quieted — if only just a little. “Um…more like girlfriend,” she said, hesitating on the keyword out of some conditioned response to _Deny Everything_ when it came to her and Oliver.

Then again, calling herself his girlfriend would probably avert panic buttons getting pressed and awkward situations caused by security having to escort her off the premises. “Sorry, Oliver told me he was going to the kitchen and he hasn’t been back for a while, so either he’s facedown in some jalapeños — joke, no idea why I said that — or he’s lost too. Which is also…very unlikely. I’m Felicity, by the way. Ignore everything else I just said and pretend I started with that.” She stuck out her hand. “And you are?”

The woman looked surprised, but she shook Felicity’s hand (more like took her fingers and moved them up and down a few times). “I am Raisa. The Queen family’s housekeeper.”

“Oh,” Felicity said, processing the word _housekeeper_. “ _Oh_.”

“Oliver is with his mother in the drawing room,” Raisa said, pointing in a direction that might have been the way to the staircase. “They have guest today.”

“Oh.” That explained it. “I guess I’ll go b—”

“I am a good cook,” Raisa said, with a smile. “I make you something? I know many stories that Oliver’s girlfriend must hear.”

Felicity laughed, and she meant it. “ _Tell me more_.”

Besides, it wasn’t as if Oliver would mind.

* * *

“French onion is Mr Oliver’s favorite,” Raisa said, scattering a handful of bay leaves into the steaming ginormous copper soup pot that looked like it belonged in a Middle Earth kitchen. “The key thing to do is use butter, and the right kind of white wine. Nobody makes it like I do. You cook?”

Felicity almost inhaled her spoonful of soup, not that it would have made much of a difference, given the fact that her lap was Crumb City from the insanely crispy piece of bread Raisa had served up with the French onion. Nice party dress notwithstanding, food was _food_.

“I try,” she answered. “But I think it’s the universe’s way of telling me to stick to takeout.”

“Or marry man who knows kitchen,” Raisa said matter-of-factly, still stirring in a businesslike way. “I have been with Queen family since Oliver was in diapers, so I know him like one of my sons. Forgive me for saying so, but you are not like the girls he used to bring home. They never talk much. Then again, they always have to sneak through the back window, so his mother and father would not notice. Soil on cushions and leaves on floor, _very_ troublesome to clean.”

Weirdly enough, Felicity didn’t find that hard to believe — the part about being _not_ Oliver’s usual type. A) the model girlfriends probably wouldn’t have gone anywhere near a functioning kitchen and the promise of carbs, and B) they wouldn’t have hopped up onto the counter to sit despite the abundance of available chair options. But Raisa didn’t seem to mind the informality, and being informal was one of the tried-and-tested ways that Felicity could deal with uncomfortable settings — otherwise known as the mansion.

“You’ve known him forever,” she commented.

Raisa chuckled. “He was always a good boy. I hope he will be very, very happy one day.”

“Me too,” Felicity said, looking straight ahead with a smile.

Wait, _focus_. Warmth and fuzziness and free (gourmet-quality) soup aside, she’d come here for reconnaissance purposes (well, technically to help her boyfriend move house, but that was on hold). She pulled the spoon out of her mouth and edged towards the headlining topic of conversation. “So about those embarrassing stories…” she said carefully. “Would they happen to come with old polaroids t—”

True to classic _Felicity_ timing, the mahogany swinging doors at the other end of the kitchen opened before she could finish her tactful request for blackmail information.

“Oliver,” said Raisa, setting down the ladle and drying her hands on her crisp white apron. “You brought your girlfriend to stay but never introduced me?”

It was like he didn’t even notice the question.

“Hey,” Felicity said, holding up her spoon in Oliver’s direction like it was substitute for a wave. “I know I was supposed to wait upstairs, but —”

Oliver shook his head and cut her off mid-sentence. “You can’t be here,” he said, brusque to the point of confusion (for her). “I’ll explain later, but you need to go, _now_.”

Felicity slid down from the counter, wincing slightly when the landing jarred her injured shoulder. But she barely gave that a second thought. All jokes were out the window now, and the prospect of teasing Oliver about his childhood flubs had evaporated at the sight of his face — tense, practically _ashen_.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, her hand going instinctively to his. “You look like you’ve seen a gh—”

The kitchen doors flew open again, startling them both — Oliver especially, who snatched his hand away and set it on the counter instead, leaning slightly on the kitchen counter as though it was a casual chat.

 _Okay, ouch_.

The abruptness of the movement stung, but Felicity didn’t say anything, because of an inexplicable instinct that there was more to the picture that she wasn’t seeing, not yet. Said instinct became a full-blown suspicion when Oliver’s main response was an offhand glance over his shoulder at the new arrivals, which included Moira, Thea, and a man Felicity didn’t know — probably the guest Raisa told her about.

Maybe said (ruggedly good-looking) guest wasn’t supposed to meet the hostess’s son’s new girlfriend. Maybe he was a reporter. Either way, it felt like she’d just stepped onto a theater stage right smack in the middle of an ongoing play, _sans_ script or rehearsal, and was expected to know her lines.

_Um._

“Oliver,” said Moira, her tone chiding. “You just walked off and left us. What on earth are you —”

“— I’m sorry,” Oliver answered, again in the same light voice. “Work emergency. Was there something at the office?”

That last part was directed at Felicity, and Moira’s gaze shifted to her like she’d slipped completely undetected by the Dearden-Queen radar of _Significant People_ (maybe just _People_ , period). “Felicity,” she said in surprise. “I — I wasn’t aware that you’d be stopping by as well.”

Oliver’s eyes widened slightly, and Felicity did some very quick thinking. Namely a switch from _girlfriend_ to _colleague_. “That’s not a problem, Mrs Queen,” she said, sidestepping so that she was closer to the counter than Oliver. “I just came by to drop off some documents from the office. Workplace…you know. _Tell-you-and-I’ll-have-to-kill-you_ …stuff. I’ll — um — see you on Monday, Oliver.”

Something in Oliver’s shoulders seemed to loosen. “Right,” he said, with tangible relief, and started to reach for the door.

But before she could make the discreet (and highly confused) exit, his sister planted herself firmly between the handle and her brother. “Nice try, Ollie,” she said. “You’ve not getting out of this so easily.”

Them, loop, thrown for. _What?_

Felicity exchanged glances with Oliver, himself visibly trying to come up with ways to maneuver the situation.

Not that she didn’t love him, but improvization in the way of creative storytelling was _not_ one of his strong suits.

“I’m afraid I’ve intruded into a family matter,” said Moira’s guest, who A) had a not-unattractive accent to match his looks (very _salt and pepper_ ), and B) a voice that was the nice kind of husky. “Are you a colleague of Mr Queen’s?”

Said guest had also taken a step towards Felicity while he spoke, an action that seemed perfectly normal to her in the way of joining a conversation, but Oliver instantly stepped forward as well, ever so slightly putting himself in front of Felicity.

 _That_ changed things.

Oliver never did anything without a purpose, and he was never careless with physical gestures in front of strangers. The fact that he’d let himself make an instinctive move — a _telling_ move — to get between herself and a man she’d never seen before in her life, it made her alert levels rise from _confused_ to straight-up _apprehensive_.

Something wasn’t right.

* * *

Oliver had made a careless move, and Slade knew it. By putting himself between Felicity and the man he knew as a merciless killer, he’d given something away. Slade’s mouth twitched ever so slightly at the corners, a hint of a smirk gone as soon as it came.

“I’m sorry, Mr Wilson, I should have introduced you at once. Felicity, this is Mr Slade Wilson, an extremely generous donor to my campaign. Mr Wilson, this is my son’s…” Moira hesitated before using the word. “Ah, I’m afraid I’ve spoken a little too quickly.”

A flash of understanding had gone off behind Felicity’s eyes at his inexplicable protectiveness, and Oliver nodded imperceptibly at her wordless question.

“Mom, you can say _girlfriend_ ,” Thea said, batting Oliver affectionately on the arm. “I’m guessing you forgot to invite her for dinner, too.”

“You must join us for dinner, Felicity. _And_ Mr Wilson. Raisa —” Moira motioned to their housekeeper, “—tell the staff to lay two more places for dinner.”

“Yes, Mrs Queen.”

“Mom, I think Mr Wilson has plans,” Oliver interrupted.

Moira flashed him a brief look of warning. “Nonsense,” she declared, in a tone that left little room for argument. “It’s tradition — all guests must be served dinner after they’ve had the tour, and I’m afraid I do insist, Mr Wilson.”

“I suppose I will, Mrs Queen,” Slade said. “Thank you for the kind invitation.”

“Call me Moira, please. Would you like to help me choose the wine?”

Oliver stiffened. “I don’t think —”

“Actually, Moira, I took the liberty of bringing a gift with me when I arrived,” Slade answered. “Does your family like rum? I’ve brought my finest bottle.”

“Mom’s favorite drink,” Thea said. “We’ll get it for you — did you leave it out in the foyer?”

“Indeed I did.” Slade smiled at Thea, but the warmth never reached his eyes. “Thank you, my dear.”

Moira excused herself and left the room with her daughter. Raisa had already gone to the dining room to set up, which left Oliver and Felicity alone with Slade. “Excuse me,” she said, in what would have been a normal tone of voice to anyone who didn’t know her like Oliver did. “I have to take a call.”

“What a shame,” Slade said, but he made no move from where he stood. “I thought we might have a little time to talk.”

Felicity smiled stiffly. “There’s always dinner.”

“I suppose.” Slade’s gaze followed Felicity as she moved to leave the room, in the lazy, deliberate way a predator watched potential prey, and Oliver didn’t like it at all. But he’d also swept the room as soon as he’d entered, and amongst the controlled chaos of the kitchen counter — chopping boards piled high with fresh vegetables and fruit — was a knife.

While Slade was focused on Felicity, Oliver silently slipped a kitchen knife from one of the boards and held it by his side, keeping himself very still until the door clicked shut. While his pulse raced in response to the dangerous situation, Oliver knew two things for sure — that Felicity was going to alert the team, and that he had precious seconds to act.

The silence seemed to crest high above their heads like a wave threatening to break, and Oliver’s heart was beating faster than he thought possible, his attention both dangerously diffused yet laser-focused at the same time, a mass of contradictions Slade seemed to always bring out in him.

Still, neither of them moved from their respective positions. Oliver stood by the counter, his hand resting lightly on the marble surface, hiding the knife in the other. Slade — his hands in his pockets — strode towards the doorway Felicity had gone through, his palm on the brass handle to still it.

“She’s lovely,” Slade said, in a voice as devoid of truth as the sentiment. “I seem to recall you had an affinity for blondes. Laurel, her sister Sara, now — _Felicity_.”

He rolled the four syllables around on his tongue, like he was tasting the sound in the air, and Oliver turned soundlessly with the blade in his hand. The steel flashed like a spark as he drove it down — down towards Slade’s skull —

The tip hovered inches from Slade’s tanned cheek, not because Oliver had hesitated, but because his old friend’s impossible reflexes meant he’d managed to catch Oliver by the wrist before the knife could find its mark.

The two men stared each other down over the edge of a knife blade, and Oliver only saw a gleam of triumph in Slade’s eye. Then he began to tighten his grip, squeezing so hard that Oliver was forced to drop the knife with a hiss of pain.

It clanged off the tiles and spun noisily in a gleaming circle on the floor. Oliver didn’t realize Slade had released him until he stumbled clumsily into the counter, his wrist throbbing like it had been crushed in solid concrete.

_Footsteps._

More from instincts than anything else, he stepped on the still-spinning blade and schooled his expression back into neutral territory, facing his mother and sister — who’d just returned with their drinks.

“Thirsty, Mr Wilson?” Moira said, displaying the red-brown contents of the bottle he’d brought.

Slade laughed again, and Oliver’s wrist gave a particularly painful throb. “Like I’ve been on a desert island,” he answered.

* * *

“So is this a competition to decide who sucks worse?” Roy asked, squinting one eye as he took aim at the archery target at the far end of the Foundry. “I’m always used to Oliver pulling a mind-trick out of his hood at the last minute.”

An arrow struck the target — slightly off-center, but a twelve out of twenty on the shooting scale, guaranteed. Roy spun around to glare. “Speak for yourself,” Tommy said, nocking another arrow. “Way ahead of you, Harper.”

Sara tapped the underside of his bow-toting elbow. “You’re still letting the recoil twist your aim. The Mongolian draw works better with lighter bows, but the downside to that is you needing to watch your arm.”

“ _Mongolian draw_ ,” Roy muttered, resuming his aiming stance. “Can’t believe you’re getting trained by an actual assassin.”

“Yeah, but you get more time with Ollie,” Tommy said. “How’s the water-slapping coming along?”

Roy’s shot pinged off the fusebox and punctured a tire somewhere near Oliver’s bike area. “Hear that?” he said, pointing in the direction of the deflating _hiss_. “My training progress in a nutshell.”

“It takes time,” Sara said, patting him on the back. “Ollie just makes it look easy, and Tommy practices when he thinks nobody’s looking.”

“Only because Oliver’s barely around these days,” Tommy said, nocking another arrow. “Where _is_ he, anyway? Still chasing down Skull Mask? I thought we chalked that one up as a _Slow Burn_.”

Sara and Diggle exchanged looks. “Sure,” Diggle said, sounding deeply unconvincing. “Skull Mask.”

“What?” Tommy spun around, while Roy continued to shoot at anything that _wasn’t_ the designated archery target. “Why the —”

The computer terminal started beeping, and everyone swiveled to see Felicity’s contact information on the screen.

“We can call the computer?” Roy sounded thunderstruck.

“More importantly, how do we answer?” Diggle asked, peering at the keyboard. “Sometimes I think we really need to do a serious knowledge transfer around here.”

Sara slid into Felicity’s chair. “I got it,” she said, and tapped a key that connected the call. “Felicity, everything okay?”

“Uh, not really,” Felicity answered, sounding more flat-out unnerved than Tommy had heard in a good, long while, and she’d just been through a hostage situation with one of Oliver’s psychopathic ex-girlfriends. “It’s a long story, but I think we need help. ASAP.”

“Who’s _we_?” Tommy asked. “What happened?”

“Slade Wilson,” she said, and Sara went rigid. “I don’t know how, but he’s here at the mansion. And I think he’s going to hurt Oliver and his family.”

* * *

Oliver’s wrist throbbed as he reached with his other hand for the water. He was barely following the thread of conversation as it was, so focused on the various moving pieces of a disaster waiting to happen.

Moira at the head of the dining table, Slade on her right, Oliver on her left. Felicity by his side, and Thea beside Slade. Three targets in one room, and no indication as to which Slade might decide to hurt first. Any minute now, he could take his knife — part of the silverware set his parents had chosen for their twentieth wedding anniversary — and kill the first out of the three people Oliver couldn’t stand to lose.

What was Slade’s plan?

What did he _want_?

More importantly — how could Oliver stop him?

“So, Felicity,” Thea said, looking at her from across the table. “What’s Ollie’s deep, dark secret?”

Felicity and Oliver both went still, and neither of them moved from their respective poses until Thea’s serious expression morphed into a mischievous smile. “I only ask because I’m assuming that’s why my brother’s been hiding you from his whole family.”

Oliver managed a smile in response to his sister’s teasing, and Felicity’s laugh was — again — reasonably natural to anyone who wasn’t him. “Oh, there’s no secret,” she said, and he felt her leg twitch nervously beneath the tablecloth. “Just schedules, you know. Everyone’s busy. Plus there’s that whole company policy thing to navigate — which I shouldn’t even be talking about at dinner — this is really, _really_ good wine, by the w—”

Right on cue, her knuckles bumped against the side of her wineglass and it careened towards the spotless white tablecloth, or would have — if Oliver hadn’t reached out and steadied it by the delicate stem.

An inadvertent display of reflexes that his mother and sister didn’t fail to notice.

Slade cocked his head. “Quite the reflexes you have there, son,” he said, and Oliver’s eyes flicked towards his face, sharp enough to cut. “Fast as an arrow.”

Again, Oliver tensed, but the subtext seemed to fly over everyone else’s heads.

“I’ll say. This is the same big brother who used to miss eighteen out of twenty tennis balls during lessons,” Thea laughed, eyeing him like he’d just revealed some hidden talent. “I’m starting to think there _is_ a deep, dark secret.”

“Lucky catch,” Oliver said lightly, already bracing for Thea’s inevitable followup.

Except it was Moira who intervened to change the subject. “I hope the work emergency was smoothed over,” she said. “I know how important the both of you are to Queen Consolidated — I just hope I haven’t caused some kind of company crisis by keeping the two of you at dinner.”

“Now, _that_ is a story that intrigues me,” Slade said, leaning forward with interest. “I’d like to hear for myself how Miss Smoak became the rising star of the family company. Forgive me if I come off as intrusive — I’m afraid you’re quite the fascinating study.”

The deliberate interest Slade was taking in Felicity — despite having nearly been stabbed in the face for using her name in front of Oliver — was almost taunting now, even though his manner never wavered from being the perfectly courteous guest.

“It’s not that interesting,” she said, smiling a little. “I’m nothing special, I promise.”

“Felicity is just being modest,” Moira said, continuing with the inexplicable and completely ill-timed streak of warmth towards her, despite Oliver’s stone-faced response. “She runs Queen Consolidated’s science division all by herself. An extremely bright young woman, as Walter Steele is so fond of saying, and he doesn’t give praise lightly.”

Under a completely different set of circumstances, Oliver would have appreciated the effort, but now it was only making things worse. Felicity bought herself a few seconds by sipping her wine, and set the glass back down again under Slade’s watchful eye. “I’m good with computers,” she said. “It was either working at the Apple Store or actually getting a job where I could do something interesting.”

Everyone chuckled at that except Oliver, still monitoring the situation on a knife’s edge.

“I interned at QC for one summer,” Thea interjected, with an exaggerated shudder. “ _Interesting_ is _not_ the word I’d use for the way dad ran things.”

“Oh?” Moira teased. “Am I to take it as a compliment — that you never complained while the company was under my tenure?”

“Not to your face,” Thea answered, in a sing-song voice. “Anyway, since we’re on the subject — Ollie, how did you meet Felicity?”

“At the office,” Oliver said, which was as detailed as he intended to be about how he’d seen Felicity for the first time — a year ago in her cubicle with a broken laptop in his hand, or even further back, in a deserted Queen Consolidated building while he was supposed to have been dead.

There was a pause, as though they were waiting for him to say more. “Romantic,” Thea muttered. “Gotta say, Ollie, you sound like a real charmer. _At the office_.”

She sounded so cheated by his closed-mouthedness, and in any other situation, Oliver would have laughed at it as perfectly endearing, but not now.

“Oh, I’m sure the real story is something your brother wants to keep to himself,” Slade remarked. “Any man who’s found himself a rare treasure would do the same. That special someone who means the world to you. How very fortunate you are, Mr Queen.”

Oblivious to the silent glare Oliver threw in Slade Wilson’s face, Thea pretended to swoon. “Mr Wilson should write your campaign speeches, mom. You’d beat Sebastian Blood, no contest.”

Moira laughed softly. “There’s no one special in your life, Mr Wilson?” she inquired. “I find that incredibly hard to believe.”

Oliver knew what the answer was going to be, even before Slade said it. “There was,” he said, in a different voice, perfectly calibrated to the balance between raw and subdued. “She passed away — a few years ago. But she was…lovely.”

He was looking at Felicity, and Oliver tensed, feeling for her hand beneath the table, but whether it was for his reassurance or hers, he didn’t know. Felicity squeezed his fingers in answer, the pulse in her wrist hammering against his skin.

“I’m so sorry,” Moira said, a hand to her heart. “I had no idea.”

“We know what it feels like to lose someone,” Oliver said, quietly. “And what it’s like to move on from that loss. It’s not easy, but we can’t keep looking back.”

The subtext was meant to be unmistakably clear to Slade. _Don’t do this. Shado’s dead — and there’s nothing I can do to change that._

The tension grew sharp again, unnoticed by anyone except them, and Slade — very slowly — shook his head, once. “Sometimes I forget — your whole family has known great loss. I’m very sorry for it.”

Moira inclined her head. “As my son puts it, we can’t keep looking back,” she said. “Now, Mr Wilson, you’ve barely touched your food.”

Slade sat back with a small laugh. “I was enjoying the company too much — I forgot myself,” he answered. “It’s a little early in the evening, but might I suggest a toast, Moira?”

“Of course,” she answered, picking up her tumbler of rum.

Everyone else moved to do the same, even Felicity, though she did it reluctantly, as though the glass contained snake venom. Oliver was the last to raise his glass, and he met Slade’s unflinching gaze head on.

“To remembrance,” Slade said, and they all drank.

* * *

“That was a truly exquisite meal, Moira,” Slade said, while the staff moved to clear everyone’s plates. “Thank you for inviting me to join your lovely family.”

“Not at all, Mr Wilson,” she said. “Shall we continue this in the drawing room? Our guests ought to be arriving any minute now.”

“A party?” Slade looked interested. “What for?”

“Homecoming,” Thea explained. “For someone who’s practically part of the family.”

“Sara Lance,” Oliver said, and watched Slade’s face change at the name — a small stab of triumph he relished after an evening of feeling like he was at a disadvantage. “She’ll be here any minute. I’m sure you’ll want to say hello.”

“Yes, you must,” Moira said, rising from her chair. “Why don’t I —”

“Mom, shouldn’t you and Thea go check on the caterers? Tommy mentioned something about the company being a little unreliable on short notice,” Oliver suggested. “I’ll make sure Mr Wilson finds the drawing room.”

Moira’s gaze sharpened slightly as though she was trying to detect sarcasm, but the prospect of a party not going completely smoothly — and maybe Felicity’s presence — seemed to outweigh her concerns as to whether Oliver would mind his manners in front of their guest.

“Well, if you’ll excuse us, Mr Wilson,” she said, and left the room with his sister.

A small smile was playing around Slade’s mouth as the dining room doors clicked shut, leaving the three of them alone again, but his gaze moved slowly around the room, from the tablecloth to the burning wax candles in the middle of the table, to the fresh flowers in the crystal vases, to seemingly anywhere except Oliver.

“Sara Lance,” he said, with a small, humorless laugh. “And here I thought the only old friend I’d be seeing again was Oliver.”

Felicity glanced at Oliver, who’d sensed it too — the switch to his first name that marked a subtle but unmistakable transition to a different level of clarity.

Like they were finally face to face.

“You barely touched your food,” Slade continued, gesturing at the table. “I thought all this luxury would appeal to you — after all those years on the island. Unless…something was eating away at poor Oliver Queen. A guilty conscience, perhaps?”

He lifted his eyes to smile at Felicity then, just as the staff entered through the side doors to clear the remaining plates and cutlery. It might have been Oliver’s imagination, but he thought he saw her slide something from the table and hide it in her napkin — something that gleamed.

The staff withdrew, and the dining room was a closed space again. Felicity reached for her wineglass again, this time with a smile to match his. “I think Oliver lost his appetite trying to catch all that subtext,” she said, sweetly. “Dinner’s always so much nicer when everyone says what they actually mean — whether it’s fancy food or Chinese takeout.”

In spite of the circumstances, Oliver had to fight to suppress the brief surge of amusement — and relief — because Felicity wasn’t afraid.

Even though she should have been.

Slade turned his attention to Felicity now, almost appreciatively. “You know, what I said at dinner was far from untruthful, Miss Smoak. I can see that you are _quite_ the rare woman,” he observed, tapping one forefinger slowly against the tablecloth. “Do you mind if I call you Felicity?”

Oliver felt a brief — overpowering — surge of hate at the sound of her name on Slade’s tongue, again, but something momentarily distracted him. Thin and cool to the touch, bumping against the inside of his palm. He couldn’t look down without giving it away, but from the weight and feel of what he was holding, he could guess what Felicity had given him.

A knife.

Oliver slid it into his sleeve, feeling the metal against his skin. A second chance, and he didn’t intend to waste it. “Slade,” he said, getting to his feet. “Last chance.”

“I’m afraid I don’t catch your meaning,” Slade said, rising while he casually swirled the rum in his glass. “I only came here to meet an old friend.”

“I’m the furthest thing from a friend and you know it, Slade.” Oliver circled the table, taking slow, deliberate steps. “I’m offering you one last chance to walk out of here.”

Slade gave a derisive laugh under his breath, standing at the fireplace with his eye on the painting hanging above it. “You forget how well I know you. You forget that I knew you when you were just a defenseless kid, you forget —” He whirled, and his hand clamped around Oliver’s forearm again, stopping the blade that would have sank deep into his neck “—that I made you who you are today.”

He reached up — in a gesture dripping with contempt — to disengage the table knife from Oliver’s grip, and it dropped soundlessly onto the thick carpet.

“So,” he said, and Oliver just realized that Slade was looking sideways at Felicity, who was on her feet, her hands clenched into fists. “He’s brought you into his world.”

“ _Let him go_ ,” she ordered, every inch of her bristling with protective anger. “He doesn’t deserve this.”

“Oh, but he does,” Slade answered, ignoring Oliver’s efforts to free his arm. “I know the deepest, darkest, and ugliest sides of Oliver Queen. You might think you understand everything there is to this man, but I’ve seen how he corrupts and destroys the things he most loves — with cowardice, with secrets, with _deceit_.”

He looked at Felicity again. “Freeing you would be a mercy,” he said, in a hoarse whisper.

Any self-control, any sense of self-preservation Oliver had intact now left him, and he swung a punch at Slade Wilson with a snarl — an action unexpected enough to make him release his grip. Oliver was ready, and he lunged, sinking his fist into Slade’s gut.

He’d put enough force into the punch to bring any normal man to his knees, but Slade was far from normal — a fact that Oliver was finding very difficult to care about, in the heat of the moment. Nevertheless, Slade straightened up with barely a hitch in his breath. “ _Weak_ ,” he hissed, and blocked another one of Oliver’s punches, grabbing him by the front of his shirt.

“Oliver!”

Slade threw him clear across the room, and he slammed into the floor with enough force to drive the air out of his lungs. Felicity was on her knees beside him in an instant, and Oliver — fully winded and aching from the impact — struggled back up to put himself in front of her, shielding her from Slade.

Voices in the next room stopped him short, and Slade straightened up with a smile, just as Thea pushed through the doors. “Mom wants to know what’s taking you guys so long to — _Ollie_ ,” she said, noticing him on the floor, “oh my god, are you okay?”

“Fine,” he answered. “I…tripped. Must have been all the rum.”

Whether his sister bought the excuse or not (unlikely, since she’d seen firsthand his ability to withstand inhuman amounts of alcohol), it was enough that Slade didn’t contradict him.

There was even a passable expression of concern on his face. “Let me help,” Slade said, leaning down with his hand outstretched.

Felicity glared at his extended arm like it was a bear trap, but Oliver got to his feet without assistance, as though nothing was wrong.

Still, Slade was smiling. “You’d better watch where you step, Mr Queen,” he said, and offered Thea his arm as they left the dining room. “Wouldn’t want you to have a nasty fall.”

* * *

As soon as the voices became an echo down the corridor, Felicity turned to Oliver and started patting him down for visible wounds and/or cracked ribs. “Felicity — _Felicity_ —” he said, catching her by the wrist. “I’m fine.”

She made a noise of generous skepticism. “I may not know a whole lot about fancy dinner parties and your family dynamics, but even I know that trying to stab someone in the back — literally — and getting thrown like starting pitch means that things most unequivocally did _not_ go well,” she said fiercely. “What the hell is going on? That guy — the way he caught the knife — the way he — he just _threw_ you, it was like —”

 _Oh_.

She'd seen that kind of inhuman strength before — in the reinforced warehouse door ripped through like Kleenex, and in the one-on-one fight that had almost killed Oliver in the underground bunker. 

Cyrus Gold. Now Slade Wilson.

“Mirakuru,” Oliver said, as though he'd sensed her train of thought. “Slade Wilson was with me on the island. I thought he was dead —”

“— just like Sara,” she finished, in the middle of a somewhat deja vu moment. “I’m sorry, but how many _dead-but-not-really-dead_ island people are going to pop up in one year?”

“I promise I’ll explain everything later, but right now — I can’t leave my family alone with Slade,” Oliver said, striding rapidly to catch up with his sister.

They emerged into the foyer to the sound of more voices, and Felicity released an audible sigh of relief at the sight of their friends.

“Ollie,” Sara said, with a bright smile. “We were wondering where you went.”

The _we_ in question included Tommy and Roy, both flanking Sara in unmistakable positions of backup. Oliver made eye contact and Sara nodded, barely moving her head.

Nonchalant to the point that he either deserved an acting award or was just genuinely capable of serious panic control, Tommy thumped Roy genially on the shoulder. “I picked this one up for you, Thea. I was just heading out and I saw him waiting on the curb like a stray cat — had to give him a ride.”

“We thought we could help set up,” Sara lied.

Moira went to her and kissed her on the cheek in greeting. “Nonsense, it’s your party,” she said, and turned back. “Mr Wilson, have you met Sara Lance? A very old friend of the family.”

The blue in Sara’s eyes could go as cold as ice when she wanted them to be, and they were glacial now, even though she still wore a smile. “Hi.”

“The girl who came back from the dead,” Slade said, taking a step towards her. “You must be very lucky indeed.”

“So are we,” Tommy said, casually putting an arm around her shoulders. “It’s like getting a sister back.”

“And you must be Mr Merlyn,” Slade said. “The papers don’t do you much justice.”

“They hardly do,” Moira commented, with a chuckle. “Tommy’s been around this house since he and Oliver were old enough to crawl. He’s practically a son to me.”

“A lucky young man.” Slade seemed like he was about to smile. “To have a brother like Mr Queen. I wish I had been blessed with the privilege myself.”

“Oh, it’s a two-way thing,” Tommy said lightly. “I watch his back, and he watches mine.”

A look flashed between them that was unmistakably in warning, and Slade’s smile didn’t waver, though his eye narrowed slightly at the implicit challenge. “I’m sure you do,” he answered.

Another silence, in which Slade looked slowly from face to face, as though measuring his surroundings. While the conversation had been going on, everyone seemed to have taken up positions, invisible battle lines drawn in the sand. Sara and Tommy to his side. Roy on the other.

Oliver and Felicity in the front.

Goosebumps rose on her arms and the back of her neck as the two men stared each other down. Oliver’s hand was at the small of her back, and in spite of the tension fraying the air, he managed a smile, as though confirming that Slade was outflanked. A king about to be checkmated on the board. “So,” he said, breaking the charged silence. “Mr Wilson — what would you like to do now?”

Slade must have sensed it too, because he chuckled, inclining his head as though it was a gracious concession of defeat. “I’m afraid I must be going,” he said. “Dinner was lovely, Moira. I certainly wish you all the best for your campaign.”

“Thank you, Mr Wilson,” Moira said, accepting a kiss on the cheek.

Felicity’s phone buzzed in her hand, and she glanced at the text. It was from Tommy.

_Outside. Digg ready with shot._

She turned the screen silently towards Oliver, who nodded. “Mr Wilson,” he said. “May I walk you to your car?”

* * *

The night air was sharp with the chill, and dead leaves crunched beneath their shoes as Oliver walked down to the driveway beside Slade. The front door was open a sliver, and he caught Felicity’s face — tense and worried — in the gap before it closed.

“That was not what you expected,” Slade guessed.

“In more ways than one,” Oliver agreed, with a calm he hadn’t been expecting from himself. “Why are you here, Slade?”

Slade didn’t answer. The trees to the front of the house were shaded and black as shadow, but Oliver trusted that Diggle was somewhere under the cover of darkness, and he was waiting to take the shot.

“Cyrus Gold. The man in the skull mask, leaving a trail of bodies because of the Mirakuru,” Oliver recited, as they continued to walk. “All your doing.”

“We all have allies,” Slade corrected. “You, on the other hand, surround yourself with family and friends, an infinitely more dangerous option — for you.”

They were at his car now, and Oliver stopped, his hands balled into fists at his sides. “How’s that?”

Slade smirked, and leaned forward to clap Oliver on the shoulder, _hard_. “Because you never contemplate a failsafe when it’s someone you care about,” he said, pulling back. “Why do you think Mr John Diggle hasn’t taken his shot?”

Oliver’s head snapped towards the trees, as though he could see what Slade had done to his friend. “If you’ve hurt him, I swear to g—”

Just like in the kitchen, Slade moved too fast to catch, and Oliver was on his knees in the gravel with his arm twisted agonizingly behind his back, with Slade bending to whisper in his ear. “Twice now, you’ve tried to kill me. That alone should be reason enough for me to kill your entire family and your friends, but I left them alive, but only because I believe in honor — because even _you_ deserve to know what’s coming.”

“ _Slade_ —” Oliver broke off with a grunt of pain as his grip tightened, curving him even more painfully towards the ground.

“Five years ago, I made you a promise on Lian Yu,” Slade snarled. “Do you remember?”

Oliver gritted his teeth. “It won’t bring her back,” he said, his breathing harsh. “It won’t bring Shado back from the dead.”

Slade was silent for a single moment, and in that instant, Oliver thought that reminding him of her — using Shado’s name — might have gotten through to him.

Then there was a sudden — sickening — _snap_. Oliver landed on his side with his arm contorted at a wrong angle, his cheek to the gravel, every muscle from neck to fingertip screaming in pain.

Easily, contemptuously, Slade stepped over him and climbed into his car. “Precisely,” he said. “Which is why I’m here to fulfill it. See you around, _kid_.”

By the time Oliver got back on his feet, his face covered in sweat, his chest heaving, the taillights on Slade’s car were already disappearing through the main gate.

_No._

* * *

As far as dinner parties went, the one Felicity had just been to managed to top both the _Awkward-Uncomfortable_ scale, and the _Heart-Stopping Violence_ index. As if that wasn’t bad enough, somehow, it was only the _pre-_ party before the actual party.

So all in all, not a great night.

“What happened?” Oliver said with difficulty, wincing as Tommy peeled the shirt from his back. It was stuck to him from the perspiration, and he was still sweating, his face contorted in pain.

They were all clustered in a back room behind the kitchen while the party went on outside, the whole jazz band and open bar concept powering through and oblivious — as always — to everything falling apart behind the scenes. Diggle had a pack of ice in his hands, which he left untouched while Felicity dabbed at the bleeding cut on his forehead. “Someone snuck up on me and sucker-punched me from behind,” he said. “Never saw who it was.”

“It’s my fault,” she said ruefully. “I should have been monitoring heat signals on the comms, then you wouldn’t have —”

“Slade always has a plan,” Oliver interrupted. “It’s not your fault — it’s mine. I brought him back, I — _argh_ —” He bent forward, visibly biting back a hiss as Sara prodded at the muscles in his swollen shoulder.

“Dislocated,” she said. “Not broken. I can push it back, but it’ll —”

“Do it,” he answered shortly. “We’re wasting time.”

“Maybe pretend it actually hurts, just to convince all of us that you’re human?” Tommy suggested.

Oliver nodded at Sara. “Do it.”

They knew each other too well to argue the point. She braced, turning his elbow to the right angle and bracing her forearm against his. “One, two —”

Felicity felt her stomach heave at the indescribably _awful_ sound of Oliver’s shoulder sliding back into joint. Seemingly oblivious to everyone’s discomfort, Oliver straightened up, rolling his shoulder with a grunt. “Thank you,” he said to Sara.

His change of clothes was with Felicity, and she stiffly passed him a fresh shirt, only because every instinct wanted to hug him in an extremely _non-platonic_ way. “You can’t seriously be thinking about going back out into the party,” she said, despite kinda-sorta knowing the answer.

“The last thing I feel like doing right now is stand around and make small talk with people I don’t know,” he said, buttoning himself up with some clumsiness, given his arm. “But it’ll look strange if we all go missing at the same time.”

“Oliver, we need to talk about this,” Diggle said. “You told me Slade Wilson was your friend on the island — but that he was _dead_.”

“I thought he was,” Oliver said, ignoring Tommy pointing silently at Sara, who ignored it too.

“Slade Wilson has the Mirakuru in him,” she said. “For all we know, it might have kept him alive.”

They had another one of their telepathic glances then, as though they both knew something the others didn’t (as per usual). “He’s a trained killer, and he could have killed everyone in this house — including me — if he really wanted to.”

“But he didn’t,” Felicity pointed out. “Unless drinking rum over chicken cordon bleu is what all bad guys do before they off their targets, he was here for a reason.”

Oliver didn’t say anything, and Diggle shook his head. “This can wait until later,” he said. “Let’s just keep our eyes peeled for walking killer zombies with eyepatches.”

Tommy snorted at the obvious sarcasm. "See, Ollie — this is why you shouldn't expand your friendship circle beyond yours truly."

“Not to sound ungrateful, but I really wish you guys hadn’t thrown me a _Welcome Back From the Dead_ party,” Sara said, pushing off the edge of the table a shiny dress that looked like it might have been forced onto her by Thea. “See you in a bit.”

“Kinda ironic, given the circumstances with the ex-friend,” Tommy muttered, and turned on his heel at Oliver’s glare. “I’m going, I’m going.”

Diggle dropped the ice pack onto the table and folded his arms, looking at them both like there was something to worry about. “You okay?”

Felicity gave the cut in his head a pointed look. “Are you?”

“You know what I mean,” he said, aiming his words at Oliver. “Sounds to me like Slade was here for recon. He was with you on the island, so he knows about your family — everything you’d do for them.”

Felicity was suddenly conscious of Oliver’s eyes alighting on her.

“I’m sorry,” he said, simply, as though it explained everything.

* * *

Oliver slid a glass of vodka from the bar top and downed it in one, feeling his nerves underneath his skin like steel wires being twisted tighter and tighter still. The dance floor in the middle of the drawing room was dotted with familiar faces, Sara dancing with her father, Tommy whirling Felicity around in a flamboyant display of intentionally embarrassing dance moves, his sister chattering away to Roy…

An empty glass of champagne landed with a dull sound next to his hand, and he turned to see Moira staring straight ahead at the bar, deliberately not looking at him. He sensed her anger in one of its rare, undisguised instances, simmering beneath the glittering veneer.

“I understand that my having a guest over at the house was a surprise, but it is part and parcel of running a mayoral campaign, and that is _no_ excuse for the way you just behaved at dinner,” she said, in a low, furious voice. “It has not escaped my attention that you have been angry with me, but you should know better than to take those frustrations out on our guests.”

“It’s not about Slade Wilson —”

“I _know_ , Oliver,” she interrupted. “And I am _trying_. I made a mistake with Felicity, I know that, but surely, as your mother I have _some_ margin of error —"

Given the circumstances, Oliver’s temper was a little on the short side too. ”Which time?" he asked tonelessly. "The time you hid the truth about your affair with Malcolm Merlyn? Or that you and dad were part of an underground organization planning to level the city and start again? Or when you threatened Felicity to protect yourself from having to face _your_ own lies?"

Moira was silent, an expression of disbelief dawning on her face. Oliver was exhausted, and on edge, and _done_ with keeping up appearances, at least for tonight, when all he wanted was a moment — an uninterrupted sliver of time — to believe that everything might be all right.

"I am _done_ with making excuses for you, mom,” he said, with a small shake of his head. “I thought I made that clear the last time we spoke.”

Moira inhaled, sharply. “I see. If this is how you’re going to behave, then I don’t see much point in you returning to this house. Please refrain from stopping by again. Good night, Oliver.”

She swept away, leaving a trail of her perfume as she melted into the crowd. Oliver drained his glass and set it back down again, feeling a dull throb behind his eyes.

Maybe this was exactly what Slade wanted.

* * *

Felicity stumbled up the staircase in her heels and pushed into her bedroom with a huff of relief, sinking onto the duvet so that she could start on the straps around her ankles. Oliver was a little slower to follow, but she spied him lingering in the doorway out the corner of her eye, leaning against the frame with his hands in his suit pockets.

The party and everything leading up to it had been an especially awful kind of tense, all double-edged conversations and stiff poker faces, which was probably why reaching home did _wonders_ to lift the invisible weight pressing down on her. The bed was still rumpled from earlier in the afternoon, covers turned back, her robe tossed across the exposed sheets, carelessly on top of the T-shirt Oliver had worn to sleep the night before.

It was a bubble. A safe one, where they’d always been themselves with each other, from the first night they’d been together, all the way until now.

Hopefully.

Her shoes thumped onto the floorboards and she rubbed her aching arches, still gauging Oliver’s status from afar. Not much change there; it felt like he hadn’t even moved since she sat down.

"So on the bright side," she said, lying sideways on the mattress in what was  _meant_ to be a relaxed lounging pose, _not_ deflated wind tunnel man. "I think _Operation Secret Relationship_ is still one-hundred-percent on. No one asked me why I was at your house an hour before the party was supposed to start. Either we're getting better at this, or everyone's getting drunk a lot earlier than they should be."

Even to her, _Bright Side_ felt like an unsustainable stretch on the phrase, and Oliver's preoccupied expression didn't lift. "They have other things to think about," he said, in a quiet voice only slightly above a whisper.

Brevity, fail. Felicity straightened up, her smile fading. “How’s your shoulder?” she asked, wincing internally at the sound his shoulder — or _any_ shoulder — was capable of making when it popped back into its socket.

“Not worse than yours,” he answered, in the same soft voice.

Then —

“We need to talk.”

Felicity felt her back stiffen, and she stayed where she was as Oliver walked over to her, sinking to his knees at the foot of the bed.

“This had better not be where you bust out the _its not you, it’s me_ Break Up Speech,” she joked, even though a part of her suspected it was something in the vein of what Oliver had planned. “Can it wait until morning?”

Oliver shook his head. “Not telling you the truth about Slade Wilson could have gotten you hurt tonight,” he said. “Or worse.”

Felicity had to laugh a little, even though it wasn’t funny. Not really. “I love how you’re talking about _me_ getting hurt, when your super-soldier friend literally reverse-dislocated your arm about _three_ hours ago.”

“I’m serious,” he said. “Slade never does anything without a purpose, and I know…I know you must have questions.”

 _That_ part was a little surprising, Oliver opening a sensitive topic up to a Q&A, especially one solely attended by Felicity Smoak. But she was still orienting herself around the Oliver Queen who shared stories about his childhood and answered questions about his scars, the one who wanted her to know and understand him, the one who was on his knees in front of her now.

Maybe it was fatigue (her shoulder was really starting to hurt), but Felicity decided to open with a question she already knew — or educated-guessed — the answer to.

“Why were you so sure Slade was dead?” she asked.

Oliver’s face was unreadable. “Because I thought I killed him myself,” he answered. “Five years ago on the island, I put an arrow through Slade Wilson’s eye and left him for dead. There was no way anyone could have survived that.”

“Not without the Mirakuru,” she added, and he didn’t contradict her. “Okay, so that explains the personal appearance — and the eyepatch. Paying a surprise visit to your arch-enemy’s mom ranks pretty high in the list of mind-tricks for the Super Villain…I’m guessing.”

Oliver didn’t smile at the stab towards something resembling humor, and she didn't blame him for that. Felicity ran her hands through her hair, thinking through what she wanted to ask next. “Okay,” she said. “At dinner, when Slade mentioned someone — the girl who died — was she real?”

From Oliver’s expression, she guessed it was a _yes_. “Her name was Shado,” he said. “I’ve told you about her — she was on the island with us, and her father taught me how to shoot a bow and arrow. She was studying to be a doctor in China, and she died because of a choice I made.”

To anyone who didn’t know Oliver’s unique calibration towards _guilt_ like Felicity did, they might have assumed he was admitting to a flat-out murder the same way he had with Slade. But from his choice of phrasing, Felicity didn’t think it was so simple. Maybe it was, except Oliver wasn’t seeing the easier version — the one where he moved forward without a scar. “You loved her,” Felicity said, because it was true.

Oliver nodded silently.

“Slade did too?”

He nodded again. “He blames me for what happened to her.” The end of the thought lingered, weirdly unfinished, as though he’d hesitated before he could add: _he should_.

But Felicity heard it anyway.

“Why did you apologize to me?”

The pause before Oliver answered was the single most excruciating gesture she’d seen him make, like he had to steel himself to say something he’d never be able to take back.

“Slade promised me something when we were on the island — before he died, or before I thought he did,” Oliver said, flatly. “He won’t kill me until he’s made me suffer the way he suffered, until he’s taken away the people I care about, until he’s hurt them, and I — I’m telling you this now so that —” he took another breath “— so that if you wanted to walk away, right now, I’d understand.”

Felicity looked him in the eye, her expression fierce. “You said you weren’t going to do a break up speech.”

“I’m not.” This time he found a little smile, brittle and just a little bit heartbreaking. “Because I’m not the one who’s going to leave.”

“Oliver —”

But he interrupted her before she could even make an attempt at a counter-argument.

“Felicity, listen to me. We never made those kinds of promises, and I don’t think it’s fair — or safe — or _sane_ — for me to pretend like being with you isn’t going to put you in danger. You didn’t agree to this. Because Slade Wilson isn’t Helena, he isn’t Count Vertigo, and he isn’t Malcolm Merlyn. He’s a trained killer who will do whatever it takes to keep the promise he made to me, and I can’t — I _won’t_ — be responsible for someone I love dying because of another choice I made.”

The words all escaped him in a rush, like he'd bottled them up through the whole evening, holding back what he'd wanted to say to her until now. The urgency in them left Felicity a little short on air, and not in the good way.

Because Oliver was afraid.

Felicity realized she hadn't moved since the _Break-Up-But-Not-Really_ speech, and as though to soften the blow, Oliver gently lifted his hand to her face. “These past few weeks have been the happiest for me since I got back from Lian Yu, and I want you to know that I’d never change a thing about them, but for us to keep going like this — it would be selfish.” His thumb stroked her cheek. “And I can’t be selfish with you.”

Felicity felt a tear roll down the side of her face, and _that_ was what shattered any and all pretenses at keeping still. She blinked, startled, because _what the actual frack?_ A second later, she'd jumped to her feet, scrubbing away the traces with her fingertips like it was evidence of something guilty.

"Felicity —"

“ _No_ ,” she said, still shaking her head as she hesitated on the spot, having no idea where she wanted to go except that she couldn’t keep sitting there. “It’s not — I mean — I — and you —”

Oliver stayed where he was as she crossed over to the bathroom and started to run the water in the sink, breathing hard. The pain in her shoulder was starting to make her feel sick, and she reached for the shelf with clumsy hands, not stopping until she’d forced down another two ibuprofen and had a glass clutched between her palms.

After what felt like ages, Oliver appeared in the doorway. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know you’re probably angry with me, and you have every right to b—”

Felicity slammed the glass down so hard she thought it might crack. “What, because it’s the _Old Oliver_ thing to do?" she said, and her temper — in one of its rare flare-up instances — stopped Oliver short from trying anything remotely close to consoling her.

"For the record, I don’t _care_ if we’re together. I mean — I _do_ care — but not in the context of you and Slade Wilson’s extremely unfinished business. This is a man who wants to systematically take away the people you love because he _knows_ that it’ll break you — that it’ll _destroy_ Oliver Queen — and your… _A-plus_ response to that…is to tell me that you’re going to cut yourself off from the things that mean the difference between your time on Lian Yu and being home for real. That you’re going to — and I quote — _not be selfish_ by ending something that has the slightest chance of making you happy?”

She shook her head, her chest heaving. “No, Oliver, I don’t care if the main point was to passive-aggressive me into breaking up with you. What I _do_ care about is you letting this…one-eyed _asshole_ win, because the man I fell in love with always finds a way to keep fighting. He survived an island straight out of hell and has the scars to show for it. He survived a mass murderer’s plan to bring down the city and brought down god knows how many criminals and psychopaths since then. _That’s_ who I’m in love with, and that’s the man I’m going to stand with to face Slade Wilson, alongside our friends and family who are _not_ going to take his crap lying down.”

A beat, and Felicity realized she was genuinely out of breath. “Is that person still here?” she asked, trying not to think about all the other cool finishing lines she could have gone with.

Oliver stayed where he was, and as she watched (or glared), he held his hands out in front of him — not to ask her to come closer, but to show her that he was well and truly out of options. “Felicity…it has to be this way. You haven’t seen what he can do. The Mirakuru — it turned him into a monster.”

As of that very moment, _has_ and _must_ were just about her least favorite words, and Felicity took a beat to think. Or restrain herself from putting her hands around his neck and shaking him until he rebooted. There were a wealth of things she didn’t know about Oliver’s time on Lian Yu, and his history with the one-eyed psycho on super-steroids, but she didn’t need to know everything in order to trust her gut. Like she’d trusted her gut when Oliver first walked into her office and asked for help, when he’d showed up shot and bleeding in her car, and countless — _countless_ — other times since then.

That, she trusted. Just like she trusted Oliver.

So she pushed. Not for herself — or because of the way Oliver made her feel, which was _happy_ , god-fracking-dammit — but so he’d understand that the last thing to do in order to beat Slade Wilson was regress into the person he’d been on the island.

“Slade wants to take away the people you love,” she said, and this time she was the one to take the step closer to him. “That sounds to me like he wants you to be alone, and isolated, and weak. I may not have the most experience with archenemies, but it seems like the smart thing to do is to _not_ make his job any easier.”

Oliver didn’t back away, but his whole body was as rigid and unmoving as a statue as she put a hand on his chest. “Twelve hours ago, you told me that you were _all in_ ,” she said, looking hard at her fingers fanned out across his heartbeat. “I really hate to break it to you, but so am I. Which includes surviving your crazy exes and homicidal island friends, whatever super-drug serum they have circulating in their systems. The only question now — and I know that sounds _impossible_ , because it’s me talking — but the only question now, is whether you think what we have is strong enough to survive Slade Wilson.”

She raised her eyes to his face. “Is it?”

* * *

“Is it?” Felicity asked.

Oliver thought that the hardest choice he’d had to make was the one to fight against his so-called better judgment, the part of him that told him not to be with Felicity Smoak because losing her was an eventuality, and it would destroy him.

That choice felt like a lifetime ago now.

Felicity’s hand was centered above his beating heart, and Oliver was conscious that every second he failed to answer was one that reinforced her doubts. About him. About _them_.

It wasn’t that he didn’t think they were worth it, and it wasn’t that he’d been lying when he told her he was all in, but because there was no force in the world that could ever persuade him to put Felicity at risk.

And it was going to be a fight. He knew it in his bones, that it would mean a fight to the death with Slade.

But Oliver didn’t want to let her go, and now, looking down at her, a part of him knew that having her beside him would be the reason he’d fight harder than ever to keep the people closest to him safe from Slade Wilson. That having her beside him would make all the difference in the world, and there was no doubt in his mind that Slade hadn’t even scratched the surface when it came to anticipating someone like Felicity Smoak.

In the absence of words coherent enough to express the clash of emotions inside of him, Oliver gently put his hand over Felicity’s, using the other to tilt her chin — set and stubborn — slightly upwards, and leaned down to kiss her.

Her surprise was palpable, and she made a sound against his mouth between a gasp of relief and something pained. Remembering her shoulder, he jerked back with a start — or would have — except her arms came up to encircle the back of his neck and held him tight. The kiss was like a spark going off in the dark, a light in the middle of the icy, black water, a warm open doorway at the end of a long journey home.

Oliver's hands were on Felicity's back, her waist, and lost in the tangle of her hair. He was losing track of the seconds, conscious only of how she felt in his arms and how he never wanted to let her go.

There had never been a choice to make, not when it came to her, but Oliver was making it anyway. Them, over whatever Slade had planned. Whatever came next.

 _Yes_.

* * *

Oliver shut his eyes to the hot water. It lashed furiously at his back, running down his scars and old wounds, themselves silent and ever-present reminders that someone like him could never be truly clean. The dragon tattoo on his shoulder seemed to throb in time with his heartbeat, old pain resurfacing because of the person who’d inflicted it.

A small hand spread gently across his cheek, and Oliver — momentarily startled — blinked the water out of his eyes to see Felicity’s face. Her lashes were edged with tiny droplets of water from the spray, her hair darkened from the wet, skin flushed with heat. Real, and alive, and _here_.

In a rush, he remembered what she’d said to him — what she’d decided. A stream of uncompromising truth that was somehow a reminder of himself and an affirmation of what he held: against all expectations, a woman like Felicity Smoak’s faith, trust…and love.

Three words that weren’t exactly recurring elements in Oliver’s tactics for meeting adversities head on, but there were plenty of firsts when it came to Felicity, and if it meant that he could hold onto her — _love her_ — in the face of one of the hardest fights of his life…

He’d try.

“Are you sure?” he asked, again.

Felicity put her arms around his waist, leaning into him with her chin on his chest, right above his beating heart. “I think I already answered that question,” she said thoughtfully.

Oliver nodded, and bent his head as surely as she lifted hers, meeting softly in the middle. A promise of their own, far from small, and — in that moment, at least — more hopeful than anything Slade could break.

“I love you,” he said.

She _hm_ -ed under her breath, and her mouth curved upwards in a smile. “I love you too,” she whispered. "And I promise we'll get through this."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OKAY. Hopefully the chapter ended in a decent place. I managed to cram Super Protective Mode Oliver and Dumb Pine Tree Oliver in one update. PHEW.  
> I realize Slade is significantly more violent to Oliver in this version, but eh. I'm a super violent person at heart :)  
> Thanks for all the well-wishes! I'll definitely try my best for finals, and I will see you on the other side :D


	28. Target, Locked (Deathstroke, Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! So thanks for all the well-wishes, I think finals went okay, and now I'm back!  
> Warning: Dumb Pine Tree Oliver makes a reappearance this chapter.

Felicity’s bare feet sank into the aquamarine-and-charcoal duvet, trekking out a familiar obstacle course around the intermittent patches not taken up by throw pillows and stacks of office documents, interrupted only occasionally by her putting her hand up to stop her head from smacking into the overhead light fixture. The perils of going for something cute at the antique shop — the metal curly sticky-outy bits were perfectly capable of giving her a concussion, _or_ , with the right momentum, knock her straight out of the ring for a solid K.O..

Unfortunately, big board meetings meant an avalanche of big scary binders full of things to memorize, and Felicity’s tried-and-tested mode of preparation meant pacing within the confines of her mattress (maybe jumping occasionally when things got stale), wearing comfy clothes (pajamas, in lieu of the nude option), all while thinking out loud.

“Reported incidents of successful cybersecurity breaches are down by seventy-eight percent, but the number of detected hacking attempts experienced an overall increase of forty…no wait, that’s the Lorin system projection. Oliver — can you —” She batted a hand towards one of the sticky-tabbed piles, for lack of a better word. “Oliver? _Little_ help here.”

No response.

Felicity looked past her notes. Oliver was lying on the pillows, an arm behind his head, a stack of similarly highlighted and scary-looking notes propped up against his bent leg. But unlike her, she was pretty sure his eyes hadn’t budged from the spot they’d settled on ten minutes before. And the fifteen before that.

Cue mental sigh.

Felicity gave his foot a nudge with her own, and when he didn’t answer, she stepped over his legs and sat firmly on his one outstretched leg, looking over his raised knee like it was a fence. “Hi,” she said, and whether it was the circulation being cut off from his limb, or the sight of her at her extreme sexiest (messy hair, an overly-laundered sweater with a hole in the side, and a pair of boxers with polar bears on them), but Oliver finally looked up.

And blinked, as though it wasn’t abundantly clear that he’d been zoned out since god-knows-when. “ _Hi_ ,” she repeated. “Remember me? I’m the weird lady you’ve been cooking breakfast for and enthusiastically sleeping with — not at the same time, because food hygiene — but anyway, we both have that big, _huge_ meeting this week, hence everything around us looking like a college library during finals week. How’s it going so far?”

Oliver glanced unconvincingly at the document he’d been reading. “Good,” he said. “I think I’m really making some progress.”

Felicity reached over and plucked it from his grip, leafing through it just to make sure he hadn’t secretly discovered the _Corporate America_ version of the Riddle Diary. “Really?” she said, skeptically. “Because it looks like you’ve been staring at the same sentence for the last thirty minutes, not cramming any and all available information into your head, just in case the Wicked Witch of the West — also known as your business partner — turns the annual board meeting into a less enjoyable version of the Spanish Inquisition.”

It took Oliver a reasonable second to digest the information.

Then —

“I forgot how much you talk when you’re nervous,” was his only response, and Felicity hit him on the knee with the document.

“Oliver,” she said. “You’re the CEO of a company. You _need_ to be prepared for this meeting.”

“I know,” he answered, not in an annoyed way. “I was just…mulling over a problem.”

Felicity tipped her head to one side. “And does that problem involve how to trace an untraceable super-spy on super-steroids in a very big city?”

Oliver’s expression shifted, losing the deeply unconvincing _nothing’s-on-fire_ neutrality, in favor of something more in the vein of genuine worry lines and his usual frown. “I need to stop Slade,” he said, and the name made Felicity’s arms prickle with goose-bumps underneath her sweater, even though the room was the warmest place she could be. “Letting him out of my sight was a mistake.”

Felicity sighed, and shifted a bunch of files off the pillow so she could sit at Oliver’s elbow. “ _If_ I remember things correctly — and I usually do — he left you in the driveway to your own house with a dislocated shoulder, _after_ throwing you clear across the dining room when you tried to sneak up and stab him in the face,” she recited, rubbing her hand up and down the length of Oliver’s arm. “You did the only thing you could have done in that situation. And as the aforementioned girlfriend, I gotta say I’m pretty happy you did.”

It was Oliver’s turn to look deeply unconvinced, and she could feel the muscles tense beneath her palm, classic sign that he wasn’t about to let this one go. “Felicity, how can you be so…”

She raised her eyebrows, waiting for the adjective.

“… _calm_ ,” he finished. “Slade could have killed you.”

“But he didn’t,” she pointed out, _validly_. “He still hasn’t, which points to the likely conclusion that I’m not important enough to get the personalized _Slade_ murder package. Not _that_ kind of package, I mean — he’s not bad-looking — but the murderous tendencies and the kill count does kinda —”

“Felicity.”

“—right, my point.” She gestured at her room, at the copious evidence that there was a _life_ for the both of them outside whatever Slade Wilson’s evil plan doohickies, a life jam-packed with extremely loud and incredibly pressing concerns. “Oliver, you can’t push everything else to a standstill just because there’s a bad guy in town, and that’s what Slade is. Someone that we will stop, and we’re working on it. Facial recognition’s combing every security camera in the city, I have a program looking for the rental information off the car he drove to your house…there’s always something, Oliver.”

“Slade’s former ASIS,” Oliver said, again. “Australian Intelligence. He knows how to cover his tracks.”

“And thank god we have a team full of people good at _un_ covering tracks.” Felicity gave him a little shake. “We’ll find him. Trust me.”

Oliver took her hand, not reluctantly either, thank god. Felicity let him lace their fingers together, and pull it to rest against his heart.

“You know, it’s a pity he’s not in a _Roadrunner_ cartoon,” she continued. “We could just dig a big hole, dangle a steak from a wire, and _ph_ —” the rest of her sentence was cut off by Oliver sitting up to kiss her, at which point the muscle memory took over, and ended with Felicity on top of Oliver with their faces just inches apart, her notes lying on the floor beside the bed.

Breathless. Again.

“You’re trying to change the subject,” she murmured, even though she wasn’t averse to the idea of rewarding herself for an evening’s hard work. “I know all your secret moves.”

Oliver finally gave her a smile, albeit one of the _Easy-Extinguishable_ variety. “Felicity Smoak,” he said, and it was almost a sigh, “the day you lose your sense of humor is the day I lose all hope.”

“Good thing that won’t happen, huh?” She traced a finger around his mouth, where the smile had been just seconds before, trying to tease it out again.

_Oliver Queen_ smiles were experiencing a seasonal shortage, but his kiss was still an indescribable kind of good to her, and Felicity shifted along the length of Oliver’s body, sensing a mutual change in priorities.

“Bed?” he said, in a different voice.

Felicity’s answer was to sit up and lift her arms, raising the sweater up and over her head and letting it fall to the floor. “Bed,” she agreed.

* * *

Oliver woke to the sound of static. He lifted his head; the grainy TV was crackling quietly in the corner, throwing uneven flickers of light across the walls and floor. He shut his eyes briefly, drawing slow, deep breaths to slow his heart, thudding sickeningly fast inside his chest. His temples were throbbing, and he was sweating like it was the height of summer, even though the pavements outside the house were still cracked with frost.

He was no stranger to bad dreams, practically knew them like old friends. But they were different these days. He still woke with an inhumanly fast heartbeat and a deep feeling of unease, but he never tore himself from his sleep with the familiar jolt. It was like he couldn’t, like the dreams themselves had developed a resistance to it, and now he was forced to wait for them to release him, to suffer through the slippery, noxious tendrils choking him with a slowly tightening grip.

Which left him to see whatever the nightmares had for him, in their full and unstoppable ferocity, the kind that rushed the air from his lungs and left him gasping for breath.

Apart from the flickering screen in the corner, the room was dark. Felicity’s back was to him, sound asleep, her arms wrapped around one of the pillows like a small animal hiding its face as it dreamed. To Oliver, it wasn’t a surprise that she was cold, not when she was wearing a sweater that had clearly outlasted its supposed lifespan. Her sweater had slipped almost completely down one shoulder, exposing a pink and raised scar in the otherwise smooth skin, the frayed hole in the elbow trailing a loose thread across her arm. But he was more than familiar with the reality that Felicity’s favorite clothes tended to be the ones that looked like they were the closest to falling apart. She didn’t stir when he kissed the new scar in her shoulder, softly, and reached across her for the remote on the nightstand to turn the TV off.

The machine acknowledged the command with a click, but the silence in its wake was unnatural…and still.

He shook her shoulder, a cold sweat beading along his neck. “Felicity?” he said, the word almost lost to the sound of his racing heart.

It seemed like an eternity before she shifted, gradually, like something inanimate coming alive.

“… _mmf?_ ” She stirred, rubbing at her eyes. “Why are you yelling?”

Oliver’s relief was like a wave of dizziness, and he kissed her bare shoulder, her neck, trying not to shake. “Nothing. I’m sorry — I just —”

She stiffened before he could finish, and pushed herself back up against the headboard with a hoarse gasp, looking at something behind him with sudden fear. “Who — who are you?” she demanded. “What’s going on?”

The silence was unnatural, and far, far too still. Numbly, Oliver turned in the darkness, slowly, as though in a dream.

Someone was standing beside the window, silhouetted by the faint light of the moon. Long dark hair falling around her neck and shoulders, a narrow build and graceful long limbs. “Shado?” he said, in disbelief.

A dead leaf curled across the moonlit floorboards, and she lifted her head. Oliver felt the words die in his throat, at the glazed look in her dark eyes, and the eerie reddish smear on the side of her face, from a familiar wound. They were in the clearing again, the wind tearing up a storm, fresh blood on the forest floor.

Shado had fallen without a sound, her eyes closed like she might just have been asleep.

“Don’t do this,” he said. “Shado, please.”

As though in response to his pleading, her arm — a lifeless, bleached color devoid of warmth — came up with a gun. _The_ gun.

It was pointed at Felicity, who inhaled sharply, her hand curled tight in Oliver’s sleeve. “Oliver —”

“Don’t!” he shouted. “Shado — it’s my fault — it’s my —”

Her eyes widened in an accusation he knew was coming. “ _Murderer_ ,” she said, and pulled the trigger.

The gunshot roared, like it always did, but it was Felicity’s scream that tore through Oliver’s nightmare.

Oliver opened his eyes for the second time that night, and stared at the ceiling with his heart hammering painfully against his ribs. He waited — because he was forced to — for the strange sensation of paralysis to retreat from his limbs like icy water creeping back along a river bank, until he could sit up.

He did, slowly, as though there was some dangerous, sleeping creature he didn’t want to wake.

Beside him, Felicity was asleep facing the TV, her glasses still on her nose and an open binder on the floor, lying precisely where she’d dropped it. He stayed excruciating still, watching until her chest moved in a soft breath. Oliver wanted to curl his body against hers, feel her warmth on his skin, the way her voice sent vibrations through her chest and his, but the gunshot was still ringing in his ears, and the final, unbearable sound of her scream.

He clenched his fingers into a fist before he could reach for her, slid quietly from the bed, and padded downstairs.

She didn’t deserve to share his bad dreams tonight.

* * *

Tommy blew out his breath, staring at his phone screen like he had the mental ability to pull text replies out of the ether. Which he didn’t, in case anyone was taking notes. Not unless that freaky machine he had in the basement decided to work and zap him full of superhuman powers —

_Not the point_.

“Hey, what does it mean when someone doesn’t text you back at 3AM? Asking for a friend,” he said, re-reading his last text to McKenna that had most definitely gone unanswered.

“Was the text cancelling a date?” Thea asked, sitting on her side of the counter with a cooking magazine, as though there wasn’t a set of pancakes fluffing up in the hot pan next to her elbow.

Tommy decided his mysterious friend could wait on the advice, even though he probably knew why McKenna wasn’t texting him back. Because like an adult (god, what a concept), she preferred to have serious (and sometimes angry) talks about his personal choices face to face. Like how he was spending his nights getting bruises and miscellaneous boo-boos. “Never mind,” he said, shoving the phone out of sight and reaching for the spatula. Fully energized, and ready to do cooking…stuff.

A pause, as he realized that Thea — his sister, which was a secret and still a little weird — had completely left the raw batter to its own devices. Not even a sidelong glance. One hundred percent oblivious to the smears of pre-pancake on the surrounding cupboard, the stove top, and the front of her hair.

Plus Tommy’s shirt, but that was what laundry was for.

“You,” Tommy decided, “are the _worst_ cook in the history of ever.”

“Don’t be a drama queen,” she scoffed. “I just had an accident with a squirt bottle. All the experienced pancake chefs do it.”

She flipped to the next page on the magazine, like she didn’t have liquefied sugar and butter in her hair, not to mention the fact that she was banned from sitting on countertops, according to Moira’s house rules. Then again, the Queen siblings had never been particularly persnickety with the official rulebook, and ditto to their parental unit.

Tommy shook his head at the beige stain on his shirt, edged the spatula under the bubbling batter and flipped it over. What he saw made him stare, but in his defence, it stared first. “Maybe in hindsight, we shouldn’t have tried to make pancakes look like anything _but_ pancakes,” he said, and tilted the pan sideways for Thea to see.

She jumped. “God,” she shuddered. “Is it cross-eyed?”

“You mean the demon of the underworld that’s taken up residence in this piece of breakfast food?”

That got him a surprisingly Oliver-like glare. “It was _supposed_ to be a teddy bear,” she muttered, and hopped off to get a plate. “I don't think we can fix that with chocolate chips, can we?”

“Not unless they come ready-infused with holy water.” Tommy flipped the pancake again, spatula-free, just to see if it would get rid of the evil. No such luck. “No worries, we’ll drown it in syrup.”

Thea slid a plate next to the pan for the murderous grizzly pancake with the lazy eye. “Ingenious suggestion,” Thea said, her chin propped up on both hands — stage one of moping. “But it looked so good in the video.”

Tommy paused, standing in front of the open fridge with the butter. “YouTube?” he said. “Dammit, Thea, I would have staged an intervention if I’d known it was a YouTube video. Those things _lie_.”

Still, her mouth was decidedly in an upside-down shape, while Tommy continued to put together the coffee-and-fruit part of the breakfast tray. “What’s up, monster?” he asked, running water into a clear glass vase.

Thea shrugged, picking through the vase of hydrangeas. “Are Ollie and mom okay?”

The vase almost slipped cleanly from Tommy’s grip. “Uh, I’m sure they are,” he said, somewhat convincingly. “Why?”

“I mean, it’s a big week for mom.” Thea frowned at a hydrangea like it could frown back. “With the debate and everything — it just seems like Ollie isn’t around much.”

“I think he mentioned an annual board meeting…or something,” Tommy said, not quite fibbing — even though he’d heard it from Felicity, _not_ the CEO himself. “He’s just got a lot on his mind.”

“I guess.” Thea put the flower into the small vase and adjusted the silverware in the napkin. “Hey, that doesn’t look too bad. Salvageable.”

Tommy gave her shoulders a squeeze, and kissed the top of her head (ignoring the pancake batter). “Don’t stress about it,” he said. “We’re all still family around here.”

Thea managed a smile. “Hey,” she said quietly. “Everything okay? With you and McKenna?”

Tommy made a face. “Yeah, I’ll be seeing her this Thursday anyway. I mean, she hasn’t cancelled on me yet. I think.”

“Anything I can do?”

The thought of his little sister trying to fix his precarious love life gave Tommy a serious flash of what it was like to be Oliver. “Nah,” he said. “Thanks, though. I’m sure it’s all good.”

Thea didn’t look all that convinced, not that he blamed her. “Whatever it is — you should probably tell her the truth. Can’t go wrong with that.”

“Yeah,” he said softly, and he wasn’t just thinking about McKenna. “I guess.”

* * *

Thea tapped softly on the door. “Mom?” she said, and pushed it open.

Tommy followed her into the bedroom. Contrary to what most people did on regular mornings, Moira was already sitting up in bed reading the papers, and her serious expression was replaced by one of warm surprise at the sight of them. “I wasn’t expecting either of you to be up,” she said. “What’s this?”

Tommy carefully put the tray over her knees. “We made the executive decision to bring you breakfast in bed every day until the big mayoral debate,” he said. “What that has to do with anything is a little fudgy. To be honest, I heard _breakfast_ and _pancakes_ and something just came over me.”

Thea finished pouring her mother a cup of coffee and clambered onto the satin duvet, sitting crosslegged in front of the tray. “Try not to look your breakfast in the eye, mom. That part’s my fault — I thought making it look cute would be a good idea.”

Moira had a hand over her mouth, smothering a smile at the cross-eyed breakfast. “It looks delicious, sweetheart. But — ah — _what_ precisely was it meant to resemble?”

Tommy made a noise under his breath. “You’re better off not knowing.”

“Well, I’m very touched by the gesture,” she said, looking seriously from one to the other. “But please don’t feel like you need to bring me breakfast this week. _I_ should be apologizing for the inconvenience the election’s putting you through — cameras, everywhere, and all the attention —”

Thea had already started peeling Moira’s grapefruit for her. “Yeah, ‘cuz we’re not used to paparazzi and intrusive questions, are we?” she said sarcastically. “I mean — I don’t think Tommy’s ever _seen_ the business end of a camera.”

Tommy shrugged, playing along. “I know, and I’d probably take such _great_ pictures. If I knew what a camera was, which clearly I don’t. Do people say — _clicky box thing_? Is that what it is?”

Moira laughed. “Well, then. Are you both intending to sit here and watch me eat my breakfast?”

“Every last bite,” Thea confirmed, nudging the cutlery closer to Moira’s hand. “C’mon. It’s rude to keep us waiting.”

Tommy leaned over to steal some grapefruit, and unfolded the morning papers while he chewed. “Let’s see what happened in baseball, shall we?”

* * *

Verdant before opening hours was something vaguely comforting to Felicity in its own way, not just because the gyrating nighttime crowd and strobe lights weren’t really her thing, but because it felt like getting a peek backstage before the curtain went up, in all its lemony disinfectant and stacks-of-unopened-booze glory. Come to think of it, her work in the Foundry was a secret all-access pass to the Arrow.

The revelations concerning her psyche just kept coming.

Felicity still tapped on the door before she came in, as though she was expecting a big, scary bouncer to stop her (but Larry didn’t start work until seven-thirty). The club floor was freshly polished and hushed, with only the faint sound of in-closet shuffling to indicate that there was anyone still working behind the scenes.

If anyone was playing _Spot the Difference_ , one thing stuck out in particular, which was the sight of Oliver behind the bar. Not that she was a _great_ detective, but judging by the stack of napkins and the packs of green plastic stirrer thingies, he was doing some grunt work.

“This gin joint open yet?” she asked, climbing onto the chair across from him.

Oliver looked up with a smile, like he’d already noticed her as soon as she’d come in. “Hey,” he said, and leaned over to greet her with a kiss. “You’re early. Meeting doesn’t start for another twenty minutes.”

Felicity guessed that his okay-ness with PDA was because Tommy had somehow left the club premises, whether to round up the rest of them for a team meeting he’d initiated, or for some other charming and totally nefarious purposes. “Well, I thought an extra twenty minutes might guarantee me some face-time with my boyfriend,” she explained. “I haven’t seen you all day. You were barely in the office, you were gone this morning when I woke up…and now I find you —” she mimed dropping plastic stirrers into glasses “—being a bartender, minus the actual making drinks part. Which is supposed to be _fun_ , if I’m not mistaken. What’s up?”

She took it as a good sign that Oliver didn’t bother trying to brush it off. “You know what,” he answered. “I just want to be close to home base, in case —”

“—the computer turns up Slade Wilson’s very mysterious whereabouts.” Felicity nodded, and reached into her coat pocket, proceeding to wiggle her phone in front of his face. “I think it’s time someone explained to you what these things do.”

Oliver turned away to replace the plastic stirrer glasses. “You’re making fun of me.”

“I’m concerned,” she said, leaning closer. “Which I’m allowed to be, by the way. Hey —”

Oliver let her take his face in her hands, but he did try to squirm out of the eye contact part, which Felicity was dead set on. “Talk to me. Whenever. Wherever. That’s why I’m here. Besides being the lovable blonde who helps you out with your tech needs, I’m kind of a good listener. And faulty logic unpicker. Occasional wise-cracker. Not a great cook, but you already knew that.”

He breathed out slowly, and she felt him relax, even if just a little. “I love you,” he murmured.

Felicity smiled. “How much?”

_That_ managed to crack the brooding, and Oliver had something close to a grin on his face when he leaned in to meet her halfway.

“Can I get you a drink, Miss Smoak?”

Felicity pretended to peek over the bar at the insane variety of booze on offer. “Anything with syrup in it, Mr Queen.”

“Shirley Temple.”

“And alcohol,” she added, with an _oh-shoot_ snap of her fingers. “I always forget to specify the alcohol part.”

He was already using one of the double egg-cup shaped things to measure out some gin into a glass, and single-handedly flipped a bottle of something green into his palm. “Hey, how about seeing your family this week?” she said.

Oliver shot her a look over the drink he was assembling, in the unmistakable vein of _try again_. “The debate isn’t until Monday night. That’s the extent of my obligation to see my mother in the next seven days.”

Funnily enough, she’d sort of expected that reaction. “Oliver, she was nice to me at dinner. At least, I’m pretty sure that’s what all the complimenting and subtle cooing was. I think she’s trying.”

Oliver _mm_ -ed under his breath. “She also told me not to stop by the mansion again.”

_Ouch_. New plan. “Okay, how about your sister? Maybe lunch?”

“She’s upstairs in the office,” Oliver said. “And she also wants to know why it looks like I’m not speaking to my mother.”

“Well, you aren’t.”

“For good reason.”

“Not on my account,” Felicity reminded him. “What she did was wrong, but given the circumstances —”

Oliver wadded up a rag between his hands and tossed it unceremoniously to the side. “I can’t believe you’re making excuses for her, you of all people. Tommy, I expected, but not —”

The sudden outburst took Felicity aback, and not in a dumbstruck, speechless kind of way, but _whoa-there-can-someone-turn-off-this-fire-hydrant_ kind of way. “I’m not making _excuses_ for your mother, Oliver. I’m just saying that you should pick your battles. With Slade in the picture, you being estranged from your mother is something he wants. So maybe…don’t play into his nefarious schemes by doing exactly that.”

Oliver wasn’t looking at her when he set her drink on the bar top, as though it wasn’t clear enough that they were in the middle of a strained _we’re-not-fighting_ silence. Felicity picked up the bell-shaped glass and took a sip. It tasted like a mojito, with lots of extra mint — probably made that way because of her demonstrated love for mint-related desserts, such as but not limited to the occasional pint of Ben  & Jerry’s mint choc chip.

“It’s really good,” she said, testing the ice. “Did I mention you should open a bar?”

Oliver’s frown lines receded just a little at the stab of humor. “Maybe once or twice,” he said quietly, and she reached across to take his hand, because of course they weren’t really fighting. Just…mildly disagreeing on the subject of arch nemesis chess and smart prioritization.

“You know what might cheer you up?” she suggested. “We could tell Tommy about us. Rub noses in front of him, do the Eskimo kiss thing — do you think he’ll ralph out of excitement, or something more in the downstairs area? That sounded wrong, but you get my point.”

Oliver bent to kiss her knuckles with a sigh. “One thing at a time,” he said. “We’ll tell them when all of this is over.”

“You didn’t care who knew before Slade showed up,” she pointed out. “I thought _I_ was the one being shy.”

“I can’t explain it.” Oliver’s eyes searched the room like there was some answer in the wall graffiti. “But I just…I’d feel better if we waited.”

Felicity stirred her drink, even though she kinda-sorta knew what he was thinking. The only factor that made the difference between _before_ and _after_ was Slade Wilson, who’d seen them together, who maybe knew how Felicity felt about Oliver, and vice versa. If that wasn’t enough to put an invisible target on her back to _Oliver Queen_ _guilt vision_ , telling their friends would make it official and turn that target into a strobe-lighted, fluorescent beacon for trouble.

Which wasn’t necessarily reflective of reality, but she didn’t think it was the best idea to drag Oliver downstairs to the Foundry by the hand and show everyone the metaphorical _boyfriend_ tattoo on his —

“Well, it doesn’t bother me,” she said. “Because I have you.”

Oliver nodded a little, looking slightly more reassured, and showed every sign of being about to say something, except —

“Speedy,” he said, turning slightly as his sister strode into view, in stilettos and a no-nonsense sequined dress, a bottle of first-class champagne in each arm. “Everything okay?”

“I heard voices,” she said, depositing her carry-ons into the waiting ice chest. “Hi, Felicity. You’ve been taking care of my brother?”

Thea’s total and complete directness took a little getting used to, but Felicity was more or less sure that it meant she wasn’t Public Enemy Number One to the fiery-tempered, fiercely protective offspring of Moira Queen. “Fed him and put him to bed at a reasonably wholesome time,” she answered. “As promised.”

Thea smiled, even though she still looked a little miffed at her brother. “Great to hear. Of course, I wouldn’t have to ask if he called home every once in a while,” she said pointedly, looking up at Oliver. “Mom has debate prep every night this week, but I just thought I’d remind you again that it’d be nice to see you at the donor’s gala this Thursday.”

“Gala?” Felicity said, thinking _tux_ and _Oliver_.

“It’s for all the donors for the Blood and Queen campaigns,” Thea explained. “Sebastian Blood’s guest list reads like Mother Teresa’s rolodex, so mom’s stacking her side of the ballroom with members of the business community to appeal to her voter base. Having Queen Consolidated represented at the gala is — for obvious reasons — completely necessary.”

She produced a flat invitation from _somewhere_ in her tight dress and put it flat on the bar. Oliver made no move to pick it up, like it was a ticking bomb. “It’s a busy week, Speedy.”

“It’s important to mom, and it’s important to me,” Thea answered, like she’d heard all the reasons before. “Please don’t make me threaten to tell Tommy about your blissful love life unless you show up. I hate blackmailing my older brother.”

Felicity hoped she was the only one who noticed Oliver flinch at the _blackmail_ mention in the context of family.

Thea was still positive-spinning. “You could take Felicity with you — everyone knows she’s the one who does the work around the office.”

“Thank you,” Felicity interjected, while Oliver rolled his eyes a little.

“You’ll go, right?” Thea said, turning to her now. “I’ll get you a dress, Tommy still has all the measurements from the last time, and we'll take care of _everything_. Just please drag my wayward brother there in a bow tie, I am _begging_ you.”

Felicity picked up the invitation and wagged it at Oliver. “Might be fun,” she said. “Take your mind off that huge, scary board meeting for one night?”

Oliver’s eyebrows contracted in a silent _what the hell are you doing?_ Because, very validly, he knew that she hated parties, and her volunteering to accompany him to one either meant she’d been body-swapped with an android clone or…

No, just that one option.

But _board meeting_ , while very true, was also secret code for the Slade search, and Felicity personally believed that Oliver needed a bonk-on-the-head reminder that he wasn’t just comprised of his Arrow suit.

As though conceding defeat at her utter non-responsiveness to his hints, Oliver exhaled. “Eight o’clock?” he said.

“Seven-thirty.” Thea looked incredibly cheered up, and accepted a kiss on the head from her brother. “Don’t be late.”

Felicity waved in response to Thea’s bustling exit (apparently there was a liquor delivery she had to chase down), and turned back to Oliver, hiding half her face behind the gold envelope. “It _does_ sound like fun.”

“It’s a waste of time,” he grumbled. “Time we don’t have.”

“I agree, open bar and a black-tie gala at the — _whoa_ , Starling City Museum of Natural History — sounds like a _real_ rager,” Felicity said, reading off the immaculate invitation. “Cocktail shrimp and the ability to make fun of your mom’s campaign sponsors? Come on. How much do you wanna bet that one of them has an actual _monocle_?”

“I know what you’re doing.”

“Oliver, you, life, _living it_ ,” Felicity said, like the keywords were a set of flashcards and Oliver was about to take a big test on how to properly _Adult_. “Where’s your tux these days, or do you keep it in a cool glass case, too?”

Fortunately, Oliver’s fantastically witty comeback was cut off by a loud text alert on both their phones. “Meeting’s starting,” he grunted, and slipped his phone into his pocket. “Great. One more thing I don’t have time for.”

“It’s Tommy,” she reassured him. “It’s probably about getting a pool table in the Foundry. _Don’t worry_.”

* * *

“I’m starting to feel like the offer of free burgers and fries was a set-up,” Felicity said, halfway through her Guac Attack burger and spicy curlies. “Did you lure us down here for a team meeting?”

“‘Course not.” Tommy looked insulted in the middle of stealing her fries. “Oliver was already down here, filthy hermit. The rest of you — yes, I had to creatively incentivize.”

Felicity thought about protesting, but another bite of the burger took up the necessary mouth-to-brain room for her to form a coherent complaint. “Never mind. You can do whatever you want to me as long as there’s a burger involved.”

Sara laughed out loud in the brief but sudden lull in conversation, and Felicity cleared her throat. “Wow, even under the constant threat of disembowelment and a horrible murder-death, it’s a _good_ thing to know that my brain still won’t cooperate. Carry on.”

Even Oliver might have managed a smile in the middle of his doom-and-gloom phase.

“I didn’t know we could call team meetings outside every third Wednesday,” Diggle said, straight-faced and over a soda. “Or I would have pushed for the switch from greasepaint to mask a _long_ time ago.”

Oliver rolled his eyes, while Sara and Roy just looked amused (Felicity abstained for personal reasons). “What’s this about, Tommy?”

“Okay — all humor aside.” He clapped his hands together like he was about to ask them to join hands and pray. “There is a one-eyed, super-strong psychopath running around Starling City, who mysteriously turned up after — in Oliver’s graphic terms — _definitely_ getting an arrow shoved through his eye socket.”

Roy made a face with his mouth full. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Anyway, I’ve clearly lost some beauty sleep over this — have you seen my dark circles —” (Sara hit him, but affectionately) “—and I’ve come up with a plan.”

“Oh, this’ll be good,” Diggle muttered.

“We all need to take precautions, obviously. Harper and I can take the mansion, I mean I live there, and he shows up occasionally when Thea thinks he looks underfed —”

“ _Hey_ —”

Tommy shushed him. “Sara can watch her dad, since she’s the only one he won’t get all grumpy at, which leaves…”

It might have been Felicity’s overfamiliarity with Tommy’s showmanship instincts, but she could hear the internal drumroll, along with Diggle’s silent amusement.

“It’s rude to point,” she said, in response to Tommy’s finger. “And I’m fine.”

“You’re living alone. In a house. That Robin Hood poster might look cute over the fireplace, but it’s not going to come to life and beat the crap out of a psycho who decides to kick down your door and — I don’t know — _kill_ you dead,” Tommy said, and slapped Oliver’s chest. “Ollie, back me up here.”

Oliver seemed to have ingested an overly large bite of curly fry, and after an expectant silence during which everyone waited for him to clear his throat (Felicity included), he looked up. “Are you saying I should be camping outside Felicity’s house with my bike?” he said, very dryly.

Selectively oblivious as always to tone and context, Tommy snapped his fingers. “I like the enthusiasm, but I’m pretty sure even you’re gonna freeze something off in this kind of weather. So Felicity —”

“— doesn’t need a friend sleeping on her couch,” she interrupted, before he could articulate the rest of his _plucked-straight-from-a-rom-com_ idea, involving Oliver and hot cocoa, said hot cocoa being spilled on his clothes and necessitating him sitting shirtless or pantless or _something_ -less in front of her, at which point the respectable PG-13 rating would probably make the jump to triple-X.

No thanks.

Not just because she’d just done the whole triple-X thing with Oliver the night before, but Tommy didn’t need to know that.

“Not that anyone isn’t welcome to sleep on my couch, it’s just — I don’t think it’s the best idea.”

“Because your mysterious boyfriend might get miffed?” Tommy said, eyeing her beadily. “Is there any chance we can slap a wig on him, maybe shave down his legs, and Slade can shish-kabob him instead? Too dark? Okay. I’m sorry, don’t kill me.”

“I can think of a compromise,” Diggle said, as Oliver looked like he was on the brink of pulling his hair out just to have something to stab Tommy with.

Everyone looked over.

“Maybe Felicity could stay here for a couple of days,” he said, pointing at the Foundry. “There’s plenty of room — even _if_ Oliver’s already camping out."

“Oh, no —” Felicity shot Oliver a _help, please_ glance “—I don’t think that’s —”

“ _Basement lockdown_.” Judging from Tommy’s rapturous expression, he’d either just struck a faceful of gold, or the best idea of his life. “Digg, you — are — a _genius_. Hey, let’s do that. I’ll help you pack!”

Felicity raised her hand (or burger). “Excuse me, do I get any say in this?”

“Do you want the short version where I save you some trouble and answer _yes_ , or the part where I camp out in your office and pester you until it reaches the glorious heights of the _Santa Baby_ incident —”

“ _Gah_ , okay.” Felicity shuddered at the thought of a repeat of the dreaded _Santa Baby_ debacle. “Fine. Just a couple of days. Until Tommy regrows some perspective.”

She made eye contact with Oliver, who looked just about as tickled as she did. “Okay?”

He lifted his shoulders. “Okay.”

* * *

Cleaning had never been one of Tommy’s strong suits. Well, the kind of cleaning that _didn’t_ include swimsuit carwashes, but actual elbow-grease-something-lemon-scented-in-a-spray-bottle cleaning, the kind that involved reaching into corners and battling stubborn dust bunnies for supremacy.

And thank god, no spiders.

Yet.

“Remind me again why you’re making me do this?” Oliver asked, his tone making it abundantly clear that he found the whole exercise about as interesting as watching paint dry.

Which, given how there were vents constantly leaking steam into the basement, could conceivably take _forever_.

Tommy was on his toes and standing on a chair he’d borrowed, trying to reach the furthest corner of the steel cabinet. “Because, my unfairly handsome, yet totally clueless friend,” he said, turning to drop what looked like a handful of ninja throwing stars into the box he was making Oliver carry, “you can’t invite a lady to stay in this hellhole without making it _somewhat_ fit for human habitation. That includes removing loose weapons lying around the place — is this an actual _club_?”

“I didn’t invite her,” Oliver answered, in yet another superb demonstration of his ability to get the point. “ _You_ did.”

The two-foot cudgel dropped into the box with a loud _clang_ of protest, along with a less concrete eyeroll. “Excuse you, Operation: _Foundry Lockdown_ is the normal response to finding out there’s a Mirakuru Super Soldier running around Starling City,” Tommy said, spraying the air above Oliver’s head like the best-friend equivalent of a _bad doggy_. “And thanks to your inability to get your head unstuck from your sphincter — or gender equality and having a five-figure salary or whatever — Felicity still lives alone. Which is bad. Because super-strong psychopath man could kick down her front door and —”

“— _I know_ ,” Oliver interrupted. “You don’t have to remind me.”

It was a shade touchier than he’d expected, and Tommy glanced over at him. “Hey — you okay?”

Oliver looked up but didn’t answer, the boilerplate response for when he didn’t want to talk.

“I know we haven’t really had time to discuss the island friend coming back from the dead,” Tommy continued, in the face of the unhelpful silence. “But how are you? Sleeping okay? I think the last thing I saw you eat was a stick of gum, and only because you wanted to throw away the rest of the pack before I started blowing bubbles.”

“I’ll sleep when Slade Wilson’s dead in the ground, for real this time,” Oliver said, in a deathly calm voice that never failed to give him chills.

The unspoken rule about the Arrow and killing notwithstanding, Tommy was more concerned about the admission that Oliver was basically running on fumes. “ _Ollie_.” Tommy dropped from the chair with a soft thud. “I get that we’re on a manhunt, but you have to take care of yourself. I mean ingesting actual calories, and doing that thing where you close your eyes and pass out for at least seven hours. Not eating your weird energy herbal stuff that smells _and_ tastes like rat poison.”

“I’m fine,” he said, unhelpfully. “I’ve had less sleep on the island.”

Tommy snorted without meaning to, given the perpetually steaming Foundry (and not in a good way), exposed, dusty pipes, and random assorted weaponry concealed in the nooks and crannies like some kind of _Tomb Raider_ reboot. “Well, my bad for not noticing that you’re currently making up for that by living at the _height_ of luxury. Really, A-plus decorating down here. Was the rotting skeleton supposed to be in a cool glass case too — or did you send it off for polishing?”

“Ha-ha,” Oliver said, preoccupied (or pretending to be) with arranging the contents of the _For Charity_ box into some kind of order.

“Hey,” Tommy said, and Oliver glanced at him. “You’re not alone. You know that, right?”

A momentary pause, before his frown eased. “Well, thanks to you inviting everyone to stay in the Foundry, I won’t be.”

“ _That’s_ the spirit.” Tommy heard the Foundry door slam closed, and Felicity clomped into view looking distinctly in a worse mood than she’d been since the day started (possibly his fault). Though it might have had something to do with the suitcase she was dragging down the stairs with her, along with the swishy garment bag practically sweeping the concrete floor.

“So your offer to A) help me pack and B) help me carry all this stuff from the car was — what — a total flaming fib?” she said, dropping the garment bag into her chair.

Tommy patted himself down for his phone, even though the tightness of his jeans meant that he’d have felt anything vibrating harder than a twitching whisker. “Left my phone upstairs, I think. What’s with the bag? You planning to detach Oliver’s jaw with a risqué fashion show?”

“Ha-ha,” she said. “Your sister — _wow_ , that’s weird to say — anyway, Thea left it with my assistant. A mere twelve hours after talking to me. It’s couture. And pretty. And yes, I realize that _how_ and _why_ are probably lowest on the list of favorite questions in your guys’ bloodlines, but _how_ and _why_? Does she have an army of high-fashion designers on retainer or something?”

Tommy snorted. “I like to think of it as Thea being the biological offspring of the Roman god of partying or something — or demigod — but then _that_ makes me picture my dad wearing a hula skirt and glugging sangria, so maybe that’s not such…a good thought to vocalize. Yeah, it really wasn't.”

Oliver’s response was to help Felicity put the suitcase out of the way. “That’s why I try never to ask.”

“Helpful,” she snarked back. “Listen, can you take your own calls from det—sergeant Lance? I think he assumes I’m the Arrow’s secretary or something. He left me a bunch of messages about a case that’s been bugging the SCPD, some unusual elements —”

“ _Unusual_ for him, or for us?” Tommy asked, pulling out her chair at the usual workstation. “Important distinction there.”

“Good question. It was bugging me too, so I looked into it during my lunch hour. They found a dead body with an unusual murder weapon,” she said, bringing up about a dozen different files at the same time, including more than one bleached corpse. “See that?”

Tommy glanced at Oliver, who had an unreadable expression that could have meant anything between _Eureka!_ or _Thinking About My Dinner_. Since they were best friends, he was willing to extend the benefit of the doubt — hopefully because Oliver was thinking of ways to light candles and smuggle some wine into his sad man cave to impress Felicity.

_Anyway_.

“Shoot, I missed my qualification in _Hinky Murder Weapons_ ,” Tommy said, snapping his fingers. “What is it, O genius queen?”

Nobody picked up on the _queen_ pun. Typical.

Never underestimate Oliver while he was having vivid fantasies, or Felicity when she was locked onto a mystery. A match made in selective tunnel vision heaven.

“A minute hand,” she said, blowing up the picture so that they could see it, in all its blood-encrusted glory. “Like on a clock.”

“And Lance thinks this is important to us — why?” Oliver said bluntly.

The detachment in his voice, especially at a less-than-normal corpse, set off alarm bells in Tommy’s brain.

“Because the dead guy Edward Walczak was linked to the hi-tech theft at Kord Industries a few weeks ago,” Felicity said, oblivious to Tommy checking Oliver for external signs of alien activity. “He had a track record with B&Es, but he'd also been caught an embarrassing number of times, making it very unlikely that he managed to sneak into a place like Kord Industries to filch a piece of prototype tech. Security ID-ed Walczak off some old mugshots — apparently he and another guy posed as janitors to get inside the restricted area.”

“That’s interesting,” Tommy said.

“I think so too, especially since we know skeleton keys like the one Kord was working on can very easily be modified to break into secure vault systems. Chances are they’re waiting for a big enough score.”

“Like what? For a flying leprechaun to have a good day?” Tommy asked.

“Don’t know yet, I was going to look into it. Y’know, just in case we’re all still in the business of stopping crimes,” Felicity said, spinning halfway to face Oliver. “Still are, right?”

Oliver’s gaze flickered over to her. “The search for Slade Wilson is still the top priority. I don’t want you splitting your focus on something else.”

“ _Something else_ just happens to be a highly sensitive piece of cutting-edge tech, with the ability to wreck havoc on unsuspecting bank owners, and their customers. That’s a priority too,” she answered sharply, her eyebrows drawn together in a characteristic expression of digging her heels in.

Oh god, a fight.

“Guys,” Tommy said, holding his hands up like it was a time-out. “We all know that computers can multi-task, and run… _stuff_ …in the background, right? No need to butt heads.”

They ignored him. Maybe it would have helped if he’d used the right word.

_Programs_.

_Dammit, Tommy. Should have studied harder for SAT Verbal._

There was most definitely something going on in the long, unblinking looks they were giving each other, except instead of _I must have you now_ steaminess, it was more along the lines of a no-blinking staring contest, with the loser being the both of them, because they’d both be dead before either of them backed down.

“Oh my _god_ , get a room, you two,” he said, and paused for dramatic effect. “Get it? She’s crashing down here for a few days, so technically you already _have_ gotten a room together —”

“I’m going to chase down some leads on Slade,” Oliver said, and snatched his bow off the table.

“What about the gala?” Tommy said indignantly.

“I’ll be back before then. Call me if anything comes up.”

“Anything?” Felicity repeated, pretending she hadn’t heard. “Should I not bother you about banks getting robbed in the night because they’re not a one-eyed man with an accent?”

“We can talk later.” Oliver’s answer was through gritted teeth. “I’m going.”

“Fine.”

“ _Fine_.”

The door slammed, and Tommy crouched beside Felicity’s chair very gingerly. “I know Oliver’s not the easiest person to deal with a good day, but I thought you're pretty much the only person who still looks at him like he’s a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Since when did _you_ have such a temper?” he asked.

Felicity was hitting the keys so hard that he was half-expecting a backslash or an ampersand to go flying across the room like a speeding bullet. “I cannot believe that Slade Wilson is the one with the eye-patch, but your best friend somehow has worse eyesight.”

In a moment of purely random timing, Tommy wondered — inappropriately — why Oliver was only ever _his_ best friend when someone else was mad at him.

Still, he winced. “Well, when you put it like that…”

* * *

The bike’s engine was humming, echoing in the small underground garage where they kept the van and his motorbike. Oliver was about to lower the helmet onto his head when the garage doors — automated — creaked back shut again.

He blew out his breath. “What now?” he said, almost growling with annoyance at another interruption.

“Just me,” Diggle said. “Where you off to?”

“I need to do something.”

Unperturbed by his tone, Diggle only walked out into the middle of the doors, his arms folded. His gaze flicked over Oliver once, taking in the fact that he’d left his bow behind, and he wasn’t wearing his suit. “Which is?”

“Something I should have done a long time ago,” Oliver answered. “Can you move?”

“Do you need some backup?”

“No. Thanks.”

His response only seemed to confirm whatever Diggle’s suspicions were, and he walked up to Oliver like they were about to have a serious talk. “Look, man, I know this thing with Slade Wilson has you rattled, but whatever it is you’re about to do and won’t tell me, you need to make sure that it’s something you can live with,” he said. “There’s no point winning a battle just to lose the war. Someone like Slade isn’t worth that price, Oliver.”

“You don’t know what he’s capable of, John. And you don’t know that I’m not doing what’s necessary to find him. Now please, get out of my way.”

“Have you told Felicity?”

Oliver had known that Diggle might play his trump card, especially given how concerned he apparently was at Oliver’s choices, but the mention of Felicity — with what he was about to do — the people he was about to see — it sparked his agitation into anger. “Told her what?” he snapped.

“That you’re about to lose your damn mind,” Diggle answered, point-blank. “The things you’ve done as the Arrow aren’t always black and white, but you’ve kept them separate from who you are as Oliver Queen. I respect that, and I’m standing here right now because I think you’re about to drive out there without your mask, and do something even the Arrow isn’t supposed to do. Be — careful.”

“There’s a lot about me you don’t know, John,” Oliver said, putting on his helmet. “The worst things I’ve done — I’ve done without a mask. I’m doing this so the people I care about don’t have to get involved anymore than they already have.”

Diggle was shaking his head as Oliver waved to open the garage doors. He revved the engine once, drowning out what he said next.

But Oliver got the message anyway.

_Don’t_.

The tires screeched and Oliver raced out of the underground lot, emerging onto the frozen streets with one purpose in his mind.

They were running out of time.

And he was going to use the Bratva to find Slade Wilson.

* * *

Like she’d done about a billion times before, Felicity fidgeted with her expensive dress, more specifically, adjusting the gossamer thin strap along the left side of her back to make sure that the bullet scar was still covered.

“Do I even want to know why there was costume makeup in the Foundry?” she asked in an undertone. “That’s like…Broadway-level stuff you put on my shoulder.”

Tommy tilted his champagne glass at someone she’d never seen before in her life and winked at an older lady so bedecked in diamonds that she looked like a Tiffany display window at Christmas. “How do you think Oliver still does those shirtless calendar shots?” he shot back, another effortless swing in the verbal tennis game. “Stage makeup, baby.”

Felicity pulled him by the arm so that they circled the gigantic dinosaur skeleton at the center of the Natural History museum foyer. “Please don’t call me _baby_. These things already make me feel like a trophy wife without you tacking a nickname onto it.”

“Hypothetically, _if_ I were your type — which I’m apparently famously _not_ — I think with our relative difference in earning capacity and talent/skill levels, _I’d_ be young, hot, male equivalent of the Midwestern bimbo with the copious plastic surgery. You know, in our hypothetical marriage. What’s the male term for _trophy wife_?” he inquired, waving at someone else.

“Mantelpiece husband,” said a familiar voice, and they both turned.

McKenna was standing behind them in a floor-length heather gray dress, her hair waved and swept up in a style that looked nothing short of bonkers amazing. Or a more elegant adjective (pretty women always made Felicity’s brain a little breathless).

“ _Hi_ ,” Felicity said, giving her a quick (but careful-not-to-smoosh-anything) hug. “You made it. Thank god, I thought I was going to be by myself again.”

Tommy raised his hand. “Excuse me, right here.”

That part went momentarily disregarded, because _shush_ , the ladies were talking. “You look fantastic, by the way,” Felicity continued. “Very goddess-y. Emphasis on the _I could smite you with lightning_ part.”

McKenna always managed to laugh at Felicity’s awkward complimenting skills. “Then all the effort getting into this monstrosity was worth it,” she answered. “I love your dress. The green looks great on you.”

Felicity smoothed down a nonexistent wrinkle in the floaty silk, still a little (okay, a _lot_ ) self-conscious about the amount of back that was being exposed in the light-as-air design, which — judging from the skirt flowing sleekly from the waist of the dress — was meant to be all fluid and grace and elegance.

Ha, someone should have added a _Smoak Warning_ on the label.

“Thanks,” she said. “Can’t beat body armor though, which is what I feel like I need to talk to some of these people. They’re…not very nice.”

McKenna accepted the glass Tommy smoothly conjured up from nowhere (a passing waiter, probably). “Can’t disagree with you there. But it’s politics, right? Sebastian Blood has the _Man of the People_ angle down, which leaves Moira stuck with the corporate elite crowd. They’re the ones who pay for campaign ads.”

It was at that point Felicity noticed McKenna was standing almost at arm’s length from Tommy, and that she may or may not have been avoiding direct eye contact. “Okay,” she said. “I think I’m going to see if Oliver’s here yet. Office stuff, you know. Work never stops. Catch you guys later, okay?”

Tommy inclined his head, and McKenna smiled. “See you later, Felicity.”

Felicity hastily downed the rest of her champagne as soon as she turned her back, and started up the stairs. At least her and Oliver weren’t the only ones experiencing relationship turbulence.

Well, misery _loved_ company.

* * *

The circular hall was surrounded by dappled marble pillars and an upper-level balcony running along the circumference beneath the domed ceiling. Felicity had chosen a spot with the balanced perks of overlooking the front entrance so she could spot Oliver if and when he decided to show as promised, and situated so she could hide from the campaign photographers discreetly making the rounds and snapping candids.

Unfortunately, counting the number of times someone’s diamond jewelry could momentarily blind her got old fast, and Felicity ended up staring at the tiled ceiling, a deep sapphire blue to mimic the night sky through the windows, scattered with golden constellations she may or may not have already known like the back of her hand.

“Oliver’s favorite is Orion."

Felicity recognized the voice even before Moira stepped up to join her by the railings, a cut-crystal flute of champagne in hand. “Do you take an interest in constellations, Miss Smoak?”

In spite of them being back to last-name terms, Felicity didn’t take a personal approach by Moira as a necessarily overt threat, not after the dinner at the mansion and everything with Oliver. “Not much for dinosaurs, but I liked space,” she said, as though there wasn’t a gigantic brontosaurus fossil in the middle of the hall below. “I always wanted to go to space camp as a kid. Never panned out, but…I did my reading. Memorized a few nebulas. Maybe an encyclopedia of constellations.”

“I see,” Moira said. “And your favorite?”

“Leo,” she answered, without hesitation. “I know there’s the Big Dipper, and Pleiades, and Ursa Major, but…I don't know, the lion feels…protective.”

“Or ferocious,” Moira suggested, as though she was recognizing a worthy quality in an adversary. “I realize I owe you an apology, Miss Smoak.”

Or an ally.

Felicity didn’t bother to pretend she didn’t know what for. “I thought your way of apologizing was the dinner last week,” she said, keeping her tone neutral.

“Yes, well, I think given the circumstances, you deserve a spoken apology. I didn’t realize how important you were to my son. I also made the mistake of assuming he was the same boy I used to have to shield, and protect. To fix his messes, and smooth over his mistakes. That, I have done for him. But a long time ago — almost a lifetime away now.” Moira was looking out over the crowd, her expression vaguely nostalgic.

And sad, as though she’d lost someone. A little boy she’d loved very much, a son who’d grown up and become…someone else.

“I’m sorry, Felicity,” Moira said, turning to look her in the eye. “I suppose Oliver isn’t the same person he used to be.”

“In a good way,” Felicity said, quietly. “He’s so much more now. He’s…kind, and good, and brave — _stubborn_ —”

Moira chuckled. “Yes, you don’t have to remind me,” she said, with a gleam of self-deprecation. “He still refuses to speak to me, and after last week, well, I suppose he’s still furious.”

Felicity shook her head. “He loves his family, Mrs Queen. He’d do anything for you, and Thea, and Tommy. I promise that’s always going to be true.”

“Even lie to a sister he loves very much, to protect a mother he despises,” Moira said, looking vaguely sad again. “Both my sons seem to be agreed on that. And I know I’m not worth it. I simply am not.”

“What are you saying?” Felicity asked.

“That maybe…it’s time to tell Thea, and accept the consequences as they come,” Moira said thoughtfully. “Do you think it might be enough for Oliver to forgive me?”

Felicity didn’t have an answer, because she sensed that even Moira didn’t know, with all her talents at reading people and infinite plans within plans, endless contingencies and failsafes. “I think…” she began, carefully, “I think that Oliver’s strongest quality is his heart. It’s what I love about him, and I think it’ll lead him to the right choice.”

Moira smiled again. “I rather thought his heart was you, Miss Smoak.”

Felicity felt her face grow warm again, but Moira’s neutral expression grew a little more rigid at something below them. She followed the direction of her gaze, and spotted a flash of red in the crowd. Isabel Rochev was speaking to Sebastian Blood, smiling like she didn’t actually want to eat his brains with a crab fork.

“Miss Rochev seems to have chosen her side,” Moira said, in faint amusement. “My, I wouldn’t want to start a civil war within Queen Consolidated because of the election.”

“I didn’t know they knew each other,” Felicity said, her forehead wrinkling in confusion.

“Oh, I’m sure Miss Rochev has a wealth of hidden connections.” Moira tipped her glass slightly, as though toasting Isabel. “It seems my husband taught her well while they were both at Queen Consolidated.”

There was something in her tone that made Felicity glance at her, wondering if there was more to the casual neutrality. Then again, it was Moira Queen. Of course there was.

“Well, I think I must speak to some of my guests,” Moira said, depositing her glass with a nearby waiter. “Would you like to join me? Maybe you could shore up your own formidable wealth of connections.”

Felicity smiled in spite of herself. “I think I’ll just wait here.”

Moira reached out and took her hand, grasping it briefly in something of a handshake. “Thank you, Miss Smoak, for not looking at me like the monster my son believes I am,” she said. “But I don’t think Oliver will be making an appearance tonight, do you?”

Before Felicity could answer, Moira was gliding away, graceful as ever, down the steps to rejoin the party.

In spite of everything, Moira was a very smart woman, and deep down, Felicity suspected that she was right.

* * *

“Dance?” Tommy said. “Or would you rather fight by the buffet table? But you should know that I play dirty in food-related skirmishes, and this tux is _very_ expensive to dry-clean.”

McKenna flashed him a dangerous kind of look, the eye equivalent of a warning switchblade flick. But she still grasped his hand and followed him to the dance floor, where they were probably the youngest couple dancing to the slow song.

“I know the last few weeks have been…difficult,” Tommy said lamely. “I mean, the hostage crisis at the courthouse wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, though I’m not entirely sure why you discovering my secret jujitsu skills is a _bad_ thing…”

McKenna was looking over his shoulder at the other dancing couples, not speaking. Tommy exhaled. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

“I told you before, I don’t think the Arrow’s a bad guy,” McKenna said, finally. “I knew you had a direct hotline to him, I assumed you’ve seen where he works, but I just didn’t think you’d try to _become_ him.”

“I’m not trying to —”

“Bruises, scrapes, cracked bones,” she rattled off. “Sounds like the Arrow’s nightly once-over to me. I know you think I’m straight-laced, and maybe that’s true, but I don’t think it’s _stiff_ of me to suggest that maybe you’re taking things a little too far. I’m not going to watch you kill yourself, Tommy. I care about you too much for that.”

“I won’t, you know I won’t,” he said. “I’m still here. I promise someone’s making sure I take care of myself, including me.”

“What would Laurel think?” McKenna asked, in a very different voice. “What would she say — if she knew you were risking your neck every night on the streets?”

It was Tommy’s turn to stare at something completely unrelated. “You don’t have to bring up Laurel, you know,” he said. “She’s not the only person I’d make promises to.”

“Those kinds of promises are hard to keep, Tommy,” McKenna said.

They looked at each other, not quite standing still in the middle of the dance floor, but almost.

“I promise I’ll always be careful, but…I _have_ to do this, McKenna,” he said. “After the Undertaking, after everything that happened, I’ve just felt like I haven’t been doing the right thing, you know? I haven’t been doing enough. Not damn near enough.”

“So re-open CNRI, donate to the earthquake relief fund, do — _something_ — to honor Laurel’s memory, but don’t kill yourself trying to be a vigilante,” McKenna answered fiercely.

Tommy touched her cheek, holding her still. “It’s not about Laurel,” he said. “It’s about my dad, it’s about his legacy, and watching the Arrow do what he does…it’s just reminded me that there’s so much I need to do to make up for how much Malcolm tipped the scales. This is who I _need_ to be. Can you accept that?”

For a second, he thought McKenna would have said no, but she studied his face in a long moment of impenetrable silence. “You’re making me wish Old Tommy was still around,” she said, resting her head on his shoulder while they danced. “He was annoying, but at least he wasn’t trying to be a hero.”

Tommy cracked a smile. “So you still like me?”

“I’ve always liked you, Tommy,” she murmured. “I’m starting to think that’s part of the problem. You’re just too damn hard to shake.”

* * *

Felicity took the phone from her purse, and clicked the clasp shut. She was sitting on a padded bench in the shadow of another reconstructed fossil, a saber-toothed tiger snarling into the darkened exhibit, at the lifelike lions and lionesses and panthers and leopards prowling safely behind the lit glass walls. Space exhibits were a little short in the Natural History museum, but predators of the open plains and wild forests were a second favorite exhibit of hers. Proud and untamable, powerful, leonine, and _golden_.

She thought she might have wandered around with a certain someone, holding hands and talking, sharing stories. But he’d stood her up.

Still no answer from Oliver, not her calls or her texts.

A soft breath, passing between her parted lips. She’d known Oliver would spiral, from the second he realized Slade Wilson was back to the living and breathing world, but goddammit, not like this.

It was one thing not to push her away, but Oliver was now actively walking in another, undisclosed and completely impromptu direction. Away from her, from Diggle, from Tommy, Sara…everybody he loved and cared about, something he'd allowed against his better instincts, apparently.

Emotional and rational shutdown. Default mode. No distractions, no complications except his target.

Felicity shook her head and pressed _call_ again. This time, she was going to leave him a message she hoped he’d hear.

As expected, it went straight to voicemail.

“Hi,” she said. “So you’re definitely not coming to the museum, and if I know you, which I do, you’re probably doing something you _think_ you have to, just like you tried to push me away, just like you’re keeping your distance from everybody, right now. But I just want to say that it doesn’t have to be like this. You are surrounded by people who can help you, who _want_ to help you. You should let them. They are going to be targets, no matter what you do. No matter how hard you try to keep them at arm’s length. But they’re your team, Oliver. They’re your family.”

She softened her voice.

“Call me back, okay?” she whispered. “I love you.”

She hung on for a few seconds more, listening to the ringing silence at the other end like it might give her something, but of course it couldn’t. So she ended the call, and returned the phone to her purse.

Then she stood up, straightening her spine and shoulders, smoothing her hands down the front of her dress. The light shining down behind her back cast a shadowed reflection of herself in the glass wall, a contrast of light and dark, a ghost that existed in another half-world. Felicity turned slightly, and the skirt clung effortlessly in silky waterfall folds, all rich and emerald green and a sight Oliver would probably never get to see.

Alone at a party, and thinking pointlessly to herself.

_Or not._

Footsteps were muffled on the carpet, which was why she didn’t hear anything until she noticed a faint reflection in the glass cases facing her, shaped in the unmistakable outline of a person. _Frack_.

“Sorry,” she said, preemptively starting an apology to the annoyed security guard she’d sidestepped by wandering out of the party area and into the exhibits. “I went to the ladies’ room, and I guess I took the wrong door, ended up in the Serengeti. I’ll get straight out of your w—”

“I should be the one apologizing; I didn’t mean to interrupt an important call.”

She whirled at the voice, her breath caught in her throat, heart slamming against her ribs. “What are you doing here?”

A slow smile twisted Slade’s mouth at the question, but he didn’t answer. “It appears our paths have once again crossed,” he said. “ _Felicity_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- In case anyone's interested, the dress I had in mind for Felicity is based off a lovely edit by @quebecolicityfan: https://www.instagram.com/p/BDjCJvSsLqa/  
> \- But, more importantly, CLIFFHANGER ENDING. Sorry 'bout that. Thanks to @Karlyblack for the evil idea though.  
> \- Oh, and I dug up the Clock King. Partly to emphasize Oliver's total lack of priorities.  
> \- Just in case I don't get to post before Christmas, happy holidays everybody! It's been a pleasure writing this story, and I'm ecstatic that the reaction has been what it is. Best readers anyone could ask for. Until the next update :)


	29. Chaos on a String (Deathstroke, Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hellooooo. Apparently I don't control when inspiration strikes and after a whole weekend of loafing around doing nothing, I get hyped up on Monday morning and write for eight hours straight. Heh.  
> BRATVA OLIVER. REPEAT: BRATVA OLIVER.

Felicity Smoak was about to make a sweeping declaration: no more parties. None. Zip. Zilch. Not even for her birthday, a move that was probably long overdue anyway, her being well into her twenties. But the embargo would _so_ extend to the late-night Big Belly extravaganzas with the others, in the spirit of _Hey We Just Saved the City, Otherwise Known As Wednesday_.

Puritanical? Yes. Necessary? Definitely.

She couldn’t remember a party that hadn’t started or ended with some kind of epic fiasco. Dinner party at the Queen Mansion? Slade showing up and throwing her boyfriend around his own house just because he could. Office holiday party? Warm and tender fuzzy moment interrupted by a Big Mirakuru Man murdering a security guard to steal an industrial-grade centrifuge for some _bad_ stuff.

As far as she was concerned, it was a running jinx.

More importantly, it occurred to Felicity that she was having a frantic internal monologue on the future banning of group gatherings for the purpose of merriment, all while Oliver’s shady arch-nemesis with the super-killing skills and probable revenge-rage issues was standing less than fifty feet away from her, in a deserted corner of a museum that nobody — including them — was supposed to be in.

Oh, and they were surrounded by dead things arranged into educational exhibits.

Fantastic.

Maybe the reason she was so unnaturally calm was because her internal _Danger-O-Meter_ had broken from the skyrocketing adrenaline currently shooting around her nervous system, and holy _frack_ was she in trouble this time.

But Felicity was perfectly capable of keeping her head on straight in circumstances that were less than zero percent helpful at encouraging calmness, and she took half a step back, no more, no less.

“If you’re looking for Oliver, he’s not here, and I’m terrible at taking messages,” she said.

Slade made a sound between a huff and a grunt, and it took her a second to process that it was a sign of amusement. “A sharp wit,” he commented. “Even in the face of danger. I thought I might have caught a glimpse of it during our very memorable dinner, but now I see I was right. A fire burns inside of you.”

Felicity didn’t move. It would take more than a creeping compliment from an extremely creepy guy to make her anything less than on edge.

“Thanks,” she answered. “Razor-sharp comebacks come in handy when I’m dealing with the bottom of the proverbial human barrel. Offence intended.”

Another throaty chuckle from Slade, except this time he began to step forward. The ceiling spotlights shone in intervals along the thickly carpeted floor, rings of amber light in the middle of deep shadow, and Felicity’s heart leapt into her throat as he passed into darkness and re-emerged into the next halo of light, never taking his gaze from her face the whole time, until he was too close to count as being on the opposite side of the room.

Twenty feet now.

And she couldn't think of any reason why he'd moved closer, except to make her show that she was scared.

“I apologize for startling you, Felicity,” Slade said, with the same insincere sincerity he’d broken out as Moira’s guest. “I would have approached you earlier, but Oliver’s friend Mr Merlyn was constantly at your side, and I don’t think he would have taken kindly to the suggestion that we talk alone. Did Oliver ask his best friend to watch you? Is he afraid you might stumble and fall? Or that you might be snatched away by someone more…deserving?”

Invisible shivers were crawling the length of Felicity’s spine, raising chills along her bare arms and shoulders. “None of the above,” she said. “I’m just _great_ company to have at a party.”

She sensed his head-to-toe appraisal, and a slow smile curled the corners of his mouth. “You look lovely. Green suits you very well indeed.”

Felicity swallowed, her hands — hidden in the folds of her silk dress — balled into fists. “I don’t know what happened between you and Oliver on the island,” she began, in a voice that was thankfully free of a situation-appropriate tremor, “but this stops now. All the mind games, all the threats, it has to stop. He’s changed since then. Five years away changed Oliver. He’s a good man, and he’s become someone who fights to make Starling City better.”

“Does he, now?” Slade asked, tonelessly.

“ _Yes_ ,” she insisted. “I know Oliver, and what happened with Shado wasn’t his fault, even though he thinks it is. He’s just —”

“—a _liar_ ,” Slade said, in a voice so filled with fury that Felicity caught her breath and trailed off into silence. “A false friend, a disloyal brother, and a man who deserves everything — _everything_ — that I will unleash upon him.”

She didn’t say a word, staring at his face, which wore a look of undisguised hatred beyond anything she’d thought was humanly possible, and it was directed at Oliver over something that happened with Shado.

“If you hate him so much, then why haven’t you killed him?” she asked. “What’s the point of all this… _manipulating_? Getting Brother Blood to experiment with the Mirakuru, paying wackos like the Count to wreck havoc on Starling…what’s the point? If all you want is revenge — if all you can _see_ is getting back at Oliver for something he did, then why are you holding back?”

It was probably a stupid thing to do, gutsily challenge a super-humanly strong man on his convictions, especially when he looked angry enough to take on a few heavyweight wild animals and maybe a wall of concrete, and still have the energy to kill her and Oliver.

Slade looked momentarily surprised at the mention of the Count, as though it hadn’t occurred to him that she was capable of putting two and two together and identify him as the mysterious _benefactor_ who’d bankrolled Vertigo’s rerun.

That same moment of surprise had allowed him to smooth over his rage, and the mask was back on when he turned back to her, wearing an expression that seemed almost regretful.

“So he hasn’t told you the full story,” he said, like it was a condolence. “You still don’t understand why he deserves what’s coming, and more.”

“So stop speaking in double meanings and _tell me_ ,” she snapped, because now it was her turn to lose it. “Or are you afraid that your story won’t match up with this whole _revenge plot fantasy_ you’re building up to?”

Slade raised one hand silently to the level of her throat, and the gesture — like he was lifting a sword — along with the proximity of his fingertips to her skin made Felicity draw her head back, her chin tilted up to avoid his touch. “You are a woman of rare conviction, Felicity,” he said huskily. “I would have killed others for less. But you of all people deserve to know why Oliver Queen has to suffer before I end him, why he deserves to have everything ripped away from him, to be completely alone and abandoned and in despair — before I put my sword through his chest.”

Threats aside, Felicity wasn’t afraid of the truth, and she stood her ground. “Tell me.”

* * *

Oliver yanked his helmet off. He was well aware of the time, that Felicity was at the party expecting him to show up, a guilt-ridden frustration compounded by the Bratva’s system of paranoid complexity when it came to the location of their captains. The previous location had turned up empty from a sudden move, necessitating a delay while he tracked the information down from human sources, and now here he was, in sight of where the Bratva leadership in Starling City was currently laying low.

He was also being followed.

“I don’t like being spied on,” he said, stopping in the middle of the alley.

Something in the shadows high up began to move and shift, and a flash of gold hair appeared on the fire escape, flipping down on a length of silk trademark of the League of Assassins.

Sara straightened up after landing in a crouch, as free of her mask and gear as he was, wordlessly but resolutely standing in his way.

“I don’t like being followed either, but that’s how it works with us, right?” she answered. “I pull you back when you’re getting close to the edge, and you’ll do the same for me.”

Oliver didn’t say anything.

Sara tried again. “Look, as someone who’s not a big fan of showing my family the worst parts of myself, I know what it looks like when someone’s doing something they’d rather the people they love not hear about. But what are you doing, Ollie? The _Bratva_? They’re thugs and brutalizers and crime bosses who make the city worse than it should be. Why are you going to them for help?”

“Says the person who joined a league of trained cutthroat killers,” Oliver said, and took a momentary — but entirely unjustified — stab of satisfaction at seeing Sara wince. “Digg told you to follow me.”

“He thought there was a better chance you’d listen to me,” she said. “But to be fair, I got a head start since I was already on your tail.”

“Sara, I’m fine,” Oliver said. “I’m doing what needs to be done.”

She rolled her eyes. “You always say that when you can’t think of any other reason to do something,” she said. “I know your tells, and I know _you_ , Ollie. You’re not fine. You’re on the edge, and I’m trying to grab you before you fall.”

“Slade Wilson is a ghost. He was trained to disappear, and that’s exactly what he’s done. I’ve given it time, I’ve tried to find him the way we find everyone else trying to hide from the Arrow, but Slade’s _not_ everyone else, and every second I hold back from exhausting all my options is one more second that my mother, my sister, and everyone else I care about — including you — are in danger.”

“You forgot to mention Felicity,” Sara said, and it was his turn to flinch. “Because if _exhausting your options_ was so great, you’d have run the plan by her, just like you do with everything else. You know she wouldn’t like this, because it isn’t you. It isn’t who you are _now_. Don’t let desperation blind you to that.”

Oliver bristled, glaring down at Sara while she stared defiantly back. “The person I am today doesn’t care about what I have to sacrifice if the people I love stay safe, so get out of my way, or I swear I will —”

“What?” she challenged. “Fight me? I’d like to see you try. Because that would make you just as insane and ruthless as Slade Wilson, and like I’ve been saying — that’s not you.”

Oliver turned and started to walk the other way, but it wasn’t to get back on his bike.

“Where are you going now?” she demanded. “Because if you’re trying to stop me from following you, I recommend using that bike.”

“I’m going to see a few old friends in the Russian mob,” Oliver called back. “You can either stay there, or come with me to make sure I don’t fall over the so-called edge.”

There was a second of silence, then he heard Sara curse to herself, and her footsteps following behind him. That was where they were the most alike, for all their talk of edges and holding back. Sara knew what it looked like when a situation was reduced to nothing but singularly unpalatable options, and now was one of those times.

Oliver pushed the thought away as soon as it came to mind — the instinctive certainty that Felicity wouldn't see it the same way.

* * *

“Shado was a lovely young woman,” Slade said, the look in his eye faraway and out of focus, remembering. “There was something gentle about the way she saw the world, how she always looked for the best in others, even those furthest from deserving it. She was kind to me, a comfort in an unkind reality, and like you — she had a fire inside of her that burned brightest against those who tried to hurt those she cared about.” He turned his head to look at Felicity, an action almost reptilian, as though he wanted to see what she’d do next. “Oliver loved her.”

He caressed the words with deliberate tenderness, even though she knew it was meant to be a knife sticking out from her skin.

“Beautiful, strong, and a fighter,” Slade continued. “She was an archer, you know. The green hood was hers first. Oliver begun to wear it only because she offered it to him, because it was a way to honor her father Yao Fei, a man they’d both cared deeply for. He wears it even now, as the so-called _Arrow_.”

“Then Sara resurfaced from the dead, and Oliver turned away from Shado, turned his back on a woman who loved him, the way he turned his back on Laurel Lance, in pursuit of someone else. He gets tired of women easily, no matter how much they all care for him, and Oliver has _always_ been easy to care for, hasn’t he?”

A voice at the back of Felicity’s mind echoed _yes_. A smirk crossed Slade’s face, as though he’d sensed the small disloyalty, the first crack weakening her faith in Oliver.

“Shado accepted Oliver’s change of heart, because our main thought at the time was to escape from the island. There was a man called Anthony Ivo — a scientist, a man with high expectations and a ruthless devotion to pushing the boundaries of the known world. He was looking for the Mirakuru, and Oliver led Shado straight into his path. I was injured protecting Oliver and the others, and he left me for dead on an abandoned submarine, after injecting me with the Mirakuru in the hopes it would save my life. While I was dead to the world, Ivo captured the three of them — Oliver, Sara, and Shado.”

Felicity shut her eyes, as though it could stop the words from coming. As though it could stop them from powering towards an ending she already knew, described in a way she never thought she’d have to hear.

“But Ivo didn’t shoot Oliver. No, he wanted to punish him for his defiance — his deliberate hindrance to his progress with the Mirakuru. So he forced them into a forest clearing, all three of them, together on a dark night. He held up his gun, with Sara and Shado on their knees. Defenceless, captured. In the crosshairs because of Oliver. He said that both would die unless Oliver chose. Oliver should have chosen the woman who’d saved his life, time and time again. He should have chosen the woman who’d ensured his survival on the island, who’d let him wear the only thing left she had of her dead father, who _trusted_ him with her heart and soul —” Slade broke off, and inhaled deeply, like he needed a moment to gather his composure.

“Oliver didn’t choose her,” he said, very quietly. “He chose Sara, in spite of all he owed Shado. Ivo shot her in the head and left her dead on the forest floor, because of Oliver. He could have saved Shado, but he chose to forget all she had done for him, all for a passing affection for someone from a past life. I was too late to stop Ivo. Shado is dead because of Oliver Queen, and I blame him for it, every moment of every day.”

Felicity unstuck her throat, but her mouth was as dry as sand when she managed to find the words. “You said Ivo forced Oliver to choose,” she said slowly. “Someone would have died. Oliver —”

“He concealed the truth from me, let me believe that Ivo, and _only_ Ivo, had been responsible for killing Shado, when his choice had meant the difference between life and death. Only a guilty conscience lies, Felicity, and Oliver lied, and lied to protect himself. He still does, and always will. Why do you think he doesn’t show his true face to his mother and sister? Why do you think he’s never told you about what truly happened to Shado, and the part he played in her death?”

Slade punctuated each sentence with a step towards Felicity, until they were inches apart and he was circling her, whispering the words now.

“I’d spare you, you know,” he said. “You are a rare woman, and innocent of any wrong in this. Oliver lied to you, Felicity. He’s made you believe he’s a different man from the one he truly is. You deserve to walk away with whatever innocence you have left — I could help you.”

Felicity flinched away from him, her hands coming up like she wanted to cover her ears. “ _Stop it_ ,” she snapped. “Oliver’s not the same person from the island. He feels guilt over what happened to Shado — I’ve seen it. The whole story doesn’t change that. He _feels_ remorse, and he wears that hood to honor what she meant to him. You said that Shado was beautiful, and gentle, and kind. But you’re just twisting the truth into whatever you need it to be — so that you can justify a vendetta that Shado wouldn’t have wanted. Oliver’s honoring Shado as the Arrow — just like his dad, and Yao Fei, and Laurel. _That_ looks like something Shado would be proud of, not your revenge pl—”

She gasped, because Slade’s hand had shot out to grasp her wrist, pulling her inch by painstaking inch towards him, in spite of her fierce struggle against his inhuman strength. The veins in her arm were tingling from the lack of circulation, but the bones in her wrist were starting to scream with pain from his grip.

All this paled in comparison to Slade leaning close to her face, all appearances of compassion gone for good.

“Do not,” he warned, “speak of matters you cannot begin to understand.”

Every instinct in Felicity’s body was telling her to keep her mouth shut, because Slade was one effortless jerk away from maiming her arm, or worse. “I’m the one who’s known Oliver for the last two years,” she answered, with an icy calm she wasn’t expecting. “So right back at you, Mr Wilson.”

The purse she’d dropped to the floor was vibrating, she could feel it in her feet. Her phone. Oliver. Or someone else.

Just like the night at the mansion, when Slade had been surrounded by hostiles, a slow smile played around his mouth. Felicity glared right back into his _extremely-dangerous-and-incredibly-close_ face, as though she had nothing to be afraid of, and right at that very moment, the so-called fire he’d seen was roaring something fierce inside her chest.

So she stayed stock still, even when he moved even closer, until his beard was tickling the side of her face and ear.

“This was a courtesy,” he whispered hoarsely. “I saw something of Shado in you, and I thought it would be fair to give you the last option to remove yourself from a fight that never should have involved you in the first place. But I see now that Oliver has you incurably deceived, and you’ve let yourself be blinded by your feelings for him. You’re lost, and when I come for him to fulfill my promise, you won’t be spared.”

He paused.

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t save you from him.”

_That_ did it. Not just the incredibly patronizing tone underlying the whole conversation, and the implication that anything Slade said — the super villain in this equation, just BTW — could make even one iota of a difference in her loyalties.

But the special treatment for the apparent damsel in Oliver’s life who couldn’t rub her two brain cells together to make the intelligent and informed choice about what the fracking hell she wanted to do with herself — _that_ was what sparked her highly flammable temper into full _inferno_ mode.

“ _Get the hell away from me_ ,” Felicity snarled, jerking back to spit the words into Slade’s face. “I don’t need saving, and I’ve seen enough to know that people like you are meant to be stopped by people like Oliver. And he _will_ stop you, because I will make sure he has every resource and every kind of help he needs to take you down.”

She knew even before the words had left her mouth that they were bone-breaking material, but contrary to the agonizing _snap_ she’d expected of Slade snapping her arm like a twig, he did what she asked.

Just like that, Slade’s face was wiped clean of all expression again, and he released his grip with a flick of his fingers, stepping back with his hands in his pockets. Felicity stayed perfectly unmoving, even though her wrist stung and burned, the blood rushing into her numb hand after the bruising show of force.

“It seems the sides have already been chosen,” Slade said, looking her from head to toe again. “We will meet again, Felicity. _That_ , I am sure of.”

“Can’t wait,” she answered sarcastically. “Better luck next time.”

Slade cocked his head slightly, as though he’d heard something she hadn’t. “My words exactly,” he said, and his arm flew up with the kind of speed that made her stumble back —

— to catch a knife that looked a _lot_ like the ones Sara had lying around, and was frequently seen pulling out of boot legs, sleeves, and belts.

Except the person who’d thrown it — with impressive accuracy — wasn’t Sara.

It was Tommy, standing at the entrance to the exhibit with his hand outstretched, glaring at Slade with a look sharp enough to leave a pretty deep cut of its own.

“Get the hell away from her,” he said.

A thin trail of blood trickled down the side of Slade’s hand, but when he swapped the knife to his other hand with a glance at his open palm, Felicity couldn’t see anything deeper than a hairline scratch and a smear of blood, disproportionate to the level of human injury that should have been incurred by catching a razor-sharp throwing knife at full speed.

“Tommy Merlyn, the white knight,” Slade said mockingly. “I’m glad I didn’t waste my time trying to make you see sense.”

“Wouldn’t believe it from you anyway.” Tommy was walking towards them, and Felicity waved her arm at him in a gesture to stay back.

“Tommy, _don’t_ ,” she said.

“As much as it would amuse me to watch an amateur play the hero,” Slade said, standing his ground, “I think you all have more pressing concerns to deal with.”

Then he moved, hurling the knife towards the ceiling. Felicity felt Tommy collide into her, sending them both crashing to the ground as the light above Slade cracked in a burst of sparks and static, plunging where he stood into darkness.

Felicity struggled back up to look over Tommy’s shoulder. He was crouched protectively in front of her, but she could feel it too, scanning the shadows for signs of movement.

“He’s gone,” she said.

Tommy turned to peer at her. “Are you okay?” he asked. “Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head, even though he was looking at her wrist. “Jesus,” he muttered. “Oliver’s gonna freak. Although I’m having serious mixed feelings about that, since him standing you up in the first place was how that slippery, one-eyed piece of human slime got you alone anyway —”

“Did you find her?” McKenna had reached the door now, out of breath like she’d been running. Then she processed that the two of them were on the floor. “Felicity — god — are you okay?”

“I’m fine, I swear,” she promised, trying to hide her wrist from Tommy. “I think my phone was ringing just now. Might be…stuff.”

McKenna exhaled. “I _can_ occasionally put two and two together, you know. Arrow business, right?”

Tommy flashed a smile at his girlfriend over handing Felicity her purse. She pulled out her phone with her non-tremor-shot arm and flicked through the updates. No calls from Oliver, but quite possibly _all_ the Bad Stuff alerts from the Foundry computer.

“We have to go,” she said.

“What is it?” Tommy asked, and she lifted her head.

“Trouble.”

* * *

“No word from Oliver,” Diggle said.

Tommy hung up and turned to them with a similar expression of _oh crap_. “No Sara, either.”

“Where the hell are they?” Roy said impatiently.

Felicity was working on the computer, trying to estimate the extent of the urgent crisis they were facing while shorthanded, and also ignoring the ice pack Tommy kept trying to put on her moving wrist, which was starting to bruise in the unmistakable outline of Slade’s hand. “Hopefully, somewhere that involves Sara stopping Oliver from doing permanent damage before I can kill him myself.”

“Jeez, remind me never to stand you up at a party,” Tommy muttered, looking at her like she was radioactive matter.

“So what’s going on now?” Diggle asked, more towards the point. “Do we know where the skeleton key’s being used?”

“It’s a little harder to track unless I have a sample of what I’m looking for, and Kord’s _very_ proprietary about their specs, even for stolen prototypes. So I’ve been monitoring bank accounts tied to private vaults for large and sudden influxes of cash, because I’m guessing that they’re saving the big number for a score that’s worth the effort, and for a bank account compatible to the skeleton key’s hacking specs. Which brings me to just now. Unidac Incorporated’s being taken over and as of two hours ago, their largest shareholder liquidated his holdings in the company. Add that to the millions already in his private vault and we have —”

“— a target,” Tommy said. “It triggered the alarm?”

“So to speak,” Felicity said. “The bank doesn’t know because they’re being hacked by the guys doing this — mastermind with computer expertise — so we’re pretty much the only ones who know it’s going down.”

“But no Oliver, no Sara,” Diggle said. “Not exactly the end of the world.”

“Are you insane?” Tommy said. “Those guys killed Kord Industries security guys. They’re probably armed to the teeth. You’ll walk out looking like someone went a little crazy with the push pins — which I know sounds awesome because you should be dead in that scenario and you walking means that you’re a reanimated zombie, but —”

“—what Tommy’s trying to say,” Felicity interrupted, “is that it’s dangerous to go alone. But we don’t have any backup, and Oliver was _very_ clear about you going out into the field without him.”

Tommy scratched the back of his head. “Well…”

His tone must have alerted Diggle and Felicity, because they both swung around with near-identical looks of scrutiny. Diggle was the first to react. “Oh hell,” he muttered, raising his hands to his head.

The ice pack landed on the floor unnoticed. “What?” Felicity said.

Diggle folded his arms with a complete _you are so busted_ dad look. “These two have been out on the streets,” he said, jabbing a finger at him and Roy.

“ _What?_ ” she repeated. “Does Oliver know?”

Roy snorted, and Tommy’s sarcasm reflexes kicked into full gear. “Gee, did I tell my best friend with the famously short fuse that I’ve been testing the limits of his explicit instructions _not_ to do something? I’m pretty, not stupid. Besides…”

He trailed off in response to Diggle and Felicity’s glares of wintry disapproval. “Sara said we could,” he finished, lamely.

“Didn’t think about how stupid that sentence would sound out loud, did you?” Roy said disloyally, and Tommy batted a hand to shush him.

Felicity pinched the bridge of her nose. “Well, I mean, as long as _aunt Sara_ said the kids could do it…”

Tommy raised his hand, ignoring Diggle’s silent head-shake to not. “Can I just say that I love how you’re owning your position as Oliver’s work wife, and —” he added hastily, in response to her purely dangerous glare in response, “look, Oliver’s not exactly reasonable when it comes to this kind of thing. So we…took artistic liberties, and…well…it’s kinda come in handy. Like right now.”

“What the idiot’s trying to say is that your options are limited, and we’re not as green as Oliver thinks we are,” Roy summarized. "Pun unintentional. I've been hanging out with Tommy too much."

Tommy snapped his fingers at him. “ _Yes_. The first thing. Not the puns. Always intentional.”

As the resident adults in charge, Diggle and Felicity exchanged a wordless glance, which ended with Diggle getting to his feet and uttering the best word in the English language. “Fine,” he said. “Suit up.”

“And _do not_ die,” Felicity added, in a tone of voice that did not leave room for argument.

* * *

A crash echoed through the warehouse, followed by the faint grunts of pain from the Bratva thug Sara had pinned to the table with her knee in his back, his arm twisted behind him in an unmistakable threat.

Oliver stepped over the unconscious body at his feet and liberated a handgun from the man’s limp hand, raising it slowly to the Alexei Leonov’s face.

“This is not how the Bratva works,” said Leonov, spitting the words. “We do not bring outsiders, and we do not attack our brothers.”

Sara — without shifting her hold on the thug — reached across the table for a waiting shot glass of vodka, just inches from the twitching hand of the man she was currently holding in a highly painful position. She sniffed at the contents and drained it in one, before dropping it to the ground and grinding the shards into glittering grit beneath her boot heel.

“Looks like the rules are changing,” she said casually. “And I’d listen to him if I were you. He’s gone easy on you and your…brothers.”

Leonov’s expression morphed from distaste to hatred, but Oliver called his attention back by unclicking the gun’s safety. “Slade Wilson,” he repeated. “Australian, wears an eyepatch, businessman. I need to know where he sleeps, and how he gets around Starling City without being detected.”

“Why is this man so important to you?”

“I don’t think you’re in any position to ask questions,” Oliver answered flatly. “Do as I say, or I’ll kill you, Bratva tattoo or not.”

“I ask,” Leonov said, his lip curling, “because I wish to know why the man Anatoly Knyazev speaks so highly of, one of our finest Bratva captains, has completely lost his mind and turned his back on the brotherhood.”

“I don’t give a _damn_ about the brotherhood, and right now it works for me,” Oliver snarled. “You have twenty-four hours to hand over the information, or you’ll see me again. Except this time, I won’t have a friend to hold me back. Understood?”

There was a long silence, before Leonov said, his reluctance deeply evident: “Yes.”

Oliver nodded, and turned away. Taking it as the signal to leave, Sara grabbed the thug by the scruff of his neck and slammed his head into the table, leaving him sprawled in the broken glass and vodka.

Before they’d even made it halfway across the room, Leonov murmured something in Russian that made Oliver stop in his tracks.

“What did he say?” Sara asked, evidently sensing the tone of voice that meant an insult.

Oliver whirled in one smooth motion and fired at Leonov’s arm. He dropped like a stone with a yell of pain, writhing while the wound in his bicep soaked blood into his sleeve.

The pieces of the disassembled gun clattered to the floor as Oliver strode towards the exit. “He said he doesn’t need an arm to ask questions.”

* * *

“Bank systems are still being hacked,” Felicity said over the comms. “Looks like they’re still clearing out the vault. See? This is why credit card fraud exists. A big sack of money with a dollar sign on the front just doesn’t work for speedy getaways.”

As far as Tommy was concerned, it was a weird thrill having an actual earpiece for legitimate approved-for-vigilante-use circumstances, instead of running extremely lifelike training exercises with Sara stepping in with the plethora of assassin moves whenever he got so much as close to a paper cut.

Training wheels were off, and they were about to hit rough road terrain.

They turned the corner in the underground bank corridor, Diggle leading with his gun raised to check the corners and stuff like they were in a SWAT action movie, Roy and Tommy following behind.

“Look less excited,” Diggle said, reminding all present who wore the _Adult_ hat. “You’re not invincible, and they have guns.”

“They’re gonna have to do better to scare me,” Roy answered, pulling the red hood over his head.

“Pretend they are,” Diggle said shortly. “It’ll keep you alive, kid.”

Tommy adjusted his ski mask. It was already fitting him like a glove, and the out-of-alignment eyehole problem hadn’t resurfaced since about the fifth time he’d done the drill. Good omen. Very good omen.

Hopefully.

Maybe.

In the meantime, he could feel the waves of _something_ radiating off Roy like a heat haze — not attraction, because _ew_ , Harper, but…nerves? The kid was practically shaking with something, and Tommy was a little worried.

So he hung back, letting Diggle press forward, and put an arm out to hold Roy where he was, muting the comms as he did.

“You okay?” he asked.

Roy yanked the earpiece out and glowered at the wall like it had insulted him. “I’m tired of being talked down to like some kid, when I’m not the one who abandoned the team when it needed help,” he said through his teeth. “Oliver and Sara are always telling us to stay back, because _they_ know what they’re doing, because _they’re_ the ones who are always in the right. And where are they now? They’d better be secretly screwing, because that’s the only reason that sounds slightly in-character —”

“ _Hey_ ,” Tommy said. “Don’t say that. Oliver and Sara wouldn’t —”

“How do you know?” he snapped. “One year ago, you were still thinking your best friend wasn’t a cold-blooded killer under a hood, and Sara was _dead_ in the ground until she decided to show up again. What makes you so sure you really know your friends, huh?”

Every synapse in Tommy’s brain was firing off warning signs, because _uh-oh_. “ _Roy_ ,” he said, shaking him gently by the shoulder. “You don’t sound like you. You sound like…”

“What?” Roy retorted. “Slade Wilson? Because of the Mirakuru? I’m _fine_ , better than ever, and maybe that’s what scares you and everyone else. Because this is who I really am.”

“No, this _scares_ me because you’re dating my little sister, and I need to be sure that you’re not going to hurt Thea if and when you lose it.”

“So put an arrow in me — or let me go,” Roy said coldly. “Either way, I know which way you’re gonna swing, Merlyn. You’re not _that_ unpredictable.”

“I’ve got it,” Felicity said abruptly, and Tommy’s head shot up. “The skeleton key signature’s an OFDM wireless signal, and I’m picking up a matching transmission from the alleyway outside the bank. You —”

“I’m afraid you won’t get there in time,” said an unfamiliar voice, and Tommy froze.

“What the hell is that?” Diggle said.

“It must be the skeleton key — he’s — he’s hacked our transmission.” He could hear Felicity’s fingers flying, her brain in overdrive. “I can’t shut him out.”

“Correct,” said the clinical, almost robotic voice. “My associates may be about to join me in the alleyway, but there is currently a 940 bus about to collide with the Starling Freight Express bound for Central station. Something must have malfunctioned with the level crossing — or the Transportation Department’s network needs a firewall upgrade to be able to withstand the Kord Industries skeleton key prototype, not unlike your encrypted network, I’m afraid.”

“Oh my god,” Felicity breathed. “He’s right. Direct collision course in four minutes, East train track.”

“Better luck next time,” said Creepy Voice, and there was a small _pop_ as he disconnected.

“He doesn’t know there’s more than one of us,” Tommy said. “But my stunt driving probably isn’t fast enough to get to the tracks in time.”

“Heading there now,” Diggle said. “You two — stop the robbers if you can. Don’t take stupid risks. There’s always a second chance.”

“Not necessary,” Roy said, breaking into a run.

So many things on the verge of going wrong, but like Roy had so nicely put it — they didn’t have a lot of choice. Between the Bo staff and the bow, Tommy reached for the bow slung across his back. He had a feeling it was in everyone’s best interest that there was a healthy amount of distance between the bank heist guys and the Mirakuru kid.

It was a complete understatement, but things needed to _not_ end badly.

* * *

Roy burst through to the alley by dint of a busted steel door, imprinted solidly with the outline of his sneaker and the force of a superhumanly strong kick. Tommy caught up a second later, his lungs protesting from the effort of keeping up with the sprinting.

The bank robbers — two of them — were pelting full speed towards a waiting white truck, the door on the driver’s side open. Tommy caught a glimpse of what looked like a middle-aged man with glasses (AKA the average _Bank Robber_ look, _not_ ) and heard his yell for them to hurry up.

“They’re getting away!” Roy said, over the rumble of the van’s engine.

“Harper!” Tommy yelled, his bow raised with an arrow ready to let loose. “Fall back!”

“Screw that!” was the extremely eloquent answer in return, at which point, they opened fire.

Tommy rolled behind a dumpster as the shots went off, feeling the metal rattle from the impact of the bullets. From the brief peek he’d caught before taking cover, Roy had one of the guys on the ground, but the other was still firing at him from the side door. Tommy prayed that the archery lessons were paying off, and swung around from the side of the dumpster, and fired.

The arrow streaked towards the offending semi-automatic and struck the gun from his hands in a spray of sparks.

“Oh my god,” Tommy said in surprise, partially because he’d been aiming for the back of the hand.

Never mind that.

The truck was taking off with a wail of tires, leaving one of the guys behind. Unfortunately, from the way Roy was still raining punches down, they’d probably assumed he wouldn’t live to tell tales.

“Harper!” Tommy shouted, racing towards him. “That’s enough! We need him alive!”

Blood droplets flecked his face and neck when he got close, whether from Roy’s bullet wounds — probably drowned out by the adrenaline and/or being healed by the Mirakuru — or his punches, he wasn’t sure. All he knew was the fact that the bank robber’s face looked more like hamburger meat than actual human, and he seized Roy’s arm before he could land another crushing blow and forced him back with all his strength.

“What’s going on?” Felicity said. “Digg stopped the crash in time. Did the truck get away?”

Tommy was a little too busy to answer, what with the wrestling against Roy Harper’s _King Kong_ muscle power. “Roy — this — isn’t — you!”

“Roy!” Felicity was shouting too. “Stand down!”

That was when Roy’s arm cracked across Tommy’s chest with enough force to send him skidding across the concrete until he collided back-first with the dumpster. He’d lost his bow in the impact, which left him — dazed and winded, for starters — with only his arms to block Roy’s next shove.

Again, spinning across the ground like a kicked bottle. There was a cut on his face, but Roy wasn’t done.

“I’m sick and tired of everyone acting like they’re so much better than I am,” he snarled, his fists curled into the front of Tommy’s jacket. “Like they can control me. They can’t, and you should _really_ stop trying before I get mad.”

Tommy had him by the back of the neck, in a futile attempt to jolt some sense into his thick skull. “Roy!” he yelled. “Stop and _think_. Who’s talking, you or the Mirakuru? Roy Harper or some _drug_?”

Roy drew his arm back with a perfectly lethal look in his eye. “Maybe it’s both,” he answered coldly.

A gunshot rang out in the alleyway, and they both looked around. Diggle lowered his gun from where it’d been pointed at the sky, and turned it on Roy. “I strongly recommend that Roy Harper _and_ the Mirakuru both stand down,” he said. “ _Now_.”

* * *

As soon as Oliver got through the Foundry door, he knew there was trouble. Some kind of argument, and this time he knew it was different because he could pick out both Diggle and Felicity’s raised voices — two people who were easily the level-headed ones in the team.

“What the hell’s going on?” he asked.

The person nearest to the stairs happened to be Felicity, disheveled in a green evening dress like she hadn’t had the time to change, her hair falling loose from the elegant style pinning it all to the back of her head. She only noticed him and Sara when they reached the bottom of the steps, and even then it was a perfunctory glance, as though there were higher priorities on the list. “Where the hell have you been?” she shot back, and just as quickly reconsidered it. “Never mind. _Roy_ —”

She turned back to the main floor, and Oliver saw that Tommy and Diggle were on either sides of Roy, like a human corral to keep him from crossing an invisible boundary.

“You can’t turn on your team like that,” Diggle said. “There’s a man in the ICU who has information that we need to track down the skeleton key, but he can’t tell us a goddam thing because you put him in a coma!”

Oliver left Sara standing by Felicity and stepped into the makeshift battle zone. “You went out into the field?” he said sharply. “I explicitly told you not to —”

Roy rounded on him and the hostile rage crackling in his eyes took Oliver aback. “We didn’t have a lot of choice, what with you and Sara disappearing off to do god knows what with each other,” he said defiantly. “ _Someone_ had to do the real work around here, while you were running around trying to fix your mess with Slade — a mess _you_ created, by the way.”

“Hey!” Felicity interjected, stepping forward too. “Don’t talk to him like that.”

“Like _what?_ ” he said sarcastically. “I’m wrong because I’m the only one who _dares_ to question the magnificent Oliver Queen, right? Just for the record, I’d be plenty pissed right now if _his_ problem cornered me in the middle of a party he didn’t bother showing up to and did _that_ to my arm.”

The words were flying thick and fast, emotions fraying the air, misunderstanding twisted into confusion. Oliver had walked straight into the middle of something and he was a few steps behind, but he’d heard enough to take the meaning of the only thing that mattered.

He swung around to look at Felicity, who shifted so that one of her arms was behind her back and out of sight. “What’s he talking about?” he demanded. “Slade? You saw Slade at the gala?”

“It’s nothing,” she said defensively. “Roy, please calm down. You’re frustrated, and you’re on edge. I get it — we’re stretched a little thin right now. But you did a good j—”

“Don’t patronize me!” he shouted, and she flinched into silence.

It was Tommy’s turn to try calming Roy down, and Oliver saw that he was holding his sides like his ribs were hurting, and there were scratches on his face from broken glass. _Fresh_. “You went out too?” he said to Tommy, who jerked his head once, his focus on Roy.

“Think about Thea, okay?” he said, his hands raised. “She’d want you to be calm right now, not toss everyone around because you lost your temper. Think about Thea, please.”

“Answer the question, Tommy,” Roy goaded. “You went out too — and you’ve _been_ going out into the field without the great Oliver Queen’s permission since — what — your dad beat you up in an alley, right?”

“Roy, that’s enough!” Sara said. “Dragging everyone through the mud isn’t going to change the situation. The Mirakuru’s making you say these things. Calm down, and t—”

“I don’t answer to you!” he shouted back. “Blaming the Mirakuru for what I’m saying won’t change the fact that I’m the only one who’s calling Oliver out for making decisions for everyone else, agreement or any kind of democracy be damned. It’s a dictatorship, and all of you are too afraid to challenge him once he’s laid down the law. I’m _sick_ of it, and I don’t take orders from you — starting right now. So treat me like a goddam equal, or get the hell out of my way!”

Oliver stood his ground, even though Roy’s words were an unmistakable echo of his worst doubts and fears — of exactly what Slade Wilson would say. The Mirakuru had taken hold, and in Oliver’s experience, it only ended one way.

But for Thea’s sake, it couldn’t.

Roy's flinty gaze snapped back towards Oliver, visibly expecting an answer.

He gave it. “ _Calm_ _down_ ,” he said, enunciating the words.

Roy grabbed the underside of one of the steel worktables and heaved it with a yell of pure rage, sending a surface full of lab equipment and monitors crashing to the ground when it overturned. Felicity stumbled back with a gasp as some of the broken glass and debris went flying in her direction, and Oliver briefly lost his temper too.

“Roy!” he snapped, grabbing him by the shoulder and slamming him into a concrete pillar. “That’s _enough!_ ”

Roy wrenched himself free and shoved both hands into Oliver’s chest, with enough force to send him staggering a few feet back, crashing into one of the tables. Felicity was at his side in a second, helping him stand, and Oliver put himself in front of her as Roy advanced, expecting a second attack.

Except Roy stopped just inches shy of Oliver’s face. “I used to look up to you,” he said, in a voice shot through with angry tremors. “Slade Wilson thinks you’re a coward, right? Guess what? He’s right.”

An arrow sank into the pillar behind him, and they all looked back to see Sara holding Oliver’s bow, drawing the string back with another arrow between her fingers. “The next arrow goes into your throat,” she said, in a voice of icy composure. “Now get away from them. I won’t ask again. ”

“ _Sara_ ,” Tommy put up his hand like he could block the arrow himself. “He’s not in his right mind.”

Roy pulled back with a disbelieving look on his face. “So now I’m the enemy,” he said. “Because I’m the only one with the guts around here to tell the truth.”

“You’re the enemy if and when you hurt my friends,” she answered, ignoring Tommy’s protest. “You’ve already done that.”

Roy turned from one face to the other, each wearing expressions ranging from shock, fear, and ice-cold warning. He dropped his fist, and took a step back. “I’m done with you people,” he said, and looked Oliver in the eye last. “Especially you. I’m _done._ ”

Then he was striding towards the door, and nobody moved until it slammed.

“That’s not him,” Tommy said, to no one in particular. “Roy’s not like that. It’s —”

“—the Mirakuru,” Sara finished for him, with a look in Oliver’s direction. “We’ve seen it before, and made the same excuses for Slade. It doesn’t change the fact that he’s unstable, and a liability.”

“What if he tells everyone your secret?” Diggle asked, point-blank. “He knows, Oliver. He could tell your sister — your mother — _anyone_ with a bone to pick with the Arrow.”

Felicity’s shaking fingers curled into the back of Oliver’s jacket, but a part of him was still stunned at the complete deja vu of having someone he’d considered a friend turn on him, spitting words colored by genuine resentment and unleashed full-force by the Mirakuru.

Except it wasn’t important, not right now. “Are you all right?” he said to Felicity. “Your arm —”

She shook her head once.  _Later_. “Are you going to share what was so important that you left the team completely hung out to dry?”

Oliver hadn’t been expecting the anger in her voice either, but Tommy interrupted before he could pursue it. “Um, hello? Roy’s in a bad mood to end all bad moods, and he just stormed out. We have to get him back.”

“And do what?” Sara asked. “He needs to cool off on his own.”

“Yeah, well, excuse me if I don’t want to risk having my sister be on the receiving end of one of his tantrums,” Tommy said, brushing past Oliver on his way out. “He’s still Roy.”

“I don’t think he is,” Diggle said quietly, and Sara flashed him a look of agreement.

“Wait a second,” Oliver said, before Tommy could go. “When were you going to tell me that you were going out on the streets by yourself?”

Felicity’s head was in her hands. “Oliver, not now,” she whispered. “It can wait.”

“No, it can’t — especially since it’s my family who’s going to get hurt,” he said, facing Tommy. “Our agreement was that you wouldn’t risk your safety anymore than necessary. Going out with no supervision or backup —”

“Sara was there!” Tommy interrupted.

“—flies in the face of that agreement,” he finished. “If you hadn’t encouraged Roy by letting him loose on the underbelly of Starling, he wouldn’t be so quick to question my judgment.”

That last part wasn’t strictly true, but there was a ring of accuracy to it, at least in explaining Roy’s rapid deterioration despite every sign suggesting the opposite.

“Your _judgment_?” Tommy repeated. “You mean your orders. Roy’s not completely off the handle there — sometimes I feel like you need German subtitles when you speak to your partners. Note, _partners_ , not subordinates.”

“Excuse me?”

“Look, this didn’t start out with me promising to jump when you said jump,” Tommy answered. “And in case you didn’t notice — we didn’t have a lot of choices tonight because you decided to strike out on your own.”

“Are you blaming me for trying to make sure that my sister’s family stays alive?” Oliver said. “You’re Thea’s brother, and it will _kill_ her if she loses another person she loves.”

“What about you? She _knows_ you’re her actual brother, but hold on a sec — your  _Stay Safe_ logic doesn’t seem to stretch to you when it’s your turn to hood up! Why do _you_ get to decide what's irresponsible joyriding and what's a crusade?”

They were in each other’s faces now, with Diggle and Sara hovering warily on the sidelines, Felicity listening with her face hidden by her fingers like she couldn’t bear to watch, and Oliver finally put his finger on what was bothering him.

“Because you are my best friend, and I need to know that there are people I can trust to stick to a plan!” he shouted. “I need to be able to trust the people I work with, and if they keep secrets from me, I can’t do that!”

“Says the one with the most secrets on this team!” Tommy fired back. “Any other island stories you need to share before they come back to bite us in the ass?”

Oliver experienced a sudden, irrational desire to hit him, and he sensed the feeling was completely mutual. “You —”

“ _Enough_!” Felicity’s shout echoed through the room, and she was on her feet now. “None of this is helping. Fighting among ourselves is _not_ helping. We can discuss this some other time, just not tonight. Tommy, please go check on Thea. Digg, we need to ID the guy who has the skeleton key. Start at the hospital and see if they’ve identified John Doe, maybe it’ll lead us to their boss. Sara, if Roy’s a flight risk, he’ll be heading back to his apartment before he gets out of town. Oliver —”

She hesitated, and the disappointment in her face hit him like a solid blow to the gut.

“Just…” She shook her head, and her voice, when she eventually finished the rest of her thought, was bone-tired. “Just… _don’t_ , okay? You’ve done enough for one night.”

As though by some unspoken signal, everyone moved to do what she asked, until it was just the two of them alone in the Foundry, and the door slammed for the final time. It left a ringing silence in its wake, like the quiet descending after a detonated bomb.

Oliver's mind was racing, his heart pounding while he tried to process what just happened, to wade through the web of compounded and intertwined conflicts that had apparently all reached the breaking point at the exact same time.

But at that moment, there was Felicity.

“I’m sorry,” he said, and hesitated at the sight of her arm.

The full view made him go cold, because the spreading bruise along her slender wrist was clearly in the shape of fingermarks. “Slade…” he began, and realized he couldn’t think of a question, because he already knew the answer. He’d found her, and he’d hurt her.

But he hadn’t killed her.

Which meant — what? That she was safe? That Slade had been fooled? Did he think she wasn’t important enough to kill?

The thoughts went around and around inside his head in dizzying circles with no answer, and Oliver fell silent again. Felicity had been hugging herself while he’d attempted to find the words, and now shifted her arms with what looked like a tremendous amount of effort. Speaking took a few more seconds, and even then her voice was tightly under control in a way that usually signaled she was trying not to shout. “Look, Oliver, I’m not a big fan of the whole _Angry Girlfriend_ routine, but I’m a genuinely angry person who also _happens_ to be your girlfriend. I get it, you were busy trying to track down Slade Wilson, even though tonight was supposed to be about _not_ letting him take over your life.”

“Felicity, I had to —”

“To _what_? Go AWOL while the rest of the team had to deal with a threat that clearly wasn’t important enough to you?” she said bluntly. “Don’t worry, I get the message, loud and clear. I’m tired of talking at you if you aren’t going to listen, and I have _a lot_ of work to do. Feel free to do… _whatever_. I don’t think I have it in me to care for another eight hours.”

Oliver could almost hear Slade’s mocking laughter in his ears as Felicity turned away and started to type. _I will take away the ones you love, one by one._

Starting now.

* * *

Hour five, and there was still no sign of Roy. Felicity had been multitasking, working on fortifying the Foundry’s systems against another intrusion by — and she couldn’t believe that she was about to use another media-coined term for a bad guy — the Clock King. Even taking her optimism into account, she had her doubts about its efficacy, especially considering it was meant to breach enemy encryption.

Still, Kord Industries had never met her and what she could do with a modem and a keyboard.

Felicity pushed the loose wisps of hair back from her cheeks, the continuing disintegration of a hairstyle riddled with too many bobby pins for her to deal with at her current energy level, which was _caffeine fumes_. She was sitting on the bottom step of the Foundry staircase with her arms around her knees, leaning the side of her head on the wall while she waited for something to turn up on the computers — otherwise known as putting off sleep.

Oliver had been gone for about an hour, after choosing to clean up the floor directly in front of her workstation — left in complete shambles after Roy’s Mirakuru-induced rage spiral. It was now spotlessly clean again, with the table set back upright and all signs of broken equipment vanished from view.

But it would take a lot more than a broom and a trash bag to sweep away the damage done to the team tonight. Courtesy of the Clock King, but also Slade Wilson.

_Slade_.

Acting through Oliver, unintentionally and indirectly, which was the exact problem. Slade knew him, intervening years post-island notwithstanding, and Felicity had underestimated just how susceptible Oliver was to being manipulated, for all his level-headedness and strategy talk. His family and his friends were his pressure point, and Slade had done a _stellar_ job of unsettling Oliver into inflicting some damage by himself.

Light footsteps vibrated on the stairs behind her, and Felicity looked up to find a steaming mug near her face. “Coffee?” Sara said.

“Thanks.” Felicity budged sideways so that Sara could sit on the steps too, clutching an identical _Verdant_ mug between her hands. “No luck, huh?”

Sara shook her head. “Roy hasn’t been to his apartment. Whatever the Mirakuru’s telling him, grabbing some spare clothes wasn’t part of it.”

“Does Thea know?”

“Tommy’s keeping an eye on her — she still thinks he’s just missing a shift,” Sara said. “But she’ll know. She should, now that Roy’s lost his mind.”

“Don’t say that,” Felicity mumbled, but couldn’t think of anything to reinforce the hollow assertion. “Poor Thea.”

Sara blew her breath out slowly. “Poor Thea.”

Felicity could sense Sara eyeing her with concern. “Look, I know what Ollie’s like when he gets distant. Kinda makes you want to punch him.” She nudged Felicity by the shoulder, almost playful. “Maybe a kick.”

She couldn’t quite summon up a smile, and focused on the quivering surface of her half-finished coffee. A thought — half-formed but contagious — and she couldn’t think of anyone else to ask. “Sara,” she said. “Slade was at the party, and he…told me things. About the night Shado died.”

Sara had gone very still.

“Did Oliver — did he really lie?” Felicity asked, hating herself for even phrasing the question.

"No," she said, turning to look Felicity in the eye. "I did. Slade asked, and I told him Ivo killed Shado. That's the truth for me, no matter what Ollie thinks he could have changed. If Ivo had pointed the gun at Shado first, Oliver would have dived in front of her, and I would be the one in his nightmares. That's who he is. A good person, who's always trying to protect the people closest to him, and he beats himself up over the ones he couldn’t save — even if they’re not his fault.”

“Sounds like Oliver,” Felicity muttered.

Sara smiled a little, staring at the far wall. “Yeah.”

She looked around when Felicity put a hand on her knee. “Thank you for following him tonight,” she said. “I don’t even want to think about what he might have done if you weren’t around.”

“You trust me with him?” Sara was teasing her again. “I’m the assassin, remember?”

Felicity put her chin on Sara’s warm shoulder. “A _smart_ assassin,” she corrected. “And you understand him better than I do. The part of him that thinks he’s responsible when things break, the person he becomes when he thinks there’s no other choice...I can’t follow him there. I've tried. I just...I can't.”

“And you shouldn't have to. One thing you have to understand about Ollie is that he overestimates how much darkness he has inside of him,” Sara said firmly. “It’s who he is — guilt, blame, atonement…they drive him, they keep him going even after what he’s lost. But he doesn’t need someone like me to understand that darkness, or follow him back in. He needs someone who makes him want to stand in the sun, and bring out the light that’s been burning inside of him the whole time. I admit that tonight wasn't an _amazing_ example on Ollie's part, but...he's getting there. Slowly. Trust me on that.”

Felicity hid a smile in Sara’s sleeve. “Did you just _bait-and-switch_ me into a pep talk?”

“And the student becomes the master,” Sara laughed. “How’d I do?”

The door opened before Felicity could answer, and they both looked around to see Oliver hesitating in the middle of the staircase. To be fair, seeing his ex-girlfriend in _hush-hush_ cahoots with his current girlfriend — especially in light of his recent epic screwup — was understandably worrying.

“Hey,” he said.

Sara finished her coffee and took Felicity’s empty mug too. “I should get upstairs and help out. The club’s shorthanded tonight,” she said. “Get some rest, you two.”

“‘Night, Sara,” Felicity answered. "Thanks."

"It's just coffee." Sara chucked her chin fondly on the way out, and Oliver moved aside to let her pass. Then it was just the two of them. Again.

Oliver was tapping his fingertips on the railing. “I…I cleaned up the mess,” he said, unnecessarily. “Some of the equipment was too smashed up, but I could get someone at Queen Consolidated to look at the salvageable ones tomorrow.”

“Oh.” Just as awkwardly, because apparently that was their fighting style. Mutual _walking on eggshells_ and over-thinking simple sentences. “Thanks.”

“Any luck with the…” He hesitated, understandably reluctant to use the pop culture name for the skeleton key guy.

“Clock King?” she said, with an automatic glance at the humming computers. “Nothing so far. The skeleton key only gives off the traceable signal when it’s operational, which means we’ll find him if and when he decides he needs another score. Or the underling guy in the ICU could wake up, but based off my close, personal experience with coma patients — I’d bet on the skeleton key.”

Why she’d decided to indirectly reference Barry Allen at a delicate time like this, she wasn’t entirely sure, apart from the fact that her mouth was the residence of a stubborn demon resistant to periodic exorcisms.

Felicity scrubbed a hand across her face. “Look, I’m tired. Should we maybe not do this tonight?”

Oliver walked down a few more steps, and took the spot Sara had been sitting on just seconds before. “Probably not,” he agreed. “There’s…a lot in the air.”

She nearly snorted at the understatement. “Oh good, I was wondering if I was the only one confused about whether we have at least three small fights waiting to be hashed out, or they banded together to form one gigantic super-fight.”

“Knowing us, probably both,” he remarked.

“ _Us_ ,” she repeated. “Not a lot of _us_ tonight. Not a lot of teamwork. Not a lot of together- _anything_. We should probably talk about that.”

Oliver inhaled deeply. “I wasn’t at the party because I went to see the Bratva about Slade’s location.”

It took Felicity a second to mentally run through all the graphic scenarios the word _Bratva_ entailed, compounding a desire for her to pull out some hair from sheer frustration. “The Russian mob? Oliver —” she broke off with a jerk of her head. “Did you kill anyone?”

“No.”

“Maim?”

“Maybe.”

“Did they give you an address?”

“Twenty-four hours,” he said.

“Or what?”

“I kill them.”

“Of course, because that’s the only language besides Russian that the Bratva understands,” she said sarcastically. “Couldn’t have threatened to call the IRS on them, huh? I guess jail time for tax evasion isn’t as scary as having your brains blown out. Oh _frack_ —”

She hid her face in her hands, wishing with every fiber of her existence that she could unsay the words. Because Shado had been shot in the head, and she’d just…blundered straight into the _No Go_ area, as per usual.

“I’m sorry,” she said, to perfect silence.

Which was unnecessary, because there was no way Oliver could know what Slade had said to her. But he got quietly to his feet again, his expression unreadable. “We should look at your arm,” he said, holding out his hand. “Please.”

* * *

Oliver pressed gently on the skin and saw Felicity’s suppressed wince. “It’s not broken,” he said, and gently set her wrist back onto the table top, turning to look for the bandages.

“Hurray,” she said, holding the arm to her chest protectively. “I’ll live to keyboard again.”

The shadows between the outline of her bones were already colored with purple, and the sight of the bruises made his throat uncomfortably tight, another reminder of the disastrous evening, and the feeling didn’t go away even while he began to wind the bandage around her wrist. He hadn't thought that leaving her at a gala in plain sight of his friends and family would put her in active danger, he hadn't made the calculation, but the assumption that Slade wouldn't show his face out in the open.

Clearly, he'd been wrong.

But this was something. Bandaging Felicity's wrist, working carefully and quietly, as though he was doing something to fix his mistakes, even though the damage was already done.

Even disheveled and exhausted, there was something about her that was achingly beautiful. She’d worn green to the gala, a color she must have known he’d like, expecting a night off and something resembling normalcy. He might have teased her into dancing with him, she would have said something inadvertently funny to the inevitable string of family friends that wanted to meet Moira's son and his date, and he might have made an excuse to pull her off to the side, into a private corner where they could be themselves for as long as they wanted.

The reality wasn't even close.

“I’m sorry I left you alone at the party,” he said. “Slade hurt you, and it’s my fault.”

Felicity shifted her wrist to let him pass underneath her arm with the bandage, and watched as he secured the whole thing with a clasp.“I can handle getting stood up at a party, Oliver. And I think we both know the only person Slade meant to hurt was you.”

He didn’t disagree there.

"He just wanted to talk," Felicity said. "And by that I mean tell unabridged, _highly_ graphic stories about your time on the island, probably so I'd dump you like a hot potato and chalk one more point up on Slade's side of the scoreboard. Didn't work, by the way, seeing as I'm still here."

Oliver's fingers went still, because he knew what Slade would have done — what the only logical move was to try and drive a wedge between him and Felicity. She was hesitating about something, trying to decide if it was worth saying. “He told me how Shado died,” she said, in a rush. "All of it."

Oliver was on his knees at Felicity's feet, and he stared hard at a blurred reflection on the tabletop, until his eyes stung from the reflected light.

“He told me that Ivo caught you and her and Sara and forced all of you into the forest, and he —”

Oliver stiffened, only for a second before he wrenched himself away, like he was afraid his touch would burn her. “ _Don’t_ ,” he said, unsteadily, turning the other way. “Don’t think about it. The story’s meant for me, not you.”

“But it’s true,” she pressed, getting to her feet too. “Is that why you don’t sleep? Are the bad dreams about that night?”

It seemed like a long, long time before Oliver answered. “Some. Not all of them. But recently —”

“— since Slade resurfaced,” she guessed. “Oliver, you’re probably as tired of hearing this as I am of saying it — again — but it’s not your fault. You were forced to make an unthinkable choice under unthinkable circumstances, and either way, you would have been protecting someone you cared about at the cost of someone else. Reacting the way you did doesn’t make it your fault. I just…I just don’t know how to make you see that.”

It was as close to admitting defeat as Oliver had ever heard, and when he faced Felicity again, her eyes were bright with tears. For him, because of him… what difference did it make? As of that moment, he knew that Slade had threatened the woman he loved and filled her head with nightmares. He knew that his best friend was furious with him for an innumerable number of things, but one of them was lies — to family, to _their_ family.

And Roy. Roy Harper, the lost kid he’d made it his mission to help, not just because of his sister, but because he’d needed to believe that the Mirakuru couldn’t corrupt anyone it touched — absolutely, past the point of no return.

Because maybe a part of him hoped that Slade might see reason, might be capable of recalling who he’d been — before the poison had eaten its way through any and all kindness left behind, anything Shado might have loved about the man who was now a monster.

A monster who could wreck havoc on Oliver’s life from a distance.

And he’d let him.

A target on his back. Dangerous. Destructive.

“It’s late,” he said, softly. “We should get some rest.”

He'd meant for it to be the punctuation at the end of a very long sentence, to close the door on a day he'd prefer not to remember, but Felicity silently reached up and put her arms around him, and it took Oliver a second to respond by hugging her back, bending to hide his face in her bare shoulder. The cracks were starting to show, and she knew it, she had to.

It was all starting to slip away, and he didn’t know how to make it stop.

Felicity pulled back, a hand on his cheek. "Slade wanted to turn me against you," she said. "And I told him in no uncertain terms where I stand, and it's with you. I'm _on_ your side, Oliver, whatever the risks. But you're drowning — in the past, in this _guilt_ — and that's part of why Slade did some damage tonight."

"I can't help it," he admitted. "He knows me, and I can't —"

"I know." She nodded slowly. "I know."

Oliver shut his eyes and their foreheads touched, a gesture echoing other, easier days, when it was just touching bases at the end of a long night. A kiss _hello_ because they finally had some time to themselves. Things were different now, and when Felicity kissed him, softly, it was like she was trying to pull him back from the edge, to remind him of the ground beneath his feet.

" _You_ have to decide how you're going to fight this battle," she whispered. "Because I can't make that choice for you. Sink or swim, that's something you have to choose. But I'm right here. I'm standing _here_ , and I'm asking you to meet me halfway."

Steadier now, as though the cracks beneath them had gone quiet. Oliver searched her face with a calm he wasn't expecting to feel, thinking, weighing his options. Bringing Roy back into the fold, his friendship with Tommy, and Queen Consolidated, just to name a few. "I think...I have some work to do," he said.

Felicity's smile was tentative, but to him it had the warmth of the sun breaking through the clouds, and it was enough. It was enough to know she still hoped. "Good," she answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Er, so I should apologize, since this was kind of a downer chapter to post before Christmas, but uh...couldn't be helped. It was either that or waiting to post this after the holidays, and who really wants that? You, probably. My bad.  
> \- You'll probably notice that I've accelerated and mish-mashed some conflicts that happened in other episodes and put them into the chapter. Hopefully it made some kind of sense, and may be explained away by Oliver being a huge boob :)  
> \- Genuine question: how are people feeling about Thea finding out that Malcolm's her dad? Tone down the brattiness, less existential angst? Wanting some opinions here.  
> Until the next update, and have a sinceriously awesome holiday!


	30. Crisis Hits Home (Deathstroke, Part III)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Errrr oh my god? I wasn't expecting to take such a huge long break, but I hit a bad bit of writer's block. That, and I was pottering around doing some fanfiction for Rogue One, so :/  
> Anyway, I'm finishing up episode 18 of season 2 with two chapters, uploaded at the same time.  
> It's good to be back (for me, anyway)!

Felicity was running.

No, running implied that she wasn’t pushing as fast as her legs could carry her, against the breath searing red-hot inside her chest, the night air sharp as knives against the back of her throat — and she was. She was tearing through the dark trees in a dead sprint, her hands thrown up to protect her head and face against the unseen edges of branches catching against her skin. The ground was uneven and harder to see in the near-perfect darkness, her bare feet faltering against twisted tree roots, knotted and gnarled underneath a thick carpet of dead leaves.

She stumbled in a blind panic through an unfamiliar forest, because she knew with an even blinder certainty that she couldn’t risk stopping, not when there were voices echoing all around — in front, behind, just a stone’s throw away, like there were wolves bounding alongside her and waiting to leap.

It was a forest from a nightmare, just not hers.

Felicity tripped and sprawled clumsily into the dirt, her fingers sinking into the loose soil and dry leaves as she tried to raise herself off the ground, her muscles and bones stinging from the impact. She lifted her head just in time to meet a blinding swish of white light, sweeping her face and the ground on all sides, surrounded. When it faded, suddenly the clearing — empty before — was filled with people.

But three stood out from the rest.

It was a scene she never actually witnessed. They were on their knees, hands bound behind their backs while an unfamiliar man (his features were blurred, like an unfinished sketch) circled them like a prowling lion.

“No,” she said, but it didn’t come out any louder than a whisper. “ _No_.”

She wasn’t heard, because she wasn’t supposed to be there. She wasn’t part of the nightmare.

“Choose! Or both will die!”

“No!”

“Oliver!”

The gun — somehow she knew there was a gun — clicked, and there was a scream —

Felicity’s whole body shook from the sound and raw impact of the gunshot, and suddenly she was awake, staring at the concrete column a few feet away from the edge of the cot, breathing hard and in an ice cold sweat.

A hand crept out to cover her mouth, and she had the vague sense that she’d made some kind of noise in her sleep, but nothing happened except her unnatural heart rate, and a tingling sensation in her feet and hands — like she’d really been running through the forest. Felicity almost reached back, used to having Oliver beside her in the bed, but remembered just in time that they were in the Foundry, not her bedroom.

“Oliver?” she said, and slipped her arm from the covers to look for him on the floor beside the cot, because he’d insisted on sleeping between her and the stairs.

Her fingers found the scratchy afghan and nothing else. The covers were all mussed up, but cold to the touch. He’d been gone a while.

In a short-lived moment of panic, her eyes shot straight to the glass cases — looking for the suit — but it still stood tall on the mannequin, the bow likewise accounted for. Which meant he was still somewhere in the basement.

Felicity uncurled her bare legs from underneath the blankets and set them on the floor. It was cold, but she barely felt it, still sweating from the unforgivingly vivid dream and too shaken to register anything except that she wanted someone to hold, someone to hold her. So she padded off to find him as she was, like a child searching for reassurance after a bad dream.

He ended up being in the garage, crouched behind his bike with tools spread out on the ground, beside a rag that looked like it had seen better days. Like with most things he did, Oliver worked quickly and efficiently, reaching for one thing without taking his attention from another, swapping and multitasking with ease. There was something reassuring about Oliver’s programmed stoicism, always working in the face of the deeply unsettling, always trying to push further even when other people would have sank to their knees and stopped then and there.

Real Oliver. Flesh and blood, not smoke and mist and made from a subconscious fear. It stilled Felicity’s embarrassingly jumpy nerves to watch him work, and she almost forgot why she’d come. Her bare feet didn’t make much noise on the floor, but Oliver didn’t start when she touched him between the shoulder blades, spreading her hand across the back of his shirt.

He was warm, and the gush of relief almost made her brave enough to bend and kiss the side of his head, _do_ something to reassure herself that he was still there, that they both were — but she stifled the impulse just in time.

“Couldn’t sleep?” she asked.

He shook his head, twisting a wrench as he did. “Did I wake you up?”

It was her turn to do the head shake. “Fought off a bad dream,” she said, even though there was a strong chance it would put another line between his eyebrows. “This is me doing a victory lap.”

Oliver stopped what he was doing and wiped his hands on the rag, his eyes alert for signs of trouble. Understandable, since between the two of them, the one who usually won the _Sleepless Zombie_ award for continuous bad dream disruption was the guy working on his bike in the early hours of the morning. “Was it —”

“Yeah.” Because she didn’t want to lie about that. “My mom always told me I had an overactive imagination.”

Clearly unconvinced by her upbeat tone, Oliver pushed some of the tools out of the way and guided her to sit on the seat of his bike, leaving him to crouch in front of her knees so he could see her face. “You okay?” he asked.

Felicity rubbed at a smudge on his jaw with her thumb. “Will be,” she promised. “Helps to see you.”

Oliver didn’t look like he believed her, evident in the _hurt puppy_ look he had on his face. “Felicity, you shouldn’t —”

“Bad dreams happen,” she interrupted, before he could make the not-really-anticipated apology. “Especially in our line of work. It was either — _that_ — or a heightened version of the annual board meeting, except where I’m in my pajamas and/or the board members have hydra heads. So you tell me which bullet I dodged.”

“I’d take the board meeting,” Oliver said, making her smile. “And I’m still sorry.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still mad at you for ditching me at the party,” she said seriously. “There will be a slow and _painful_ way to pay for that. Which may or may not involve me accidentally-on-purpose stepping on you if I have to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. _But_ that would mean you’d actually have to go back to bed — or the patch of floor you put some blankets on, even though the invitation was _so_ open for you to share the bed. Your bed, actually.”

Oliver rubbed his callused hands along the smooth skin of her thigh. “I thought we were playing by the ground rules,” he said, gently prompting. “Anyone could walk in on us.”

Felicity was suddenly too tired, too unsettled, too _everything_ to care about who was in on their relationship status, and she answered without thinking. “I don’t care,” she said, her hands over her eyes. She heard it, then repeated it, softer, but firmer still. Because she meant every word, as unthinking as they were. “Oliver, I don’t care.”

She didn’t realize Oliver was moving until she felt his arms around her, his chin on the top of her head, fitting her face into the hollow of his throat. “Okay,” he said, stroking her hair. “It’s okay.”

Felicity breathed out against his skin, blinking the tears — sudden, unwanted — out of her eyes. She wound her fingers in his shirt, like there was a chance he might step away to go somewhere. The old insecurity, resurfaced now for reasons that were more than obvious.

They stood like that for what felt like a long time, and Felicity would have pulled away, said it was all right (because god knew Oliver didn’t need a weepy girlfriend to add to his plate of Things to Worry About) — if she didn’t feel that she was soothing him too, in her own way.

Felicity felt Oliver stir, like he’d been far away, and she tipped her head back to look at him.

“Come back to bed,” he said softly, and she nodded.

* * *

Felicity breathed out, soft and slow. Oliver turned his head, checking to make sure she was still asleep before he moved, gently shifting her from his shoulder to the pillow, slipping his arm out from underneath her.

He sat up, suppressing a grunt of exhaustion. And it was exhausting. The wakeful kind, the kind that meant closing his eyes was a hardwired impossibility. Oliver was starting to think that the only thing making him pretend sleep was an option came purely from the force of habit.

A light appeared from beside the cot, near the floor. Oliver leaned over, searching the tangle of blankets he’d left there — some kind of reflexive pretense that they weren't sharing a bed, just in case — to look for his phone.

The screen was bright with notifications, emails from work. There was a new one, marked <No Subject>. Oliver scrolled down to see the message, and went still.

_YOU MISSED QUITE THE PARTY._

No signature, but there was an image attached, grainy, black and white as though from a surveillance camera. Felicity was standing close to Slade, her wrist in his grip and clearly trying to twist away. Their faces were too blurred to be deciphered in sharp detail, but Oliver had seen enough.

 _She’s lovely_ , Slade had said. _Felicity_.

Oliver palmed his phone, suppressing the urge to smash it — or something — against the wall. Slade knew how to unsettle him, a fact he’d more than proved by the way things currently were now, with Oliver and the rest of the team. Tommy, Roy, his family, maybe even Felicity.

He couldn’t let that happen, not now. Not again.

The determination was easier to summon for just a thought, not for the reality. Oliver stared at the Foundry, lit in alternates of light and shadow, and stayed that way for a long, long time, listening to Felicity breathe in her sleep.

He was losing the fight, and he didn’t know how to stay on his feet, to defend, to fight back. Time. They were running out of it, and Oliver knew that it was all just starting.

* * *

“You know, I never realized how much work I could get done if I just stayed in the Foundry all night,” Felicity said, draining her coffee mug in a single gulp that looked — even to Oliver — vaguely unhealthy. “Sorry about that thing this morning, by the way. I forgot where you were sleeping when I got the idea, and I —”

“— kneed me,” Oliver finished for her, and his stomach region twinged at the reminder of Felicity’s knee making contact in the early hours of the morning. “No problem. Barely felt it. And Felicity —”

“Yes, love of my life?”

“I’m not using these,” he said flatly.

Felicity didn’t even look up from what she was doing on three Foundry computers, simultaneously and fast. “You’re not supposed to, they’re just in case you forget something.”

He rapped the block of flashcards on the tabletop, covered in her neat writing and information from the company reports he was meant to have read before the annual board meeting. “They make me look like a college sophomore trying not to fail a test.”

“Like you’d know,” she snorted. “I have it on good authority — and by that I mean Tommy, _plus_ your many unfinished college reports — that passing any kind of official assessment was _not_ your thing. Keg parties, on the other hand…”

In response to his conspicuous silence and sudden interest in the flashcards he’d sworn never to use, Felicity glanced over. “Have you talked to Tommy?”

“It’s only been eight hours,” he said.

“Looks like someone put on their shifty pants this morning.”

“ _Fine_. No, I haven’t,” he answered, unwillingly. “He doesn’t come into Verdant this early. I’ll catch him later.”

“What — at the office he doesn’t work in, or the mansion you don’t bunk at anymore?” she pointed out. “Oliver, pick up the phone, call him. He’s your best friend, and with everything that’s going on in your lives right now, you can’t afford to fight on two fronts. Or multiple fronts, actually, if we’re counting Roy. It’s why Hitler lost World War II.”

Oliver nodded his head slightly, keeping a straight face. “So in this scenario…I’m Hitler.”

“Give me five minutes to rework that analogy.”

He rolled his eyes and reached for their empty coffee mugs. “Fantastic.”

Felicity swung around in her chair and reached for her discarded heels before he’d even made it past one step on the stairs. “Hold up, I’m coming with you,” she said abruptly.

The sudden break in her concentration made Oliver suspicious. “Why?” he asked. “You don’t trust me to make coffee?”

She laughed and dropped a kiss on his cheek as she skipped past him to the staircase. “Of course not. It’s just…there’s no kitchen down here, so watching you work the coffeemaker is the closest I’ll — uh — get to a front row seat at the cooking show.”

It did less than nothing to tamp down his suspicions, but he followed her up the stairs anyway. “Is this because you’ve had two cups of coffee already?” he asked, checking the cup to gauge how much it was in caffeine intake. “Should I cut you off?”

“Funny you should say that.” Felicity was holding the door open for him now. “And uh, remember how much you like me, okay? Okay.”

“What?”

Felicity gave him a small push and slammed the Foundry door shut at his back, leaving him standing alone in the back corridor. The crash, along with the shifty circumstances, reminded Oliver of a somewhat separate incident a few months back, albeit one involving the exact same people.

He gave the Foundry door — now locked shut against his passcode access — a thump with his elbow. “Felicity?” he said in warning. “What are you doing?”

He’d forgotten that the door was meant to be soundproof, and sighed, heavily. Felicity forcing him out of the Foundry, this early in the morning and in light of their previous conversation, could only mean one thing. Steeling himself to face an unpleasant interaction, he ducked out onto the main floor.

Tommy straightened up from behind the bar with a cardboard box, and barely gave him a sidelong glance as he slit the tape open with a cutter — with a little more force than necessary.

“Hey,” Oliver said.

“There’s no coffee back here,” he said curtly.

Oliver looked past him for the coffeepot, which was now empty. “There was when I made it thirty minutes ago.”

“I poured it out.”

“Why would you do that?”

Tommy slashed into another seam of tape. “Because I’m _incredibly_ petty.”

Oliver resisted the urge to roll his eyes within full view, and circled around to the back of the bar instead to start the coffeemaker. While the machine gurgled and hissed, Oliver turned to face Tommy, who was still rearranging things behind the bar — or keeping up the pretense, anyway.

As far as uncomfortable fights with his best friend went, they’d fought before, in more or less the same setting, and they were usually characterized by Tommy saying less than five words out loud within the span of a whole conversation — unquestionably an anomaly when it came to him.

“How — how are you feeling?” he asked, stiffly. “I heard Roy tossed you around last night.”

Tommy shrugged. “Sides hurt, but what else is new?”

“And Thea?” Oliver said. “I tried calling her this morning, but she’s —”

“— been in her room since she found out that Roy isn’t coming back,” Tommy finished for him. “Which you’d know about if you came home once in a while — except you can’t, because you won’t, because of something Moira did that you can’t tell Thea. What does that sound like? Oh, right. Another secret. One that you’re handling like _crap_ , by the way.”

Any and all inclination towards an apology went briefly out the window at what felt like an uncalled-for stab, and Oliver frowned. “Where’s this coming from? I told you why I had to take a step back from my mother, and you said you understood.”

“That was before I realized that it meant taking a step back from Thea, too. She misses you, and it’s like you haven’t been back in weeks — all because you don’t want to tell her about Malcolm.”

Oliver felt the counter digging into his back. “Do you?” he asked, tonelessly. “Do you want to be the one to take Robert from her?”

“It’s not like she’s losing her father — she’ll still _have_ Robert, he was the one who raised her. And she’ll — she’ll get me. She’ll get a brother.”

“And lose a mother,” Oliver said, in the same flat tone.

Neither of them spoke for the longest time, and Tommy went back to wiping down the bar top like nothing had changed. “Whatever,” he mumbled.

Oliver felt another twinge of indecision. He hadn’t approached Tommy to start another disagreement about Thea, even though it was perfectly clear that the former was starting to have doubts over keeping the truth from her.

That could wait. What he _had_ to say was a subject that kept shifting by the second, colored by uncertainties and the fact that making apologies had never been his strong suit. Usually it was Tommy who helped him, an option unavailable at the present.

They’d said plenty to each other the night before, and — somehow — not enough. “I shouldn’t have lost my temper with you — about you going out into the field without me,” he said, finally getting to his point. “I was surprised, and I overreacted.”

Tommy sighed heavily and made a beeline towards a cluster of chairs, which he began to stack. “Kind of more than overreacted there, buddy.”

Oliver followed him out onto the club floor. “I don’t know what else to say, Tommy. I thought I made myself clear when it came to you being in the Foundry, and I thought we were on the same page. Finding out that we weren’t — I didn’t respond well.”

“Well, you know what they say about assumptions,” he said, back still turned. “Short version: you, _ass_.”

Oliver felt another stab of irritation. “Can you honestly tell me that I don’t have a reason to be worried?” he said, ignoring the possibility that pushing the subject might start another fight. “Tommy, you’ve seen what happens to me and Sara even when we’re trying not to take risks. What we do — it always leaves scars. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to my best friend. I’m sorry, I don’t.”

“You say that like I don’t already know the risks,” Tommy said, dropping another chair loudly into the stack. “But here’s the thing — I don’t have a choice. I _have_ to do this, and you know that, you know that it’s not about me — it’s about Malcolm, just like you and Robert. Sara accepted it, why can’t you?”

“Because I can’t lose someone else,” Oliver answered, without hesitation. “If you get hurt — or worse — being out in the field, it’ll be my fault.”

“I’m gonna ignore the melodrama in that for one second, and point out that not everything’s your fault, Oliver,” Tommy said. “Felicity’s told you, Digg’s told you, Sara’s told you, and now I’m telling you — _again_. Jeez, are you trying to make us form a barbershop quartet or something?”

“I know,” Oliver said, and Tommy looked around. “But I can’t help it — I’ll always wonder, if I hadn’t become the Arrow, would it have even _occurred_ to you to pick up a bow?”

“I _did_ always end up getting into trouble with you, so I’d say probably not,” Tommy said, with a hint of grudging warmth. “But is that such a bad thing? It means I got inspired by my best friend in the world to try and do something good. To try and help a city that needs help. Can you honestly say that’s something to feel guilty about?”

Typical Tommy, always looking on the upside of things. He saw the good that could come out of it, Oliver just saw the worst as inevitable. “I’m an optimist,” he said dryly. “You know that about me.”

Tommy looked like he was about to smile, but tamped it back down. “Look, it’s not just the guilt-trip issue, okay? I meant what I said about you keeping secrets. It’s what we fought about the last time, and I told you. I _told_ you it was like I didn’t even know my best friend in the whole world, and it sucked. Now apparently I’m in the unapproved sequel to that.” He hesitated. “I thought — I thought things were going to be different this time.”

“Tommy —”

Oliver’s phone began to buzz in his back pocket, and he hesitated. Tommy rolled his eyes. “Work, right? Go, it’s fine. I won’t burn down the club or… _hit on_ Felicity in retaliation. We can talk tonight.”

To make matters worse, Isabel was calling, and given the present situation at the office, Oliver knew he couldn’t cut her off. “Yeah,” he said, watching Tommy head towards the stock room. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

* * *

Oliver hesitated at the sight of the empty boardroom, empty except for Isabel, seated at the head of the table with her work. “I thought the meeting started at nine,” he said.

“Nine-thirty, actually,” she answered, without looking up. “I routinely bump up all your appointments by thirty minutes in the hopes that you’ll actually end up making it some of them.”

Oliver was too used to her unsubtle jabs at his less-than-stellar office punctuality to falter in his perfectly courteous response. “I need an assistant who’s better at scheduling,” he said jokingly.

Isabel made a noise under her breath in vague agreement. “I always thought someone like Felicity would make a good candidate for the job. Always on time, whip-smart, knows when to disappear — qualities any good EA should have.”

“Or a CEO,” Oliver returned. “The vanishing act works best after the second round of celebratory drinks, don’t you agree?”

With Isabel, there was always a split second when he could tell exactly what emotion she was feeling, before the mask went on and she was perfectly unreadable again. This time it was a momentary grimace at the (joking) suggestion of her job in the context of someone she deeply disliked, annoyance evident in the way she brushed past the mention like it hadn’t happened.

“I know we don’t always see eye to eye on things, but I don’t give you enough credit, Oliver. Whatever this is — this _unconventional_ partnership — seems to be working to Queen Consolidated’s benefit. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

The words rang sincere to Oliver, who was slightly taken aback — as he usually was — by any sort of softness from Isabel. “Likewise,” he answered. “This company wouldn’t be what it is without you.”

“That’s very kind of you to say, Oliver,” Isabel said, with uncharacteristic modesty. “But I think your achievements deserve a little more celebration, after all — it’s your family name out there on the building. People expect you to live up to its legacy by being CEO, and I’d say you’ve done a… _respectable_ job so far.”

Oliver had to laugh at the reserved term Isabel used, something that made her smile too, like it was an inside joke. There was a faint but familiar rumble that made the two of them rise from their chairs, of the various board members arriving at the conference room for the meeting. “Oh, and Oliver?” she said. “Tell your mother good luck for me. For the debate, I mean. I hope she wins.”

* * *

“The annual board meeting went fine, Tommy,” Felicity said, the phone to her ear as the elevator doors rolled open to the second floor of the Starling General. “ _Great_ , actually. Oliver didn’t even need those flashcards I made him. But — more importantly — why aren’t you calling to ask him yourself?”

“His — uh — line’s engaged,” Tommy said. “Must be a conference call.”

“Liar, liar, and I smell fire.”

“For real? You should get that looked at, gorgeous,” he answered, with his characteristic smoothness of evasion.

“ _Tommy_.”

“Fine, we’re still…working the kinks out, okay? Or we _will_ , once he gets his head out of his clenched-up a—”

“Tommy, he’s your best friend, and I’m sure-slash-I- _hope_ he’s actually apologized,” Felicity said, leaning against a window to keep out of the way. “He actually said _I’m sorry_ , right? It wasn’t implied?”

“Yeah, he’s apologized. But so what? It only means something if it won’t happen again, and anyone who thinks Oliver won’t keep on keeping his secrets — hands in the air, please.” Tommy paused for dramatic emphasis. “I didn’t think so. And for the record, you should be on my side, because —”

“— I’m not _taking_ sides —”

“— _because_ ,” he continued, as though he hadn’t heard the interruption, “when he becomes your boyfriend — AKA _Mr_ Smoak — many a relationship bump will be averted if he learns that keeping secrets can’t and shouldn’t be the default setting.”

“But it _is_ , Tommy,” she stressed. “The fact is, Oliver’s not big on sharing, and everyone has parts of them they don’t want to share, even me. I know Oliver’s example stretches that to the extreme, but he’s trying. He didn’t lie to you when he found out Malcolm was Thea’s dad — that’s big for him. It doesn’t mean you can’t get mad, of course you deserve to, but…but we’re still a team, right? And you know we have work to do.”

Tommy didn’t say anything for the longest time. “I just…I _get_ that the Oliver who came back from the island wasn’t going to be the same as the Oliver who got on the Queen’s Gambit. He’s… _changed_ , and I know there’s no going back. But he’s still my best friend — he’s still _been_ my best friend, and I…I thought I’d be the exception, you know?”

“I know,” Felicity said softly. “I’m sorry.”

Tommy did the noise equivalent of shrugging it off. “Not your fault,” he said. “I mean…I’m sure it’s nice when he apologizes to _you_ — all he has to do is take his shirt off.”

“I make him drop his pants, too,” she said seriously, and he snorted in laughter.

“Anything I can do?” he asked.

Felicity craned her neck to try and see the hospital room number Diggle had given her, for the guy Roy had put into the ICU. “I’m about to try and break patient confidentiality laws to try and find out who John Doe is. You’re _very_ welcome to sub in if and when I strike out.”

“No luck on the facial recognition, huh?” Tommy said sympathetically.

Felicity winced at the memory of Diggle’s description. “I don’t think he’ll have much of a face for a couple of weeks, and we can’t wait that long.”

“You got a plan?” he asked.

Felicity scratched her cheek. “Not a good one.”

“Yikes. Keep me posted.”

“Will do,” she said. “See you tonight, okay?”

“Mm-hm. Don’t tell Oliver I called.”

“ _Jeez_ , Tommy.” Felicity hung up and shoved her phone back into her coat pocket, marveling at the spectacular immaturity of grown men fights. Diggle _and_ Tommy fighting with Oliver meant complete shutdowns at inadvertent mentions, stone-faced pretending they hadn’t heard of and/or weren’t obsessing about the other (even though they _so_ were)…

“Men,” she muttered, and hitched her bag strap higher up her shoulder.

 _Okay, game face. Game face_.

Which was…what? Concerned social worker? Didn’t make sense. Parole officer? Nixed, neither the authority nor proper attire for the part (and she didn’t want to imagine the look on McKenna’s face if she was asked to lie about Felicity being some sort of colleague).

 _Worried girlfriend — bingo_.

Felicity could feel any available musculature wincing in anticipation of some truly terrible acting, but she put on her most convincing _distress_ -face and walked into the hospital room.

She really shouldn’t have bothered.

The sight of John Doe’s face, swelled up and purple against the pillow, would have wiped any and all expression of mirth — if possible. Felicity felt a twisting sensation in her stomach at the thought that Roy had been the one who’d pummeled the life out of another human being — or would have, if Diggle and Tommy hadn’t tried to stop him.

Roy, of all people. Angry, but he’d always taken it out on himself or a sandbag at the gym, not… _this_. Not by almost killing someone, even if he hadn’t been walking on the right side of the law.

She shook herself and hurriedly reached for the chart secured to the foot of the hospital bed, but she’d barely gotten her hands on it before the sound of movement startled her into defense mode.

“Who are you?”

It was a doctor in a white coat, wearing an expression of hybrid suspicion and appraisal. The only — and unfortunate — reflexive answer that came to mind, apart from the open-mouthed hesitation, was: “No one,” she said, and shot out of the room like there was an actual cloud of bees on her tail.

Felicity ducked into a corner, pinching the bridge of her nose hard. That _had_ to be a record — mission fail, _two seconds_.

“Felicity?” said a voice.

She looked around.

It took her a second to process, having not seen Thea Queen in anything other than a perfect dress (evening or cocktail) and a pair of enviable sky-high heels. Daytime Thea was in jeans, a sweater and a pair of sensible boots, stalled in the middle of the hospital corridor because she’d just recognized her brother’s girlfriend-slash-dinner-date-that-one-time in the extreme unlikeliest of places. Sketchy? Probably.

“Hi,” she said, as Thea walked up to her. “What are you doing here? Is everything okay?”

“Yeah — mom and Ollie are both fine,” she promised. “I’m — uh — I’m looking for my boyfriend. Roy Harper? I think you might have met him at the mansion, after dinner…”

“Right, Roy,” Felicity said, trying not to think about the excessive weirdness of pretending she didn’t actually know Roy, and wasn’t here because of circumstances indirectly related to him. Then it hit her, because Roy wasn’t supposed to be in Starling General, or in touch with Thea (they’d guessed), especially since the Mirakuru had basically done his brain scrambled style.

“Um — wait, why’s Roy in the hospital? Did he call you and tell you to come see him?” she said, looking around in the partial expectation of a pale, Abercrombie-ish dude cropping up behind her like a horror movie.

Thea hesitated, like what she was about to say was something stupid or embarrassing. “No, he didn’t call me — well, he did — oh god, this sounds so stupid, but he…he left town, last night. He called me after the club closed, said that he was done — with us, with Starling City — and he told me not to come after him.”

“So the hospital factors into that because…”

Thea lifted her shoulders. “I just thought he might be lying to me, because he got hurt doing something with the —”

 _Arrow_ , Felicity thought, in continuation of the sentence Thea didn’t seem inclined to finish.

“Anyway, I thought he might be in the hospital because he got hurt, and he didn’t want me to get worried. It sounds weird, but trust me, it’s definitely something he’d do.” Thea looked around, like the surroundings were an answer to her question. “I’ve been through Emergency and the ICU twice, and I can’t find him.”

“Thea…” Felicity didn’t want to lie, especially not to someone who — without her knowledge — had an extensive history of being the subject of protective lies.

So she told the truth.

“I don’t think he’s coming back,” she said quietly.

A part of her had expected Thea to cry, but that part had forgotten the genetic relation to Moira Queen, master of the steely-eyed determination when it came to unkindness and general _suck_.

So she was surprised when Thea smiled, small and sad. “I know,” she answered.

Her eyes were green like Moira’s.

“So what brings you to Starling General?” Thea asked, with a shake of her head like she was clearing it. “Are you visiting someone?”

“No,” Felicity said, glancing towards the door she’d just shot out of. “Uh — it’s complicated.”

Thea cocked her head to one side. “Please, anything to distract me from thoughts of strangling random guys wearing a red hoodie.”

Felicity had a brief mental image of both Oliver and Tommy’s reactions if and when they ever found out that she’d enlisted Thea to help her during recon, namely accessing a suspect she’d more or less flubbed up on reaching herself, because complex identity-related lies were for people hardwired differently than she was.

“There’s a guy in room 202 who I think _might_ be involved in something sketchy and I kinda need his name,” she said.

Thea gave her a look from head to toe, like she was reassessing everything she’d ever learned or heard about Felicity. “I knew I liked you for a reason,” she answered. “What can I do?”

* * *

“You’re telling me that my sister stole John Doe’s hospital records?” Oliver said, his expression thunderous. “ _Felicity_.”

“She offered!” Felicity skimmed through the prognosis information, otherwise known as _unintelligible doctor scribbles_ , until she got to the ten-print card the hospital had taken after admission. “Besides, I warned anyone who could listen that I am _not_ the person to send on covert recon stuff. It’s a problem with human resources — take it up with them.”

“I thought _you_ were human resources,” Diggle said, sounding endlessly amused.

“I was temporarily out of the office,” she answered. “My substitute’s far less principled.”

“Shouldn’t have told him that,” Tommy said, going way, way off the mark for muttering. “Oliver doesn’t like his family making their own choices.”

Arms folded, Oliver shot him a look, the kind that led Felicity to assume the _Parent Trap_ -esque setup had _not_ worked the way she’d planned.

“Boys,” Sara said, sounding deeply exasperated. “Come on. We don’t have time for this.”

“Amen to that,” Felicity said.

“Hey, you and Oliver practically iced up the whole Foundry when you guys were fighting,” Tommy said. “Fair’s fair.”

“At the risk of getting my head knocked off, I don’t think the same logic applies,” Diggle pointed out.

Tommy pointed back. “Don’t make me come over there.”

Felicity snapped her fingers. “Gotcha,” she said. “Goodbye, John Doe, and hello Matthew Reed. He used to be employed at Kord as a factory manager but was laid off when they moved jobs to Taiwan. Now, seeing as Kord Enterprises was the place they hit, I’m guessing it’s not a coincidence that he was part of the skeleton key job.”

“So you’ll cross-reference with other ex-employees,” Sara guessed. “That’s great.”

“Even greater, I’ll start with IT,” she said. “Maybe someone who got in trouble for hacking into places he wasn’t supposed to. See? We can do this without the boys.”

“Don’t lump me with them,” Diggle said. “I actually help.”

“Very true.” Felicity glanced at the surveillance screens. “So I know what I’m doing for the next couple hours, but shouldn’t one of you be suiting up to head to a big, fancy concert hall?”

Oliver looked blank, like the board meeting earlier that day and whatever had gone on with Tommy upstairs had all but fried his _connect-the-non-sequiturs_ circuits. “What?”

“The debate.” In a way that was adorably similar to his best friend (though given the circumstances, probably also not), Tommy looked like he was acutely _not_ in the mood to get strangled by a tie and listen to political tennis in front of live TV.

Oliver shut his eyes and Felicity guessed that he was trying not to curse. “We have to be there,” he said, to no one in particular (Tommy, probably).

“Yeah, or Moira’s gonna be asking questions you probably don’t want to answer,” Tommy said, checking his phone. He frowned. “Weird. Thea usually freaks out when I’m about to be late to something. She hasn’t even called.”

“Maybe she has a lot on her mind,” Diggle suggested. “She seemed pretty upset about Roy.”

Tommy still looked doubtful. “Maybe. Felicity, earlier, when you — y’know — convinced my sister to be an accomplice to information theft, did she say if she was heading back to Verdant, or to the house?”

“I offered her a ride, but she said she had it covered,” Felicity said. “I figured she drove.”

“Her car’s in the shop,” Tommy said, and glanced — in a way that seemed habitual — at Oliver.

Even when they were fighting, Oliver’s expression shifted, like he could read whatever non-verbal thing was going through the wires. “She knows Moira needs all three of us,” he said. “She wouldn’t disappear.”

“Yeah, but Roy. She was already looking for him at the hospital.”

Oliver shook his head. “I’ll hold down the fort here,” Felicity said, touching his arm. “Do what you have to do.”

“Thanks. I’ll keep trying Speedy,” he said, and turned to Tommy. “My mother’s already nervous as it is. Don’t tell her about Thea, it’ll just distract her from the debate.”

“Copy that. God, why tonight?” Tommy muttered. “Of all the nights to pull a disappearing act. It’s not like her.”

“I have a feeling we’re going to be saying that a lot more before the end of today,” Sara said, and Felicity had a sinking feeling she was right.

* * *

Oliver sidestepped to avoid being hit with a lighting fixture, the phone still pressed to his ear. It was ringing, like it had been for the last ten times he’d been trying his sister’s number, only to get her voicemail.

The backstage area of the mayoral debate venue — second largest concert hall in Starling — had been completely repurposed for the live event, a time-sensitive mandate clearly reflected by the swarm of nervous publicists, security, TV crew members and people he’d never seen in his life.

Voicemail, again.

“Speedy, it’s Ollie. I’m at the concert hall with Tommy, and you’re not here. Look, I heard about what happened with Roy, and I know you’re upset, but mom needs us tonight. We’re all getting worried about you, so please — whatever it is — just call me, okay?”

He hung up the phone and turned, searching for Tommy in the sea of unfamiliar faces. He found him near the makeup area with Moira, and he was already looking over. _Anything?_ he mouthed.

Oliver shook his head, and Tommy faced Moira again, his expression cautiously blank. It was impossible to deny it now, with everything going on with Slade, that everything was a contributory factor to the feeling of unease worming its way through his insides. “Where are you, Speedy?” he muttered.

* * *

“I don’t think I’ve been this nervous since my wedding day,” Moira said, as the makeup lady went over her face with a powder brush so huge it might as well have been a feather duster. “Both of them.”

“You’ve said that before. When you were about to announce you were running for mayor.” Tommy was actively fighting the urge to bounce up and down on the heels of his feet and check his phone for nonexistent texts/calls/emails from his sister, but he couldn’t do anything to tip Moira off that there was a missing persons situation. Especially not when it was Thea.

“Well, I reserve the right to change my mind,” Moira answered, and waved off the makeup lady (AKA feather duster wrangler). “Thank you very much, Sylvia.”

Tommy craned his neck to try and get a look at Oliver, who was their designated Thea-Queen call center for the evening, but he couldn’t pick him out through the jumble of campaign people (why were bodyguards always so damn _tall_?).

“Tommy,” Moira said, suddenly. “The last time you looked like that, you’d accidentally let the McPherson’s purebred poodle out into the grounds, and everyone had to spend the whole evening looking for the poor thing. What did you do now?”

“What?” Tommy was A) surprised she even still remembered that, given how he’d retrospectively repressed the memory and B) frantically trying to come up with deflective statements to try and explain his resting Shifty Face. “No, uh — I was — Sebastian Blood just got here and I was trying to see if you guys accidentally matched outfits. I mean, that would be _terrible_. Think of all the headlines.”

“Oh.” Moira sat a little straighter in her seat, adjusting her charcoal gray blazer. “Is he?”

“Nah. He’s wearing blue. Dick,” Tommy added, somewhat unnecessarily. “Are he and Oliver still pals? They’re over there talking.”

Moira’s face went guarded at the mention of her estranged son, and Tommy winced on behalf of his unconstrained thought process. “I assume Oliver distanced himself from Mr Blood’s campaign a while ago,” she said flatly. “Though I wouldn’t necessarily think it strange if he resumed that support, given all that’s happened between us.”

“No.” Tommy put his hand on Moira’s shoulder. “Ollie wouldn’t do that. He knows what running for mayor means to you. He wouldn’t embarrass you like that.”

Moira reached up to pat his hand, and let hers rest on top of his for a moment. “Thomas Merlyn, you are an uncommonly sweet boy,” she said. “And I don’t tell you this nearly enough, but I’m very lucky to have you.”

Tommy shrugged. “Hire me at the mayor’s office as the front desk guy and we’ll call it even. Can’t run a nightclub for the rest of my life, can I?”

Moira was still chuckling when she noticed someone coming over. “Walter, thank you for coming,” she said. “And Detective Hall as well?”

McKenna was right beside him, clearly dressed like she was meant to be Detective-ing around the premises. “I thought backstage was restricted access only,” Tommy said to her, even though he put an arm over her shoulders anyway, doing the whole _boyfriend-says-hi_ kiss routine.

“Perks of having a badge,” she answered, smiling in a way that made the nasty feeling in his chest a whole lot less nasty.

“I ran into Detective Hall, who offered to help me find my way in all this chaos,” Walter said, bending to kiss Moira’s cheek. “Quite the zoo here, isn’t it? I didn’t think campaigns were this messy.”

“Looks like lock-up on a Friday night,” McKenna said. “Who’s running this thing, anyway?”

“Ah,” Moira said, looking around. “Part of the responsibility falls on my daughter, who I can’t quite seem to find — Tommy, have you seen Thea?”

Tommy held up his phone. “Pretty sure she’s stuck in traffic. That d—Sebastian Blood had a whole traffic — security — thing. Y’know. Security.”

“Motorcade,” McKenna volunteered, looking at him with a faintly questioning-slash-suspicious expression. “That’s true, it was on the wires. Maybe Thea got stuck in traffic.”

“Oh dear,” Walter said. “The debate’s about to begin.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll be in the front row with Ollie the whole time,” Tommy said. “I’m sure she’ll be here soon, just — focus on beating the crap out of Blood. Not literally, but, y’know. As close as you can get. That’s legal, right?”

“Extremely,” McKenna said. “Good luck, Mrs Queen.”

Moira took a deep breath, managing a small, but elegant smile. “I think that’s my cue to take my place behind the podium.”

Tommy smiled. “I promise, we’ll be right here.”

* * *

“There will be cameras on the candidates for the duration of the debate, but also on audience, especially the candidates’ families and guests,” said Moira’s campaign manager, while Oliver tried not to look too obviously like he was thinking about anything except his mother’s performance with focus groups. “Now, we’ve polled audience reactions, and generally speaking, they like it when a candidate’s family looks supportive. So even if your mother makes a mistake — or gives an answer the crowd doesn’t like — don’t show it. And vice versa, if your mother gives a good answer, and the crowd loves it, then —”

“—whip out the pom-poms and start some cartwheels, right?” Felicity interrupted.

The campaign manager — once again — looked at Felicity like he had no earthly idea who she was, but Oliver couldn’t have been more relieved to see her, despite the fact that he thought she was going to be in the Foundry all night.

“I’m sorry, but please don’t do that,” said the campaign manager. “Applaud your mother, some vocalized expression of approval and support is also acceptable, just _not_ —”

“—I get the picture, thank you,” Oliver said, and pulled Felicity away from the manager and his increasingly disapproving face.

“Yeesh, I guess campaigns aren’t the place to joke around,” she said, glancing over her shoulder. “You think he’s going to start checking my bag for pom-poms?”

Oliver didn’t stop until they were backstage, and behind enough curtains to make sure the cameras didn’t pick up on the kiss he gave Felicity in greeting. “Hi,” he said. “What are you doing here? I thought you were staying with the database search.”

“I left it to run. Turns out Kord Enterprises has a lot of angry ex-employees,” she said. “Besides, I figured you needed the support. Still no Thea?”

Oliver shook his head. “I don’t know what’s going on with her, but I just have this bad feeling that —”

“Don’t say it.” Felicity took his hand, holding on tight. “You just haven’t been home in a while. There could be anything going on, with Roy, with the club — maybe her and Moira had a fight. You don’t know for sure.”

“You’re right, I don’t know for sure because I’ve been so angry with my mother that I’ve been avoiding home — seeing my sister — and I have no idea what’s going on. Tommy’s right. I’ve — I’ve handled things with my family the _worst_ possible way, and now it’s all coming back to hurt us. I can’t help, and it’s my fault.”

Felicity was pinching the bridge of her nose. “Seriously, how do you get from A to Z like that? Scratch that, I’m pretty sure you just jumped to Sanskrit alphabet — if it even has an alphabet — which isn’t my point. Not my point,” she said, with a tiny shake of her head. “Look, you’ve distanced yourself from Moira, and you have your reasons, but what I’m saying now, is that your impulse — and you know the one I mean — to make everything your fault _just because_ , don’t let it win the day, all right? You did really well at the board meeting today, and your family is just another area that you have to fix, like your best friend thing with Tommy, and Roy. One step at a time.”

Oliver sighed, bending to lean his forehead on Felicity’s. She put her arms around his middle, rocking slightly from side to side while they stood together, shielded by the curtains, away from the clatter and noise of the debate.

“You’re right,” he said. “One step at a time.”

Felicity nudged him back. “Now where did you get that incredible idea?”

Oliver found himself laughing quietly, and he was still laughing when Felicity’s lips touched his, gentle, smiling. It was incredibly hard to believe anything might go wrong when they were just standing like this, and in spite of himself, he couldn’t conjure up the reasons to feel worse, not when Felicity was with him.

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Felicity.”

Another teasing nudge. “Why do I have a feeling you’ll be saying that a lot tonight?”

* * *

The debate was going well. At least it seemed to be, from the applause and the parts of it that Oliver managed to hear. The bulk of his attention was still on the open seat for Thea in the front row, and the corresponding lack of messages or returned calls to explain why she wasn’t sitting with them.

Another round of applause cut off his train of thought, and he stirred himself to mirror the clapping in his row, conscious of the eagle-eyed campaign manager and the active cameras trained on the candidates’ guests.

“—unlike Mr Blood’s fiscal plan for social security initiatives throughout Starling City, my proposals will ensure that there is a solid tax base to pay for the ambitious, but _realistic_ welfare programs that I plan to institute as mayor,” Moira said, her voice ringing strong and confident in the vast hall. “Mr Blood will tell you that he plans to impose tariffs on the so-called one-percent, but what that will ensure is cutbacks that will reduce corporations’ abilities to pay for his unsustainable schemes.”

Felicity was better at subtly checking her phone than he was, but so far there didn’t seem to be any news from the Foundry — or new disasters.

Which have been construed as a small victory by itself.

“Is the moderator asleep?” Felicity said indignantly. “That’s like the fifth time Blood’s interrupted your mother.”

“Are you actually listening?” Tommy said, on her other side. “My brain fell asleep after he decided to put two words next to each other that weren’t _I_ and _quit_.”

Felicity and McKenna shushed him at the same time.

“I must remind the candidates to refrain from interrupting,” said the deep-voiced moderator. “Now, we’ll be moving on to questions from members of the audience. The first one should be coming up on the screen now, if you’d please look behind…”

On cue, the massive projection screen behind the candidates blinked to life, but the moderator trailed off when the banner image of the mayoral debate dissolved into undecipherable static.

Whispers began to erupt in the hall.

“Apologies, but we appear to be experiencing some technical difficulties.” The moderator had his hand pressed to the mic in his ear. “Our team is looking into it n—”

There was something appearing on the screen now, blocks of pixelated color, like puzzle pieces being assembled on the spot, and Oliver rose silently from his seat, staring at the image as it began to form.

“What the hell?” Tommy said.

“Oh my god,” Felicity said, her hands over her mouth.

Thea was crying on the vast screen, tears running down her face. Her eyes darted left and right; from the way her shoulders looked, her arms were tied behind her back, or at her sides. She was frantic with fear, at something —

 _Someone_.

There was a scream from the audience. On stage, Moira stumbled back into her podium, a hand over her heart as she took in the sight of her daughter, plastered on a screen in front of hundreds of faces and looking like she was frightened beyond belief.

“Help,” Thea was saying, in a choked, terrified voice. “Please. Pl—”

She was cut off by a single gloved hand descending over her nose and jaw, and Oliver took another step forward — as though he could lunge at the projected image, at whoever had his sister — when a familiar black and orange mask loomed into view over her shoulder.

The image was suddenly gone, replaced by a sentence blinking up on screen that made Moira whirl, panicked, searching the crowd below for Oliver, then back to the screen — at the singular threat, the proverbial knife against her only daughter’s throat. Security was swarming around the front row now, cameras were flashing white. Someone was taking Oliver’s arm, trying to get him backstage, but he wasn’t listening, not to any of them.

All he could hear was Slade’s mocking voice, asking the question he’d broadcast to the whole of Starling City.

_How much is Thea Queen’s life worth to you?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Part two :)


	31. Reversal (Deathstroke, Part IV)

“Mr Queen!”

“Mrs Queen!”

“Can you comment on the rumor that —”

“Have the kidnappers been in touch with a ransom amount —”

“Is Thea Queen still alive?”

The lobby of the Queen Consolidated building was pure chaos, but Oliver had no doubt that Moira heard that question just as clearly as he had, and she made a low noise behind her hand — raw, like a wounded animal — that sparked his temper into something dangerous. He turned; but Diggle interposed himself between Oliver and the reporter who’d shouted, steering Moira with him into the elevators.

“Come on now,” he said firmly. “They want you upstairs.”

The next thirty-something floors passed in near-silence, Oliver staring sightlessly at the climbing numbers while his mother fought to maintain her composure. The doors slid open to the top floor, and somehow the chaos was no different, filtered through dozens of voices, ringing phones, and just — too much.

There were both police and QC employees on the floor, in the waiting area, in the conference room, around his assistant’s desk…they’d turned the area into a kind of headquarters for the search.

For Thea.

His sister.

However quickly he may have jumped to conclusions about other matters, on this, there was no dispute. Slade had taken her to punish him. It was his fault.

“Moira.” Sergeant Lance was waiting for them with his detectives, one of them McKenna. Oliver scanned the room for Tommy and found him standing with Felicity. The two of them had clearly been talking around her computer, but they were both looking over now.

Somehow he couldn’t bear to look Felicity in the eye. Not with her faith, her optimism, her hope. Somehow, he just couldn’t bear it.

And Tommy…

It was like seeing whatever he was feeling, mirrored in the face of someone who knew him better than anyone.

Did Tommy blame him for this too?

“I don’t — I don’t understand,” Moira was saying. “There should have been a demand. That’s what kidnappers _do_. They should have told me — we have insurance — we —”

She put her face in her hands, turning away to face the window.

Oliver had just taken half a step towards his mother when Tommy came in, bracing her by the shoulders as they shook. He stood there, his hands at his side, mute, helpless.

“There was no demand with the message, which means that it might not be about a ransom,” McKenna said. “The broadcasting system was hacked from the outside, and the question feed was replaced by the video of Miss Queen.”

“We’re so sorry about this, but can you think about anyone who’d want to hurt Thea?” Lance’s question was aimed at them both. “Anyone at all?”

Moira lifted her head. She’d regained her composure, and her face was steely now. Though for a split second, something did flit across it, something almost guilty. Oliver wondered if she was thinking about Malcolm, a suspicion that was confirmed by her answer. “Only the families and friends of the five hundred and three innocent people who died in the Glades earthquake,” she said, in a flat voice. “And anyone else who still thinks I’m a murderer who walked free. Does that narrow down your search?”

“Mom,” Oliver said, but she continued to stare down Lance, as though daring him to continue. “It’s not about the earthquake.”

“You can’t rule anything out,” Lance said, with a straightforwardness that was nothing short of brave, given Moira’s icy gaze. “It might be —”

“The man in the mask,” Oliver said. “That’s who you should be looking for. None of this matters, except him. He took my sister. _Find him_.”

There was anger in his voice, and Lance paused, at once confronted with thinly-veiled rage and frosty calm from either of the Queens. “Look, I promise that we’ll get Thea home safe. You just have to give our detectives some time. Don’t lose hope yet, all right?”

“Thank you,” Tommy said, when neither Oliver nor Moira spoke a word. “Thanks.”

“Oliver, I need a minute — please,” said Isabel.

Oliver glanced back at his mother and Tommy, but they were both facing the window. Tommy was murmuring something to Moira, while she stared sightlessly at the night sky, her face clear of any emotion.

For a moment, he wondered if that was the way she’d looked — armored, but with volatile flashes of raw feeling — when she’d found out that the Queen’s Gambit had gone down.

“ _Oliver_.” Isabel was still waiting.

Unwillingly, he made his way through the fray towards the conference room. The space was similarly full of ringing phones, the only difference being that instead of police, they were harried-looking QC employees in the PR department trying to control the impending press nightmare caused by a family kidnapping.

“I’m sorry about your sister,” she said, with an air of someone starting with the preamble. “But —”

“Isabel, I promise that I will sit down for two — three hours with you after all of this is over, and you can tell me exactly what I’ve done wrong in however many languages you know, but I cannot deal with whatever business matter you’re about to ask me to deal with, not right now,” Oliver said. “I can’t think of anything except my sister, and I need you to cover for me — just for a little longer.”

“I know.” Isabel reached out and gripped his arm, one of her rare moments of sympathy. “Oliver, I know that you’re losing your mind over Thea, and I’m covering for you in any way I can. Except this. New directors were nominated at the board meeting today, and we decided to suspend the vote until we could get the quorum, but only for twenty-four hours. That’s running short, and —”

“—Isabel, I can’t —”

“— Oliver, this is an SEC _regulation_. If we don’t finalize it with an official board resolution and file within twenty-four hours of the nomination, we’re breaking the law. I will — and have — covered for you in everything else, but I can’t replace my other CEO. _You_ need to cast that vote.”

“Isabel, that’s never stopped you from taking on my responsibilities before.” Oliver glanced through the conference room wall, where Felicity was motioning to get his attention. “What can I do to make it happen for this?”

Isabel looked like she was trying not to tear out her hair, or strangle him with her manicured fingernails around his throat. “You could — I’d need Legal to consult on this, but you could probably appoint someone as your temporary replacement — what are you doing?”

Oliver reached over and snatched one of the yellow pads a PR manager was using, tearing off the top page and starting to write. “I’m appointing you as temporary CEO, just until Thea’s back,” he said, finishing off his signature. “Is that enough for the SEC?”

Isabel took the pad mutely, but Oliver was already on his way out of the room. “What’s going on?” he said, as Felicity pulled him aside.

“What was _that_?” she said, looking at the still-silent Isabel, who looked like she’d just been handed an unexploded bomb. “Did you just fire her? And before you ask, no, that’s not my hopeful voice.”

“I appointed her temporary CEO so she can cover for me with the SEC.” Oliver gestured at the tablet in her hands. “What did you find?”

“ _Hold up_ ,” Felicity’s hand was on his chest. “You just appointed Maleficent CEO of the company? Are you insane?”

“ _Temporary_ CEO, and I’m doing it for my sister,” Oliver said, still not quite understanding why they were wasting time on the unimportant details. “I can’t appoint you — I need you in the Foundry with us. It’s only temporary, Felicity. She can’t do much damage in a temporary position.”

“Did you ever hear about the Julius Caesar and how he decided he liked his job so much that he was gonna just set up camp there?” Felicity jabbed a thumb in the direction of the conference room. “That’s a Caesar. And not the salad.”

“ _Felicity_.” Oliver was losing his patience, though a strong argument could be made as to whether he’d even had it to begin with. “I can’t hear this right now. What did you find?”

Felicity was visibly unwilling to let the subject go, but Tommy was waiting for them in a corner, along with Diggle. “So you know how we always tend to have a lot more on our plates than we can chew?” she began.

“I don’t know if now’s the time to bring it up,” Diggle said, while Oliver waited.

“Well, not this time, because priority number one just merged with priority number two,” she said.

Tommy shook his head like he needed to clear water out of his ears. “Explain that sentence, specifically how two bad things merging makes it good news.”

“Detective Hall said the question feed at the debate was hacked from an outside source. Broadcasting systems are almost bulletproof _because_ they broadcast, they can’t let people hijack their content, and you can bet they have a mega IT department for that purpose. Which is why I thought that whoever hacked them had to be using a pretty big bazooka. Guess what that bazooka was?”

“The key.” Oliver lifted his head. “The skeleton key?”

Felicity nodded. “It doesn’t just break bank encryptions, it hacks networks, like ours. Like the broadcaster’s,” she said. “Which means the Clock King’s working for Slade.”

* * *

Under usual circumstances, when more than one bad thing happened to them, they didn’t later turn out to be linked. Which was why Felicity briefly considered whether the Big Guy Upstairs was being nice, or just making up for the kidnapping of a nineteen-year-old girl.

Tommy swore at the news, a completely understandable reaction. “Is there a Craigslist section for these people?”

“Can you track him?” Diggle asked. “You said he hacked the broadcast, right? That always leaves a trace — like the one you used to track him to the bank he was robbing. Can you do that again?”

“Already on it. The key’s meant to be untraceable, but it emits a signal when it’s in use. I’ll let you know as soon as it churns up a location. Oliver —” Felicity grabbed his sleeve before he could start walking away, because he’d already dropped a bombshell of his own. “The CEO thing? You —”

“I can’t think about that right now,” Oliver said. “I have to speak to Lance, just please — keep me posted, okay?”

He squeezed her hand once before he let it go and strode back to the group of detectives and the sergeant. Felicity turned back, staring through the conference room wall with a sinking feeling in her chest that had nothing to do with job security concerns. Isabel was on the phone now, the yellow legal pad still on the table beside her, and Felicity could just about make out Oliver’s handwriting.

Whether she stayed Chief Technology Officer was irrelevant — like caring about watering some fig trees when the rest of Rome was on fire. She hadn’t quite figured out the Queen Consolidated-equivalent of Rome being on fire, but she had no doubts whatsoever that she was going to find out if Oliver didn’t do something to correct what he’d just signed over.

“What’s going on?” Moira said.

Felicity started; she hadn’t even heard Oliver’s mother come up behind her. Apparently quiet walking was a family trait. “Moira, I’m so sorry about Thea, but uh, I think the sergeant can answer your question, I’ve just been fielding calls from —”

“No, I don’t mean about my daughter,” Moira said. She was looking at Isabel too. There were signs that she’d been crying, but it was gone now, and all that remained was an ice-cold appearance of calm, and a levelheadedness Felicity hadn’t been expecting from a mother frantic with the kidnapping of her daughter.

Then again, Moira Queen wasn’t exactly most mothers, and something about the impending Isabel-Oliver debacle had triggered her instincts. “Oliver signed something, didn’t he?” she said, watching Isabel.

Felicity hesitated before facing the conference room again. “He made her temporary CEO so that he can focus on looking for Thea.”

Moira inhaled sharply and laid a hand on Felicity’s arm. “I know you have all the reasons not to trust anything I tell you, but you cannot let Oliver do this.”

“He’s already done it,” Felicity said. “Short of stealing that pad and burning it in the bathroom, I don’t see how —”

“Felicity,” Moira interrupted. “I am already close to losing my daughter, and I cannot see my son hurt because of a woman I’ve known to be untrustworthy from the second she walked inside Queen Consolidated. I will not. But if you listen carefully, and do exactly as I say, we may be able to protect Oliver. Will you help me?”

Love or hate, it was times like these that made it impossible not to admire Moira Queen. Whatever her methods of interpretation, she had a maternal instinct to protect her children stronger than anyone Felicity had ever seen, and even in a moment when anyone else would have been a weeping wreck, she was staring at Felicity with nothing short of complete acuity, her eyes alight with fierce determination.

For Oliver.

Felicity nodded. “Tell me,” she said.

* * *

“What do we have? And please tell me I get to hit something,” said Tommy. The press cavalcade had made its way to Verdant because of the well-known fact that Thea Queen was usually sighted there, and he’d just come from closing down early and kicking everybody out. Satisfying, though not entirely therapeutic.

Felicity was taking the stairs so fast that he was worried she might be about to trip in her heels. She also had more documents with her than he assumed was necessary for a missing persons search, but there wasn’t the time to ask questions.

“I tracked the OFDM from the broadcast network hack to an address in the Glades,” she said. “It used to be a warehouse, but it’s been abandoned for the last five years. Dollars to donuts that’s where he’s hiding out.”

“You said the signal only appears when the key’s in use, right?” Sara had a beaker and a pair of lab goggles in her hands. “What’s he doing with it now?”

“General purpose evil stuff, I’m guessing, but it was active a few seconds ago.”

Diggle looked like he was thinking the same thing as Sara. “This whole thing’s fishy. Doesn’t it seem a little too easy?”

“Since it’s Thea who’s been kidnapped,” Tommy said. “I’m not really going to question it, are you?”

Oliver shook his head. “Slade might be there. We can’t rule anything out. Tommy —”

Tommy turned, his bow in hand. “What? I’m coming with you.”

Weirdly, the _duh, of course_ version of his answer didn’t seem to generate the same reaction from his best friend. “And how are you going to take on Slade?” he asked, like it was obvious.

Tommy shrugged. “The same way you are, just — y’know — the best I can,” he said. “You’re not seriously going to keep me here, are you? You’re already one person short because of Roy.”

Judging by the look on Oliver’s face, Tommy was speaking Greek and he wasn’t getting it.

“Can I make a suggestion?” Sara said. “Take on Slade with these.”

A quiver of arrows landed on the nearest worktable, except the arrowheads had been modified to hold reinforced syringes of something purple and vaguely toxic-looking. “Tibetan pit viper venom,” she said. “Most powerful sedative the League’s ever worked with. It should be enough to slow him down, give everyone an edge.”

“Fantastic.” Tommy snagged a handful. “So are we going?”

They stared each other down, Tommy on one side, Oliver on the other. There weren’t a lot of choices, and they both knew it. Oliver twisted his neck and muttered something irritable in Russian, which he took to mean he’d won. “Fine,” he said. “Suit up.”

* * *

Rusted chains clinked on the floor of the defunct warehouse, tangled beneath Oliver’s feet like vines. A breeze filtered in from the dust-streaked window they’d pried open to get inside the warehouse from above ground.

A shadow appeared behind him, and Tommy slipped inside, carefully avoiding the chains. The sight of the bow in his hand nagged at Oliver like an active irritant, but for reasons that had nothing to do with his best friend, not really. They’d trained together enough for Oliver to know that Tommy was a natural at stealth, in spite of his tendency towards ill-timed jokes and a pretense of clumsiness. It was the same with Malcolm; they were both agile, with a natural sense of balance, jungle cats in the trees. He also knew that if Sara had let him out into the field, Tommy must have gotten much, much better while Oliver had been looking elsewhere.

But it didn’t mean that he liked having his best friend in the field, not one bit.

“Oh good,” Tommy muttered. “An abandoned warehouse. Just when villains couldn’t get any less original.”

“Just try not to stick yourself with the arrowhead, all right?” Oliver said, a little more sharply than he’d meant. “The last thing we need is for you to accidentally poison yourself.”

“Gee, I wonder if I can avoid the sharp pointy thing in front of me,” Tommy snarked back. “I’ll try my best.”

“As someone who’s actually been stuck with a diluted version,” Sara said, “that stuff’s strong. At this dosage, it’ll probably stop your heart within a second.”

“I don’t remember there being so much bickering on the ground,” Diggle commented, from the other side of the warehouse. “Felicity, how are things looking?”

“I’m picking up something on thermal imaging,” she said. “Nine — ten bodies. All live. One of them’s in a chair in another room.”

“Thea,” Tommy said.

“Or that’s what he wants us to think,” Sara said, expanding her Bo staff with a snap of metal.

Oliver braced on the edge of the rail and shot a grappling arrow into the rafters. “Move in. We’re wasting time.”

He swung down to the floor below, landing soundlessly on the dusty concrete. The others followed, shapes in the relative dark. Oliver motioned, and they took their places, two on either side. He nodded, and shot a detonating arrowhead at the door. It exploded inward with a spray of sparks, and they rushed in.

“Slade!” Oliver roared.

Shapes rushed out of the dark to meet them, but none of them looked like Slade. Mercenaries, armed thugs meant to be more an annoyance than a real threat. Oliver took the first one down with a straight shot and rolled across the floor to stab another in the leg.

Behind him, Sara threw her Bo staff to catch one of them about to fire off a balcony, proceeding to take on two more with her bare hands. Diggle tackled another, and Tommy —

Oliver whirled, but his friend was nowhere to be seen, until —

A mercenary came hurtling down from above and stopped dead with a wire around his ankle, knocked out cold, and Tommy jumped down from a stack of crates, looking otherwise unharmed. “All good,” he said.

Oliver fired off an arrow behind him; the small charge sent a mercenary hurtling backwards into a pile of rusted frames. “Still don’t watch your back,” he said.

“Smug bastard,” Tommy muttered mutinously, advancing into the fray with an arrow nocked to fire.

The thugs didn’t last long between the four of them, and Oliver walked across the unconscious bodies to reach the last door. It was unlocked, and he could hear something behind it. Sara nodded, and he pulled it aside.

But there was only the clicking of a keyboard, and a ghostly blue light that gleamed on a pair of glasses, turning them eerily opaque. “Just me, I’m afraid,” he said. His voice was metallic, whispering, and not at all surprised. “I take it you’re here to arrest me, Mr Arrow?” He cocked his head, a gesture that struck Oliver as strangely reptilian. “And friends. Are you missing someone? I distinctly remember a gentleman in red.”

Oliver made sure an arrow was pointed at his chest. “Where’s Slade Wilson?”

“I have no idea who you mean. I was working alone.”

“You disrupted the broadcast for the mayoral debate to show a kidnapper’s video,” Tommy said. “Why would a lone wolf do that?”

“I suppose that question remains for you to answer,” he said. “Now, are you going to call the police? Tick, tock. Tick. Tock.”

Sara searched him, including the table he sat at. “No skeleton key,” she said.

The man chuckled. “Ah, clever girl. I make sure to hide my toys, and I’m afraid I’ve sent this one far, far away.”

Oliver tapped the comm link. “Call it in,” he said.

Diggle pulled Oliver aside. “He’s not gonna talk,” he muttered, while Sara and Tommy kept watch. “Look at him, Oliver. He’s doing this on purpose.”

Oliver knew that Diggle was right, but they didn’t have the wealth of options to refuse. “We have to make sure he does. He’s the only link we have to Slade.”

“But how? You can’t read minds, and you can’t pressure it out of him, not if the guy doesn’t care whether he’s going to prison.”

“Guys? I think I can help there,” Felicity said. “I’ll meet you at the station.”

* * *

“You’re saying he knows something about Thea?” McKenna looked from Felicity to Tommy with deep skepticism. “The hacker guy kidnapped Oliver’s sister?”

Tommy shushed McKenna, drawing her away from the desks and to a corner fenced in by whiteboards. “Slade Wilson kidnapped Oliver’s sister, but we think he’s been working with the Clock King, or bankrolled him to steal the skeleton key, or maybe just to hack the broadcast feed — look, I can’t _Beautiful Mind_ it, all right? You just need to get Felicity five minutes with this guy.”

“Felicity?” McKenna repeated. “Not the Arrow?”

Tommy glanced at Felicity, who shrugged. “Normally, I’d be insulted, but you have a point there,” she admitted. “I’m only threatening in very special circumstances. This happens to be one of them.”

“It would also really, really help if you told us everything you know about him,” Tommy said. “Blood type, porno preferences, anything.”

McKenna gave him a look. “His name’s William Tockman, he’s been unemployed for over a year, last job at Kord Enterprises working in cybersecurity. No family except a sister, but she’s in a Coast City hospital. She’s waiting on a lung transplant for cystic fibrosis.”

“Did Slade threaten her?”

“No, I don’t think so.” Felicity was typing on her tablet. “I just ran Tockman through all available databases. He’s in the hospital records for MacGregor’s syndrome. It’s a terminal disease, basically he’s a dead man walking. Threats wouldn’t do anything for him, but he needs the money for medical bills. His sister’s.”

“How does this help Thea?” McKenna asked.

Felicity heaved a sigh. “Because I know how to make him talk. But it’s not a pressure point I like putting pressure on.”

“I’m sorry,” Tommy said. “But —”

“I know,” Felicity said. “Thea. One sister for another, right?” She turned to McKenna. “Five minutes, that’s all I need.”

McKenna looked about as confident as they did. “I hope you guys know what you’re doing.”

Felicity hugged the computer to her chest, her face doubtful. “Believe it or not, so do I,” she answered.

* * *

The door to the interrogation room opened and shut with a click. Tockman looked up with mild inquisitiveness as Felicity walked towards the chair across from him, and took her seat. “Are you another lovely lawyer from the District Attorney’s office?” he inquired. “Because I’m afraid I’ve just met with one, and it’s all looking dreadfully bleak for me.”

“No, I’m not,” Felicity said, unfolding her tablet and setting it on the gleaming steel table, devoting her energy to making sure her hands didn’t shake.

Also to stop thinking, _take two. Don’t mess it up_.

Tockman’s head was cocked to one side, as though he’d heard something she hadn’t. “Now, I recognize that voice,” he said, sounding like the cat that had eaten the canary. “You’re the hacker on the other end of the line. The one I spoke to when I was looking into that pesky frequency those vigilantes were using.”

Felicity only looked back. Words were a weapon with him, weapons for his slippery, slimy hands. The less she said, the better.

But ironically, silent interrogations weren’t so much a thing, given the lack of telepathy in the room.

“You’re much prettier than I thought you’d be,” he said, unfazed by her silence. “I’m not surprised the Arrow keeps you around.”

Again, Felicity didn’t respond, even though her skin crawled with the scrutiny. “Where’s Thea Queen?” she asked.

Tockman sat back, his cuffed hands laying on the table in front of him. “Now that’s a question I wasn’t expecting. What makes you think I have any idea?”

“You’re working with Slade Wilson, Mr Tockman,” Felicity said. “He’s the one who kidnapped Thea, and you hacked the debate broadcast to show his message. Doesn’t take a genius to put together the fact that you two go arm in arm.”

“Apparently it does, since none of the detectives who interviewed me asked anything close to that question,” Tockman said, sounding almost amused. “They just want to know what I’ve done with that pesky skeleton key, and like I’ve told your…friends, I’ve sent it off somewhere it won’t be touched. No, no. The fact of the matter is, I’m dying, and a prison sentence won’t change that. So really, if you’re going to threaten, you should have come with something a little more… _scary_.”

Felicity started to type. “If you say so. I guess the easy way’s out the window, so let’s do things a little differently, shall we? Mr Tockman, where’s Thea Queen?”

Tockman opened his hands, like a child being asked to show whether he’d hidden anything in his fists. “I have no earthly idea,” he answered.

“All right.” Felicity looked back at the screen. “I see here that your sister’s waiting on an urgent lung transplant. Beverly Tockman, right? She’s been stuck on the list because of unpaid expenses, not even counting what she’ll have to pay for the actual transplant, and the aftercare. I see here that some of those expenses have _just_ been paid today. Now, that’s very interesting, because she hasn’t been working for the last few months, which makes the large transfer she received the day before a little strange. If I trace her anonymous benefactor, that gets me to a private network in the Cayman Islands. Impossible to crack — well — harder to crack for most people. But I’m not most people. So what happens if the money suddenly becomes inaccessible before she gets the transplant?”

The handcuffs suddenly tensed against the steel, straining as Tockman leaned forward, the breath hissing between his teeth. “You wouldn’t,” he said.

Felicity’s finger hovered over the key. “All I have to do is leave an anonymous tip, and the assets will be frozen as unlawful gains from criminal activity, and your sister’s going to suffer the consequences.”

Her insides squirmed with something that was very much guilt as she made the threat, but she didn’t need the powerpoint presentation to know that it was between Thea and Tockman’s sister. And only one was family to some of the people closest to her in the world.

“Mr Tockman, where is Thea Queen?” Felicity asked.

Tockman’s handcuffs tensed against the metal bar holding him to the table with a loud _snap_ , and she very nearly flinched. The movement didn’t go unnoticed, and he withdrew to his seat again, looking at her with a very changed expression.

“Someone who looks as innocent as you do,” he said. “Who would've thought? Capable of making threats like your hooded friend.”

Felicity straightened her spine. “I do what I have to,” she said, with something close to conviction.

“I see. Well, you can tell your friend that sweet little Thea Queen is currently at 532 Marshall Way, fourth floor office. But beware,” he said, with a snake’s whisper. “There are traitors inside the castle walls.”

Someone tapped on the door to the interview room, and Felicity was on her feet, the chair legs screeching against the floor in her haste to leave. She bumped her shoulder against the frame, nodding at McKenna because she’d gotten what they’d come for, and she was calling Oliver before she’d even made it out into the hallway.

“I have something,” she said. “532 Marshall Way, fourth floor.”

* * *

They were close. They were closer to finding Thea than ever, and Oliver could only tamp down the feeling of hope with hard reality, forcing himself to think from Slade’s perspective. He knew what Oliver would do to save his sister, and that was the most dangerous thing of all.

Slade had nothing to lose, but Oliver did.

The mood was tense in the team, and Oliver stared at the ground as he spoke, still trying to anticipate what Slade’s moves would be in the game.

“He’s armed, and dangerous,” he said. “We have no way of knowing what he’ll throw at us. But the priority is Thea. Tommy, you get her out of there. The rest of us will distract Slade and his guards. Whatever you do, just make sure she gets out. No stupid risks.”

“No stupid risks,” Tommy agreed. He wasn’t smiling, not when they were this close to finding Thea.

Oliver nodded, and pulled up his hood. “Move out.”

“Office lock’s down,” Felicity said. “The security cameras have all been disconnected, I can’t get anything off them. Be careful, it might be a trap.”

“Copy,” Oliver said.

Sara was the first through the door, slipping through the glass entranceway without a sound, clinging to the shadows with the Bo staff at her side. The office layout had been easy to find, and they knew it was a cube-shaped office, corridors on either side that converged at the main room. At Oliver’s signal, they split off, Sara with Diggle, Tommy with him.

For a beginner, Tommy was quieter than Oliver thought he’d be. Quieter than Roy, who always seemed to find things in his way. Then he remembered that it was far from Tommy’s first time.

Would Laurel have done the same?

Oliver gave his head a shake. Focus now. They scanned each corner as they passed, waiting to see masked men lurking in the shadows and lunging out of nowhere. But there was nothing. Empty chairs, bare desks. There was no sign that it was even a real office in use, or that anyone had even been there at all.

“There’s someone in the office,” Sara said over the comms. “I can see a shadow in the chair. Might be Thea, but she’s not making a sound. Maybe a gag.”

Oliver reached the doorway and saw a faint outline of a head over the back of the leather office chair, silhouetted by the dim glow from the clouded glass windows behind the desk. There was something in front of the chair, in the center of the table, a red blinking light. Something automated.

Oliver put out his hand to block Tommy from moving forward. “Might be an explosive. Triggered.”

“I can’t see tripwires,” Diggle said. “It doesn’t look like any mine I’ve seen either — too small.”

A beam cut through the shadows near the left door, the one Sara and Diggle were near. It shone on the blinking thing, and Oliver saw what it was. “It looks like…a projector,” Tommy said. “Maybe he’s a secret home movie buff?”

“I’m getting a signal off it,” Felicity said. “I think it’s hooked up to a camera. Probably Slade’s way of creeping on everything going on in that office.”

“It’s not going to kill us,” Oliver said, and took a step forward. Nothing happened, and he took another, and another, until he could see behind the chair. There was a lump in his throat when Diggle’s flashlight beam panned up from the floor, but as soon as he saw the boots, he knew it wasn’t his sister.

He also knew that whoever was in the chair, they’d been long dead.

“ _Dammit_ ,” Tommy swore.

“Who is he?” Diggle said.

The flashlight beam reached the face, and Sara released a soft breath. “Oh my god,” she muttered.

Oliver stared at the black arrow protruding from the dead man’s closed eye, trails of blood dried down his cheek and down his front. “Alexei Leonov,” he said. “He was a Bratva captain. The one I asked to track down Slade Wilson.”

“There’s something in his hand.” Sara bent, and there was a scrunching of paper as she extracted it from the man’s death grip. She showed them the crumpled scrap and the writing on it. “The address for this place. Looks like Slade knew we were onto him.”

One step ahead. Oliver gritted his teeth. Tockman, Leonov…the taunting and the setup, they were both telling him that Slade had known all along that they were coming.

“We’ve wasted more time,” he said. “Let’s g—”

He’d only taken a step before a light exploded into the space, causing nearly all of them to recoil. Oliver’s arrow was pointed at the glare, until he realized that the blinking projector on the desk had come to life, shining the images onto the far wall. He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the sudden brightness, and then he went very still.

“What’s happening?” Felicity asked. “Are you guys okay?”

“Yeah, Felicity, we are,” Tommy said, squinting against the light. “The projector just came on. It’s…showing someone. Some girl. Who is she?”

“Shado,” Sara answered. Her voice nearly cracked at the name, at the wealth of emotion that came from regret, guilt, and the familiar sight of someone long gone. Slowly, she pulled the mask from her face and stared at the lit wall.

It was Shado as Oliver had never seen her. She wasn’t the Shado he’d met on the island, but the Shado who might have lived. Here, snippets of a past life, as though taunting Oliver with the loss of a girl who’d glowed as bright and beautiful as a star. She was in an unfamiliar apartment, smiling as she spun on the spot, her arms at her sides. _Click_. Shado, an umbrella behind her head as she turned towards a blindingly white sea, looking back to say something, smiling. _Click_. Shado laughing, looking into the lens and just…laughing.

Then, suddenly, it changed.

Brightness flared white across the screen again, making him wince, and when it faded, it was suddenly on a familiar street. Just across from the Queen Consolidated building.

“What the hell?” Diggle said, as Felicity ducked out of the coffee shop with a paper cup, turning to wave at someone as she left.

 _Click._ Felicity was on the phone now, standing outside a restaurant.

 _Click_. Felicity was walking along the bay with Tommy, tucking her hair behind her ear when the wind tore it free again. Tommy said something and she laughed, clapping her hands together in front of her mouth.

Oliver knew what was coming, but it still hit him like a solid blow when it came.

 _Click_. Another familiar street, and a familiar sign — the diner just a few streets away from Felicity’s house. It was early, the street deserted, streetlights still burning orange even though the sky was a pale indigo, turning bright with the morning. The door to the diner opened, and as Oliver watched, he walked out, and stood waiting at the steps for someone, a smile on his face.

A beat later, Felicity emerged, looping a scarf around her throat and saying something to him that made them both laugh. As he watched, the Oliver in the projection put his arm around Felicity’s shoulders and kissed the side of her head, pulling up the hood on her sweatshirt to cover her hair in the cold. She leaned into him, an arm around his waist as they both made their way down the street.

The projection cut out then, to a prolonged and stunned silence.

Oliver didn’t say a word, because he remembered that morning, as vividly as though it had happened the day before. It was the first night he’d ever spent with Felicity, and the morning after, they’d gone to get breakfast together at the diner. He’d held her hand and smiled at the possibilities of everything, and now —

Slade had tainted that moment, with darkness, with revenge, with a threat.

“Did I just…” Tommy stared at Oliver like it was the first time they’d met. “Did I just see what I think I just saw? Are you and Felicity a — I mean — but you never — when — how — _what is going_ _on_?”

Oliver shook his head, his throat tight. “It’s a message,” he said, wishing that he didn’t understand, wishing that it was possible for him not to know Slade’s mind, and what he meant. “The people I love —”

“—they’re going to die,” Sara finished, so that he wouldn’t have to. “I’m so sorry, Ollie.”

* * *

Verdant was a hushed space when it wasn’t open for business, even quieter than when it was being set up before opening hours. Oliver had left the lights at their lowest, turned off the ones he could, and now he was sitting with his head in his hands, trying not to feel like he was getting fenced in by an unseen force, smaller, smaller, until there was nowhere left to run.

He couldn’t feel that way, not for his sister’s sake.

But they’d hit a dead end. That was the reality. The traceable hack, arresting Tockman and getting a confession out of him, the address — it had all been a way to lure Oliver into another one of Slade’s taunting messages, at a time when the last thing he’d needed was another reminder of how he’d failed the people in his life.

Now Tommy knew, another secret that Oliver had been keeping from him. Another thing he hadn’t had the time to repair, a vulnerable fracture splintered beyond repair because Slade had acted swiftly, and without mercy.

He couldn’t lose his best friend along with his sister.

“Does staring at the wall help with life’s godawful problems?” Felicity asked. “If you say yes, I might try it too.”

Oliver didn’t look up, and he didn’t move, not even when Felicity’s hands were on his shoulders, bracing him in silent support. She felt the way she always did, like comfort, like warmth, like _home_ , only Oliver couldn’t take comfort in it, not like before. She’d tried to convince him of the opposite, and god knew he’d almost believed her, but it was impossible not to feel like she was another thing that Slade was going to take away.

“Hey,” she said, resting her chin in the curve of his neck. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Oliver searched for her hand in the darkness and gripped her fingers tight, because he couldn’t find the words to speak, even if it was remotely possible for his throat to unstick itself.

“But I am sorry,” she said. “Back at the debate, before it started, you had a bad feeling about Thea not being there — you were right. I should have started helping you look for her, and maybe…maybe we could have gotten a head start.”

“It’s not your fault.” Oliver finally managed to use his voice, even if it was choked with everything else he couldn’t say. “Slade’s always been ten moves ahead. We never would have beaten him.”

“I saw Thea at the hospital,” she answered. “I should have made sure she got home safe. Not…I don’t know…rope her into unintentionally helping us with Foundry work.”

“Slade would have gotten to her, one way or another. If you’d stayed with her, maybe he would have taken you along with Thea. And I couldn’t — I couldn’t do this if you were gone too.”

Felicity’s breath quickened against the side of his face, and Oliver ducked his head again. “I don't know what to do, Felicity. Every time I think I’m ahead, Slade shows me that he’s been planning it the whole time. How can I beat someone like that?”

She didn’t say anything for the longest moment. “It’s a corny answer, but I think the best one we have still stands. _Together_. You can’t do this alone, Oliver, and I’ve told you that pushing people away is the worst thing to try.”

“But keeping them close is what’s putting them in danger in the first place.”

“ _Oliver_ ,” she said, chafing his shoulders again. “We are who we are because of the people we choose, and the people who choose us. Slade Wilson is not half the man you are because he’s alone. He doesn’t have friends, he doesn’t have family, and he’ll never understand how they can make you strong.”

“Strong,” Oliver croaked, almost laughing, and hating himself for doing it. “I don’t feel strong right now. All I can think of is the fact that I can’t lose my sister, Felicity. I can’t. It’ll kill my mother — it’ll kill Tommy — and I — I’ll never forgive myself for hurting them.”

“Hey,” Tommy said. He’d just come up from the Foundry, and it was impossible to read his expression in the dim light, though Oliver guessed it didn’t look good. “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt, I’ll just —”

“No,” Felicity pulled back, clearing her throat as she faced Tommy, wiping a hand across her cheek. “I should be checking on the searches anyway. I’ll give you two some time alone.”

She kissed Oliver’s cheek, lingering for a moment before she walked away. Tommy said something to her and they hugged, briefly, before she vanished through the doorway, leaving the two of them alone for the second time in the span of a day.

Tommy didn’t move to sit beside him, opting to circle around to the back of the bar instead. “I don’t know about you,” he said, as glass clinked, “but I need a drink.”

“Tommy, I don’t —” Oliver began, hoarsely, but a light blinked on somewhere above the counter, making him wince.

A glass was set down in front of him, and Tommy poured something brown into it. “You definitely could use one of these.”

Oliver didn’t touch his drink. “Tommy, I don’t know what to say.”

“That works out great, because I was planning to do most of the talking,” Tommy answered, taking a gulp straight out of his own tumbler. “God, I hate scotch.”

Oliver didn’t say anything, bracing to hear it, Tommy walking away. Again. Because he completely deserved to, after all the secrets Oliver had been keeping.

“I know we should be looking for Thea, but we can’t do it without addressing the elephant in the room. When were you gonna tell me? About you and Felicity?”

Oliver stared blankly at a spot behind Tommy’s elbow. “I don’t know. After Slade.”

“Okay, second question. How long has this been going on?”

Oliver didn’t even bother trying to lessen the blow. “A while. A month, maybe more.”

“Wow,” Tommy said. “I mean…wow. All this time, you let me run around thinking that Felicity had a secret boyfriend and you weren’t doing anything about it because you had your head up your ass.” A pause. “I guess that last part is still kinda true, just a different context.”

Oliver was silent, and Tommy exhaled, heavily. “You know what sucks?”

“That we fought about me keeping secrets yesterday and here’s another thing I wasn’t telling you?” he said, flatly.

“More or less, but also the fact that I’m your best friend, and you couldn’t tell me that something completely amazing happened in your life. I mean, I can’t even count how long it’s been since you fell for Felicity, and when you finally worked things out with the one person who stands a chance at making you happy, you kept the secret. Another one. Again.”

“I don’t know, Tommy. The reasons all seem stupid now,” Oliver said. “I really don’t know. I’m…I’m just sorry.”

“Yeah,” Tommy said. “I’ve heard that before. And I know we shouldn’t be talking about this right now, but _oh my god_.”

“I know, and I understand — whatever you feel like you have to do next. I understand.”

“You mean, freeze you out for the rest of eternity and beyond like I tried to the last time?” he suggested. “Didn’t work, did it? You’re still my best friend.”

Oliver lifted his head. “What?”

Tommy shrugged, like it was obvious. “You’re still my best friend, my brother, whatever stupid secrets you decide you have to keep. Old Oliver — the Oliver who used to fight paparazzi with me and pee on random street signs — the Oliver who got on board the Queen’s Gambit, he would have told me everything. _Everything_ , no matter how bad it was. But that’s not the Oliver I got back from Lian Yu, and I can’t keep being angry because the person you used to be died on that island. I’m not saying I like how your instinct is to always keep a secret, because god knows that always works out great, but I’d rather help talk it down than not talk at all. So you’d better watch yourself, mister, because I’m keeping an eye on you, and I’m gonna help you kick that bad habit.”

In spite of everything that was going on, Oliver felt something close to a glimmer of hope. “You’re just going to kick me, aren’t you?” he said, finally.

Tommy made a face. “For a while, yeah.” He held up his glass. “There’s one more thing, and you’re not gonna like it. But when we find Thea — and we will — I think we should tell her about Malcolm. The truth, the whole truth. Whatever the consequences. We can’t keep doing this to her, and not telling people the truth is part of what got us into this mess in the first place. I vote we stop being idiots and come clean.”

Oliver nodded. “I know.”

“We’ll find her,” Tommy repeated, as though he could sense what Oliver was thinking. “We _will_ , Ollie. Okay? So don’t — don’t give up hope just yet.”

Oliver nodded, and they’d just clinked glasses halfheartedly when his phone started to buzz. He glanced at the screen. “It’s the company lawyer,” he said.

Tommy looked confused. “What’s going on there?”

Oliver had a feeling he was about to find out, and more importantly, he wasn’t going to like it.

* * *

Isabel was sitting in the boardroom when Oliver walked in, and she paused mid-sentence before setting down her pen and looking at the others. They were all from Legal, and they avoided Oliver’s gaze as they filed out without needing to be told.

“ _I’d need Legal to consult on this_?” Oliver said, curtly repeating Isabel’s words from when he’d signed his name and handed over power to her as CEO.

Temporarily.

Clearly she hadn’t seen it the same way.

“What have you done, Isabel?” he asked.

“I should have thought that was obvious,” she said sweetly, getting to her feet, as though she couldn’t see the darkening look on his face. “You gave me full power as sole CEO, which meant — apart from convening another board meeting to finish the SEC voting — I could also introduce a motion to have you voted out as CEO and replaced by me. Permanently.”

“You took advantage of my sister being kidnapped,” Oliver said, taking a step forward.

Isabel turned her head slightly, but she didn’t move back. “I’m sorry, is that supposed to make me feel something?”

“We were supposed to be partners.”

“No, I was supposed to be the CEO of a company _I_ dragged out of the dirt after your family ran it into the ground in the first place. _I_ did that, not you, or your mother. Between an idiot playboy and a mass-murdering politician, I guess the Board of Directors had more confidence in my leadership. Not,” she added, “to say that there was any on your part, not really. Making excuses about long lunches and bad traffic doesn’t really endear you to the business community, even if it’s your family’s name on the building.”

Oliver had been walking towards her the whole time, and now, with them only a few feet apart, Isabel took half a step back, even though the look on her face was still purely taunting. But it was a strange look, more than just triumph that she’d forced him out of Queen Consolidated. There was something hungry in it, something that went deeper than just spiteful rivalry. Something vindicated.

“I guess you should have devoted more time to making sure you had your company under control, rather than your — how should I put it — _nocturnal_ _activities_ ,” she said, and the emphasis on the last two words made Oliver tense.

“Isabel,” he said. “Who are you?”

The hungry look turned ugly now, and Isabel smiled. “Sins of the father,” she answered, and Oliver’s hand shot up, clamping around her throat in an unmistakable threat.

“You’re working for Slade Wilson,” he said, as it all dawned on him, from the beginning — Stellmoor International’s takeover, Moira’s dislike of Isabel, _sins of the father_.

But what had Robert done to her?

“ _With_ Slade Wilson,” Isabel corrected. “Unlike you, I understand what a true partnership means, and I’ve been his partner since the beginning. His training nearly killed me, but I put myself through it to make sure that you paid for what your father did to me.”

“What the hell are you talking about? My father never even met you.”

Isabel actually laughed. “I’m not surprised Moira never told you about me — it’s usually a sore spot for the jilted wife to bring up the woman her husband was about to leave her for.”

Oliver took his hand from her throat like he’d been burned. “You and my father —”

“You know, he’s not wrong about you,” Isabel said, her face bright with malice. “Slade thinks you have a weakness — of not seeing things until they come back to bite. Of course, I was skeptical that someone could be so stupidly blind, but I guess certain people shouldn’t be underestimated, should they?”

They stared at each other then, Oliver seeing Isabel Rochev as she truly was for entirely the first time, and then — still smiling — she lunged.

Oliver blocked her kick out of pure instinct, and she followed with a series of attempted blows that struck hard and fast like cracks of a whip. Isabel was small, but there was solid strength behind her hits, and the apparent grace of a dancer was repurposed to make her dangerously agile. She laughed, and Oliver seized her by the shoulder when she tried to catch him off-guard, swinging her around and slamming her against the wall.

Her face was pressed to the marble, his hand clenched tight on the back of her neck, the other twisting her arm back in a wordless threat that he could snap the bone if she tried to move. “Where is my sister?” he snarled.

Isabel’s whole body shook when she laughed again, almost choking for breath. “Every time,” she gasped. “Slade’s never wrong when he says you’ll do something. You always — _always_ — do.”

“Did he tell you that I can break your neck with my bare hands?” Oliver said. “Because I will, if you don’t tell me where my sister is in the next five seconds.”

Isabel struggled, and he yanked her arm back all the more painfully, until the breath hissed between her teeth. “Don’t worry, Oliver. Sweet, darling little Thea should be walking into the police precinct any minute now,” she said, still gasping with laughter.

Oliver pressed harder. “How do I know you’re not lying to me?”

Isabel turned her head and fixed him with a mocking stare. “Because it’s all going according to Slade’s plan,” she said. “And if you don’t believe me, call one of your little friends and they’ll tell you I’m right.”

Oliver could feel his phone buzzing. He didn’t remove the hand twisting Isabel’s arm behind her back, but swiped to pick up the call. “Hello?” he said.

“Oliver? It’s Sergeant Lance. We got her,” said Lance. “Thea just walked into the 52nd about a minute ago. She’s all right, Oliver. She’s all right.”

Oliver released Isabel without a second thought, and started to walk from the room. He could hear Isabel calling after him. She was on her knees, but she got up again, holding the arm he’d threatened to break. “It’s not over you know,” she warned, mocking as ever. “Far from it. He’s just getting started.”

* * *

Oliver paced the floor inside the interview room. Moira was standing by the window, while Tommy was the only one sitting in the chair.

“What’s taking so long?” Tommy said, craning his neck to look through the glass pane in the door. “They said it was just an interview.”

“I’m sure they only want to be thorough,” said Moira. “I think Detective Hall said there was a medical exam too.”

“I’m gonna find out how much longer it’s gonna be,” Tommy said. “Try not to kill each other while I’m gone, okay? For Thea’s sake.”

The door shut with a crisp _snap_. Oliver didn’t say a word, continuing to walk the same route, trying not to think about anything except his sister, despite the silence that drew taut and strained the more either of them went without speaking.

“Look at us,” Moira said, suddenly. “We should be celebrating that we have Thea back, but here we are. Mother and son, on opposite sides of the room like we’re complete strangers.”

“Now’s not the time,” Oliver said tiredly. “Thea —”

“—has been asking questions as to why you and I have not been speaking,” Moira said. “Nearly losing my daughter has put the lies I’ve told her into sharp perspective, Oliver. I’m sure they have for you too, and given all that’s happened tonight, I think we’ve concealed the truth for as long as we can. Longer than we should have, though that’s not been your fault at all.”

“What are you saying?” Oliver asked.

Moira turned to face him at last. “I’m saying that you and Tommy were right. I’m saying that the reasons I’ve given for hiding her true parentage — keeping the family together, protecting Robert’s memory — they all pale in comparison to the real reason I did it. Which was to protect myself. I couldn’t bear the thought of Thea despising me the way you do, but when I thought I lost her forever, I realized that the worst thing would have been to let her go without knowing the truth. It would be a dishonor to anyone’s memory, Oliver. Which is why I think that she should learn the truth about her real father.”

Oliver started to walk, not to resume his pacing, but to move closer to his mother. “Robert was her father,” he said, slowly, making sure she heard the words. “Malcolm may share half her DNA, but Robert was the man who raised her, the father who loved her, and she loved him. Telling her won’t change that.”

It was a reassurance, meant to comfort Moira that she was doing the right thing. Whether she understood it for what it was, Moira lifted her head a little, and Oliver thought he saw something shining in her eyes. “And I don’t hate you, mom,” he continued. “I was angry. I thought I might go on avoiding you forever, but someone reminded me who the real enemy is, and you’ve never been that to me. I can’t afford to fight with you too, and I don’t want to.”

Oliver reached for Moira’s hand, and took it the same way he might have taken it as a boy. An apology, and a hope for a reconciliation, all at once. “We’re family,” he said. “Tonight reminded me why it’s so important that I remember it.”

Moira’s grip tightened around his hand. “My beautiful boy,” she whispered, and Oliver shut his eyes, grateful that he’d listened to the right advice.

There was noise outside the door, and they both looked towards the glass. Thea was with Tommy, wrapped in a blanket on top of her coat — grimy and ashen from where she’d been held — and he was saying something to her as he opened the door.

“Look who’s here,” he said.

Thea hadn’t even looked up yet when Moira almost flew across the room at the sight of her daughter, catching her in a tight embrace. “Oh, my baby,” she whispered, stroking her hair. “Thank god you’re back.”

Oliver moved to hug his sister too, but her shoulders stayed as stiff and wooden as if she hadn’t noticed their presence at all. She stared past Moira, blank and unreadable. As if she was still surrounded by strangers. Oliver looked over her head at Tommy, who shook his head. He didn’t know either, but he’d noticed it too.

“Speedy?” Oliver said. “What is it?”

Thea flinched at her childhood nickname, and something came alive behind her eyes, but it wasn’t close to what he’d been expecting. It was pure hostility, crackling out from eyes as green as Moira’s, the look of pure betrayal.

“Thea, sweetheart,” Moira said, pulling back. “What’s the matter?”

“Who am I?” she asked, nearly spitting the words. “Who am I, really?”

“What are you talking about?” Tommy said. “You’re —”

“You’re lying to me!” she shouted, and it echoed in the closed space. She stepped back, pressing against the wall like she needed to put as much distance as she could between herself and all of them.

“Thea,” Moira said, but there was fear on her face. “Please.”

Thea was faced away from them, her arms crossed defensively in front of her chest. “Mr Wilson told me what you’ve been keeping from me,” she said. “All this time, you knew Malcolm Merlyn was my father.”

There was a long, incriminating silence as none of them — not one — could find the words to try and salvage the truth, and what they’d kept.

Oliver couldn’t believe it. He didn’t want to. They’d been about to tell her. For once, it was all coming together. They’d been about to do the right thing, the _good_ thing. Now it was all slipping away, and he didn’t know how to make it stop.

“I expected this from _her_ ,” she said, flicking her eyes at Moira. “But I trusted you, Ollie. I thought you would have told me the truth.”

For a second, Oliver thought his voice had failed him, and he only belatedly managed to fumble for an answer. “I only found out a few months ago, Speedy, I swear,” he began, but she cut him off.

Thea was looking at Tommy now, who looked like all the blood had drained from his face. “You knew you were my brother this whole time,” she croaked. “Why didn’t you tell me? What was so wrong with me that you couldn’t tell me that I was your sister?”

Moira dropped the hand covering her mouth. “Because they were protecting me,” she said. “Thea, sweetheart, they were protecting me — they didn’t want to lie, but I forced them to. Hate me, but don’t punish your brothers —”

“My _brothers_?” Thea snapped. “Are you kidding me? All three of you were _fine_ pretending as though nothing was wrong, and now, suddenly, I’m Tommy’s sister? That’s the problem with you — you think the truth is something you can bend so that it’s useful when you want it to be. That’s not what the truth _is_. You either tell it, or you don’t, and right now, I don’t trust a word any of you people say to me. So just get the hell out of my way.”

Moira tried to reach for her, but she twisted out of her mother’s grasp, slamming into one of the cabinets in her haste to recoil. The noise startled all of them, made them freeze. “Thea, please,” Moira pleaded, the shock plain on her face.

“Speedy, it was to protect you,” Oliver said, finally. Even though he knew it wasn’t enough. “Please don’t go.”

Thea stopped in front of the door, her hand on the knob. “Did you ever notice how mom’s lies never really end up protecting the family like she says they do?” she said. “Guess what? This is just another spectacular failure, so don’t you dare try to use that one on me again.”

Before anyone could say another word, she’d flung the door wide and strode out of the room without a backward glance, leaving a shocked silence in her wake.

* * *

It felt like hours later before Oliver descended the Foundry steps, too far away to hear the metal echoing beneath his feet. He reached up and loosened his tie, even though he knew it would do very little to ease the lump inside his throat, or the feeling in his chest that there were steel bands wrapped tight around his lungs, squeezing tighter and tighter.

The walls were closing in. The same old routine. As soon as he thought he’d shored up his defenses on one side, about to make the deciding move, the other would collapse in a spectacular ruin. All Slade’s doing.

Again.

“Hey,” said a voice.

Oliver looked up. “John,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here too,” said Felicity, stepping out from behind the computers. “Where’s Tommy?”

“He’s — he’s with my mother,” Oliver answered, finding it hard to concentrate. “She’s had a pretty bad shock.”

“We heard,” said Diggle. “Thea found out.”

“She didn’t just find out.” Oliver found his way to one of the steel worktables and all but collapsed against it, feeling as though his legs couldn’t bear his weight any longer. “She found out from Slade. After Tommy, my mother and I all decided we were going to tell her the truth. Too late. Just like with everything else. It’s always too late.”

“It won’t be forever,” Felicity said. “You came round, eventually. Thea can’t stay mad at her family forever. I’m pretty sure Tommy’s genetics make long-term grudges against him completely impossible. Sorry — bad word choice.”

Oliver couldn’t even try to smile. “On top of that, my family’s company is currently in the hands of Isabel Rochev,” he said. “You were right, Felicity. I shouldn’t have signed it over to her. I was stupid — I didn’t think — I was so caught up with my sister being kidnapped and I did exactly what Slade knew I was going to do.”

“I mean,” Diggle said. “Might be a blessing in disguise. I didn’t think you liked being CEO that much.”

“It’s not being CEO I’m worried about,” Oliver said tiredly. “It’s what Isabel’s going to do with the company’s resources — if she’s working with Slade, she’ll be exploiting whatever we have in R&D to help him get what he wants.”

“Centrifuges, you mean,” Felicity said. “About that.”

Something in her tone made him look up. “What?”

“Well, the good news is, you now have one less thing to worry about,” she said. “The bad news is, I had some help from your mother when I took care of the company thing. Turns out she knows a lot about SEC regulations involving big personnel changes.”

“You — what?” Oliver straightened up. “What do you mean — took care of the company thing?”

“Oh, you’re gonna like this.” Diggle looked extremely pleased with something, and so did Felicity, and Oliver had less than an idea as to why.

“I signed a note,” he said, in case it wasn’t already clear. “I made Isabel CEO of Queen Consolidated. I wrote — I signed —”

“Ah, the handwritten note.” Felicity leaned over to get her tablet, which was filled with documents that looked like company emails. “See, that’s a problem, because of all the evidence I’ve dug up of who you _really_ meant to make CEO the whole time. Turns out, there’s a whole lot of official email correspondence and some very helpful written letters in your QC account, all in all making some pretty compelling evidence against the piece of legal pad Isabel managed to dig up out of nowhere.”

Oliver was still confused, although Diggle looked as close to grinning as he’d ever seen. “So if I didn’t make Isabel CEO, who did I mean to promote?”

In answer, Felicity held out her tablet. Oliver took it, and peered at the screen. A beat later, he looked up. “Felicity, you’re remarkable.”

“Why thank you,” she said, and reached for her coat. “Now, I’m headed to Queen Consolidated to kick Isabel out of your office, with some help from Security in case she decides to use her dark magical powers. Interested in helping?”

It was the first piece of good news Oliver had heard in a while. “God yes.”

* * *

The top floor of Queen Consolidated was hushed and quiet, police and PR department having vacated the search headquarters now that Thea had been found — or as a side effect of smelling pure evil and vamoosing. Felicity’s heels clicked loudly against the marble as she made her way from the vestibule to the glass-walled waiting area of Oliver’s old office, then up to the open door.

There were already paintings sitting on the floor next to empty walls, and shelves stripped of things Oliver had put on them, sitting in boxes near the entrance. Felicity stepped over one of them now. “Evening,” she said. “Or, I guess, early morning.”

Isabel didn’t even look up from the desktop computer, evidently busy formulating one of her evil plans via company hardware. “If you’re here to beg for your job, you can do it on Monday. I’m busy.”

Felicity shifted a paperweight Oliver had always kept on the side table about two inches south, back to where it usually sat. “No, I think I’m good, thanks.”

“Security can be upstairs in under sixty seconds.” Isabel was still typing. “Since I’m in a gracious mood, I’ll give you another thirty seconds to say whatever you have to say in defense of that moronic playboy before I kick you out of my office.”

“Your office? Huh,” Felicity said, pulling out her phone and scrolling through to the uplink with Queen Consolidated’s account access. She swiped, and Isabel’s computer gave a sudden blip, the screen going dark.

Isabel finally looked up.

“Now that I have your attention,” Felicity said. “See, you just got locked out of Queen Consolidated’s mainframe because our access protocols were recently upgraded to reflect the current status quo, which — unfortunately — gives you _no_ login credentials since you’re no longer CEO, or employed by Queen Consolidated. At all.”

Isabel actually cracked a smile. “That’s very cute, Felicity, but I’m the one better at threats.” She picked up the phone. “Security, upstairs. Now.”

Felicity waited until Isabel had slammed the receiver back down before she continued. “Well, you just made my life a lot easier. I always forget the extension for Security.”

“You know, I always thought you babbled, but I didn’t think you were actually delusional,” Isabel said. “I’m the CEO here, and Oliver’s not around to protect you. I hope sleeping with him was worth it — if memory serves, he wasn’t that great in the sack.”

It was clearly meant to wound, but Felicity just smiled, because Isabel couldn’t touch her. Not with Moscow. Not with anything. Not ever. “Actually, here’s the thing, you’re _not_ CEO. I’m sure you thought you were, when you called that board meeting to get your appointment finalized, but see — even if you were planning to take advantage of Slade kidnapping Oliver’s sister as a distraction, you _really_ should have made sure he signed something more official than a notepad.”

The look on Isabel’s face turned ugly. “What are you talking about?”

“Oliver did appoint a temporary CEO on the night his sister was kidnapped, but he didn’t do it by signing the piece of paper you showed the board. Turns out he did it the official way, which was to email all the necessary authorities and file the corresponding paperwork that shows who he really meant to appoint, which — spoiler alert — wasn’t you. Which also makes what you did _dangerously_ close to fraud.”

“Is that a threat?” Isabel spat. “If I’m not CEO, who is? Moira? She can’t be CEO because she’s —”

“—running for mayor, that’s right,” Felicity agreed. “Conflict of interest regulations by the city election board prevent that.”

“I sincerely hope for your sake that the next part of your sentence isn’t Thea Queen.” Isabel folded her arms, looking smug. “I don’t think she’s in any mood to help out with the family business, do you?”

Felicity could hear the elevator doors opening down the hall, and unlike Diggle, who was waiting near the vestibule, Oliver had accompanied security all the way to the doors, and now stood beside them, hands in his pockets, smiling slightly at the increasingly furious-looking ex-CEO.

“Perfect timing,” Felicity said. “I was just about to break the news to Isabel.”

“You mean a bunch of desperate lies by a family too stupid to know what’s good for them,” Isabel returned. “Tell me, Oliver, who did you decide to make CEO?”

Oliver glanced to his left. “Felicity,” he said simply.

All the money in the world couldn’t make up for the fact that Felicity hadn’t recorded Isabel’s reaction to the news (amateur move), in the singular, disbelieving pause that ensued.

“You can’t be serious,” Isabel laughed, an ugly sound. “The whole company thinks you’re sleeping with her, and you appointed her as your replacement? Are you trying to commit career suicide?”

Felicity inclined her head. “Well, compared to aiding and abetting an ambitious co-CEO’s fraud — suspicious pieces of paper signed in a hurry tend to do that — some office gossip about who’s sleeping with who tends to…what’s the word… _pale_ in comparison, I guess?” she said. “Anyway, as of an hour ago, I called another emergency board meeting in my capacity as the _real_ temporary CEO with some very confused board members and explained the mixup — not to mention the potential fraud allegations if what you did ends up sticking. They accepted that you never had the authority to call for the vote in the first place, much less the motion to have yourself declared permanent CEO. So it’s a good thing you didn’t do all those morning interviews yet, right?”

Isabel rose from her chair, her face black with rage. It was the kind of purely lethal expression that probably would have made anyone else shake in their stilettos, but all Felicity could see was the fact that she’d just deposed the mini-dictator who’d made it her personal mission to make her working life hell. “You bitch,” Isabel said.

“With wifi,” Felicity agreed, and turned to the security guards. “I think Miss Rochev’s ready to be escorted out.”

Isabel pushed the chair back so hard that it hit the wall with a crack. “If you think this is over, I will bring lawsuit after lawsuit until this company goes bankrupt from the bad press and legal costs,” she snapped. “Queen Consolidated is _mine_.”

“Oh, I’m sure you think so,” Felicity said. “But lawsuits tend to move pretty slowly, and I’m guessing Slade wanted you in charge of the company for a reason, and he probably won’t be able to get what he wants quick enough by the time you’re done bankrupting us. In theory, anyway.”

Silence, during which Isabel seemed to have run out of threats.

Oliver smiled, which Felicity took to mean as a sign that he was just as pleased about one-upping Isabel as she was. “You were right, Isabel,” he said. “Certain people really shouldn’t be underestimated, should they?”

One of the guards took Isabel’s arm. “Ma’am.”

Isabel wrenched her arm out of the guard’s grip, threw a look of pure hate towards them both, and stalked towards the elevators. Diggle watched her go with folded arms and a quiet smile. A beat later, he gave them a thumbs-up.

Felicity turned on one heel and made a beeline straight for Oliver’s chair, sinking into it and pushing the recline back with a huge breath of relief. “ _That_ was stressful,” she said. “But ding dong, the Wicked Witch is dead. Well, not _dead_ -dead. Just banned from the office until further notice. By the way, the job’s yours again, because I very happily relinquish my power and return to my humble office and beautiful coffeemaker.”

Oliver had moved to stand near his desk, and cast a look around the office, smiling at her and Diggle. “Thank you,” he said. “Both of you. Time and time again, you have stood by me, and helped me, even though I’ve given you every reason not to.”

Diggle shrugged. “From what Felicity tells me, you’re pretty good at making breakfast. Do that every day for the next year, and I’d say we’re even.”

“I’m serious,” Oliver said. “Slade got in my head, and I couldn’t stop him from doing anything. But you did.”

“It was her idea, Oliver,” Diggle said, pointing with his chin at Felicity.

Oliver looked down at her with a faint smile. “Yes, it was.”

Felicity reached up and Oliver took her hand in his own, pressing a kiss into her knuckles.

“Hey, it’s a victory,” Diggle said. “It’s small, but at least you’ll still be CEO of your company. With Isabel off your back, you can concentrate on patching things up with Thea, finding Roy, and stopping Slade Wilson, once and for all.”

“Together,” Felicity added, and Oliver nodded.

“Except one thing. I won’t be CEO,” he said, and Felicity sat bolt upright in his chair.

“ _Please_ tell me I did not kick Isabel out of the building just to put her back in again,” she said.

Oliver nearly laughed. “No, I’m not letting Isabel near the company anytime soon. But I’m also not going to resume being CEO.” He looked at Felicity. “That job’s yours, if you want it.”

Diggle whistled. “Now _that’s_ a surprise.”

Felicity gripped Oliver’s arm, more than slightly panicking that he wasn’t getting the semantics. “Oliver, temporary CEO. Temp-o-ra-ry. I can’t do this job — heck, you can barely do this job, and you were _raised_ to do this job.”

“And I was terrible at it,” Oliver said. “I signed my company over to a woman everyone warned me not to trust, who's hell bent on destroying my family. I’m a terrible CEO, and we all know it. You’ve been covering for me for months. Now it’s time you get the appreciation for doing the job for real, a job you are overqualified for.”

Oliver crouched in front of Felicity’s chair, and she looked at him, still wondering if he was missing a couple of marbles from the collection. “You’re serious,” she said. “You’re actually going to make me CEO.”

“One hundred percent, and I plan to focus the rest of my attention on making sure Slade doesn’t get the next advantage,” he said. “If you’ll help me.”

“What exactly it is do you think we’ve been trying to do this whole time?” Felicity asked, even though she was still a little weak at the thought that she was going to have to actually _head up_ board meetings on her own.

Diggle smiled at them both. Beyond the windows, the sun was starting to come up, streaking the fading dark sky with orange and gold. A new day. “So what’s our next move, boss?” he asked.

Oliver stood and walked up to the glass, staring out at the dawn. Felicity joined him, and so did Diggle, the three of them side by side, because he wasn’t alone. Furthest thing from it.

Finally, _finally_ , he seemed to know it too.

Oliver lifted his head. “Now we fight back,” he said quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PHEW. Huge relief to get that off my chest. I've been planning to make Felicity CEO for about half a year now. Take that, Palmer. Try and steal the company from her now :D  
> The Clock King didn't really get his own episode (plus he ended up working for Slade) but eh? Felicity already went up against the Huntress. And she got to beat Isabel, so I'm happy with where she's at so far.  
> So I've pretty much jumbled up a bunch of Arrow episodes, but if my math serves I still have 19-23 to cover. I'll be doing some thinking about how to do those episodes now that I've changed some things (a lot of things), and hopefully get back as soon as I can. Thanks for reading!  
> Now I shall return to eating Pad Thai in my pajamas :)


	32. Family Business (The Man Under the Hood, Part I)

Tommy stared at the identical takeout bags in either hand, trying to remember which one was kosher. By some freak coincidence — or just because both the Queen siblings had brains that ran on a similar wavelength — both Thea and Oliver were staying at Verdant.

Only Thea didn’t know Oliver was camping out in the underground basement, mostly to make his nighttime job as the city’s resident vigilante a teensy bit more convenient, and they weren’t about to tell her that, even though she wasn’t speaking to either of them because of her stance on the truth, or lack thereof.

_God_. The mass of ironies was making his brain hurt.

Tommy tapped on the office door. “Hey,” he said. “It’s me. Wanna open up?”

No answer.

“I mean, I have keys,” he said, jangling them for emphasis. “And also breakfast. Hope that makes up for the _keys_ thing.”

Clearly she was still trying her best zombie impression. “Alrighty then,” Tommy muttered to himself, and unlocked the office door.

Tommy had to take a breath, because he’d underestimated what it meant to have a nineteen-year-old girl camped out in an office meant for nightclub-running, not necessarily human habitation. Whatever Thea’s perfume was, day-old clouds of Marc Jacobs _Lola_ and/or Dolce  & Gabbana whatever did _not_ mix well in a confined space with limited window-opening opportunities.

“Morning, sunshine,” he said, trying not to sound like he was choking while fumbling around for the desk light. “Sleep well?”

The couch — or more accurately, the teal fuzzy throw topped off by discarded sparkly nightclub dresses and coats — didn’t move, including the tuft of dark curls peeking out from the top.

Tommy tried to remember the last time he’d had the couch cleaned, and came up short. _Oops._

“I brought pancakes,” he said, popping the lids off all the styrofoam containers to check which one was kosher. “They even put a chocolate smile on — look.”

The clothes pile stirred. “Go away.”

Tommy heaved an internal sigh. Never easy with the Queen siblings, plus he was more or less sure that the Merlyn side of the genetics had injected an extra dose of dramatics into the equation. He stuck a fork into the mound of pancakes (side of bacon) and walked towards the sofa. Something clinked beneath his feet, and he stooped to pick up an empty bottle of Absolut. Which he turned over, just to make sure. Vodka splattered on the carpet was better than no vodka.

It was no vodka.

Double internal sigh, and Tommy cleared his throat, shifting some of the less necessary clothing off the couch so that he could sit down. “Uh, how much of this did you have last night, and did you cut it with anything citrus-y? I’m only asking because vodka with anything else is nasty, and trust me, you do _not_ want to go there — oh, White Russian. Never mind. Dairy or citrus, but anything else is _bleh_.”

“I just found out that my whole family — including the one I didn’t know I had — is packed with a bunch of big fat liars,” Thea answered. “You’re lucky I didn’t use a beer bong with that bottle.”

Understandably dramatic answer.

“I think one of those beer can hats might make more sense,” Tommy said, (somewhat unnecessarily) miming a helmet. “Scratch that. Ignore me. That’s terrible advice.”

“Yeah, well, you’ve been a terrible brother so far. Wouldn’t want to break _that_ streak.”

_Ouch_.

“Are you gonna talk to me, Thea?” Tommy asked. “Like, sit up and talk? Not from under a blanket I’m pretty sure the Cookie Monster died to make?”

“Can you turn back time and erase the fact that you, Ollie and mom all lied to me about Malcolm Merlyn?” she answered. “And I had to find out from the psychopath who kidnapped me, stuck me in a warehouse and threatened to kill me if I ran? Can you unscrew things up so I don’t have to remember how I tried to kiss my own _brother_?”

There was a long pause. “I mean, Luke and Leia _actually_ kissed, and one of them got Han Solo. Both of them, if you read fanfiction, so...”

... _I have no idea why or how I thought that would help_. Thea burrowed deeper beneath the covers, and Tommy — in lieu of kicking himself — picked up a strip of bacon. “Look, it’s still crispy.”

Thea said a very rude word, and he was more or less sure that it was directed _at_ him.

“All right,” Tommy said, closing the takeout box and leaving it on the table beside the couch. “There’s a microwave downstairs, you can heat that stuff up — just make sure you use a plate so you don’t burn the place down, okay?”

No response.

“Hey,” Tommy said, still looking at Thea’s resolutely turned back. “When I found out you were my sister, I was happy. So — _can’t-describe-how-happy_ happy. Annoyingly happy. But things got complicated, with Moira, with…with everything. I wish I could have told you, and I swear, Thea, we were going to. Lying to you was never something we all felt good about.”

“How sucky for you, Tommy. And how do you think being _lied to_ feels?”

“Crappy,” he said, honestly. “I know because I’ve been there. Sometimes the people closest to us keep secrets, and they’re the kind of secrets that hurt the most when they come out. I was mad when it happened to me — so, _so_ mad that I wanted to never see that person again. Then — eventually — realized I couldn’t push that person out of my life, that I could be angry, but at the end of the day, the relationship’s still there. That connection’s still something we can’t break. It took losing someone important for me to see that, and I really, really hope it doesn’t take that for you to speak to us again. But I get it, Thea. Take as much time as you need. I mean, I did.”

Silence, which he chose to interpret as a good sign.

“Okay.” Tommy patted something he assumed was Thea’s shoulder and snagged the remaining takeout bags he’d left on the desk. “See ya later, kiddo.”

He stood outside the door for a second, thinking about the things he couldn’t change and the things he wished he could, but at the end of the day, he knew better than anyone did that they couldn’t be forced. Even worse, given their previous streak of luck, _forcing it_ meant something calamitous on the level of a collapsing building.

God only knew what that meant in the vein of Starling City escalation. Probably alien abductions.

Tommy was comparing earthquakes and extraterrestrial activity all the way down to the back corridor that led to the Foundry, and he was only midway down the staircase before he realized that he was letting a perfect opportunity in an otherwise expanse of _suck_ pass him by. Because by his estimation, he’d missed out on around forty-eight days of annoying the hell out of his best friend for finally deciding to take some good advice.

Lucky for everyone involved, Tommy had the dramatic instincts to always keep a noise app on his phone. This time, he set it to _Fire Alarm_.

“‘Morning, people!” he yelled over the noise, adding a little more of his own by rattling down the staircase, breakfast takeout swinging from one arm. “In case it’s not already clear, this is Tommy Merlyn. I am now entering the Foundry. I do not have my hand over my eyes because that would be a safety hazard, and I am talking _su-u-per_ slowly so that everyone has the time to find and put their clothes on. Psychological scarring is real. I am now at the bottom of the staircase, entering communal space, is everybody —”

A piece of steel pipe came whizzing out of nowhere and Tommy ducked, thanking his reflexes and the dubious training he’d received that meant blunt, heavy objects flying into the concussion zone were a daily occurrence.

The pipe bounced off the railing behind him, leaving a solid dent.

“Turn that thing off!” Oliver shouted.

Because of pure spite (and because that pipe would have really, _really_ hurt), Tommy took an extra thirty seconds to forget his phone’s passcode and turn off the noise app. Then he peeked around the column, just in case Oliver had a whole stock of random plumbing apparatus within arm’s reach.

Instead, he found his extremely bad tempered-looking best friend sitting (shirtless but wearing pants, thank god) on the edge of the cot, with an indiscriminate lump of blankets behind him he assumed was Felicity, in the middle of an ineffective attempt at noise shielding.

They were at the Sharing Beds stage — _aw_.

Oliver already had his face preemptively palmed in one hand, which Tommy took to mean he was exasperated to the point of speechlessness.

“ _Hi there_ ,” Tommy said, in an exaggerated whisper. And a stewardess wave.

Oliver raised his head, and if glares could kill, that one would have sent him to the Seventh Circle of Hell and back as a decomposing corpse so that his best friend could kill him dead all over again. Creatively.

“What — the hell — was that?” he asked.

Tommy blinked. “Training session, remember? Your idea.” The takeout bag rustled against his side, and he remembered. _Duh_. “Oh, and I brought breakfast.”

The covers moved, and Felicity’s fantastic showcase of bedhead poked out from beneath the bedding. “What is _wrong_ with you?” she croaked.

Nice. No one was sneaking into the bathroom at five AM to slap on mascara and/or aftershave. That was either pure exhaustion or signs of a comfortable relationship.

“You’ll have to buy me dinner before I’ll get into that,” Tommy said, with supreme nonchalance. “C’mon. I got you a kosher pancake deluxe. Big day today, right? CEO boss lady — oh hey there, hobo man, I mean, _Oliver_ , didn’t see you. Anyway, let’s get moving!”

As soon as his back was turned, he heard a _thwap_ and a muffled grunt that was unmistakably someone (Oliver probably) getting hit with a pillow.

“Next time, we’re getting a hotel room,” Felicity said.

* * *

Felicity was on her second cup of coffee and feeling mildly human again. Usually it took one, but unceremonious disruptions of peaceful REM sleep (in the form of a fire alarm no less) meant the standard caffeine dosage had to go correspondingly upward.

Tommy looked like someone had put fairy dust (the drug _and_ actual fantasy thing) in his food, judging by the way he kept smiling at them between taking bites out of his breakfast. “You guys are cute,” he said.

Cue two sets of _don’t even_ glares.

Tommy reached for his milkshake, slurping while Oliver silently shook his head like it was taking an active effort not to commit murder, a state of affairs that went straight over his best friend’s predictably nice haircut.

“So when I called Oliver and you picked up, you didn’t actually switch phones by accident, right?” he said. “Like, Oliver was probably sitting ten feet away in his birthday suit. _Obvious_ , Tommy. What about that time Felicity said she had work to do at home and left early? What about that other time Oliver said he had plans and disappeared for the night? You guys were totally doing —”

Oliver cleared his throat, very loudly, and put down his coffee cup. “Telling you anything is a mistake, I see that now,” he said. “Happy?”

“Not as happy as you are, buddy,” Tommy said, sandwiching some bacon between two pieces of pancake. “No wonder you’re glowing these days. You look _great_.”

Oliver was eyeing the coffeepot like he was wondering if it was heavy enough to knock Tommy out, which Felicity took as a sign that certain things needed to be stated, audibly. Even though said things should have been obvious to anyone with some common sense and a life.

Clearly not.

Felicity reached for the coffeepot, partly to keep it out of Oliver’s reach, partly to start her third cup. “Okay, if we’re going to all behave like adults, we’ll need some ground rules. One, I know it’s a point of personal pride for you that Oliver and I are —”

“— schtupping each other,” Tommy suggested.

“— _dating_ , but you _cannot_ come in here in the morning with a fire alarm. Or a siren. Or —” (Tommy opened his mouth) “— any kind of noise above a polite _whisper_. You’d think I wouldn’t have to say it, but clearly some people didn’t get the memo. Two, there will be no references to bare asses or bare anythings of any kind. Zip, zilch. Three, if there happens to be a display of affection — god help me — and anyone coos, or whistles, or does anything except pretend it’s not happening, I will hack into that person’s social media accounts and replace all content with porcupine farts. Four, I reserve the right to add to the aforementioned ground rules, because I have a feeling that _you_ — Tommy _middle-name-I-can’t-remember_ Merlyn — are going to be the gift that keeps on giving.” She paused for dramatic emphasis. “Capisce?”

Tommy chewed and swallowed his bite of bacon-laced pancake. “I mean, after Oliver literally signed over his multibillion dollar company using a piece of legal pad — to a walking Freudian nightmare, I might add — shouldn’t you put those ground rules in writing and have me initial in blood?”

Oliver glowered at him over his coffee.

“Tommy,” Felicity said, though she didn’t entirely disagree with the Freudian observation. “Do — you — understand?”

“Fine, I promise,” he said, showing both hands to prove that he wasn’t crossing his fingers. “But can’t I get three strikes? I mean — this guy — _so_ cute, right?”

“Okay, I think I’ve humored this discussion long enough,” Oliver said. “Training starts in ten minutes.”

Tommy looked down at his stomach. “What about the _no swimming_ rule? I just had breakfast.”

Oliver smiled frostily. “I’d start stretching.”

Tommy slid out of his chair, snagging his shake along with him. “God, so touchy. I’m going, I’m going.”

Felicity fixed Tommy’s back with a suspicious glare long after he was out of earshot. “I’m starting to wish you branched out more in your younger days,” she said. “Digg may not have Tommy’s sense of humor, but at least he won’t scare you awake on a Monday morning with a _totally uncalled for_ fire drill.”

Oliver removed his face from his hand with some effort. “I’d apologize for my best friend, but I have a feeling he’s nowhere close to being done, so I’ll just save it for the big finish."

Felicity snorted. “What, his funeral?”

The thought didn’t seem to bother Oliver as much as she assumed it would have. “So,” he said. “Slade. Any movement?”

Felicity shook her head. “Checked the alerts first thing this morning. I’m assuming Slade wouldn’t have let Tockman get arrested without making sure he had the skeleton key first, so I have a bunch of RATs embedded all over city networks to make sure anything remotely close to the OFDM wireless signal gets pinged back to us as soon as it pops up.”

“That’s good. Isabel didn’t get enough time to exploit QC’s Applied Sciences division, so they’ll be looking elsewhere for the equipment Slade needs to mass-produce the Mirakuru.”

“Exactly. Skeleton key means he can break into pretty much anywhere, and Starling’s not short of hi-tech companies with very secretive R&D inventories. And BTW, I’ll keep scrubbing the company servers to make sure Evil McEvilson didn’t leave any surprises for us.”

Oliver nodded. “So we wait.”

“Unfortunately, that seems to be the strategy,” she agreed.

“Since we’re on the subject,” he began. “Queen Consolidated.”

Felicity wagged her fork at Oliver. “I still haven’t said yes to being permanent CEO,” she reminded him. “My silence in the face of the bombshell you dropped on me should in no way be construed as acquiescence. News hadn’t sunk in.”

“You know that your coffeemaker can be moved to the top floor, right?” he said, like it was the deal breaker (which of _course_ it was).

“What, you mean my office isn’t the only special one with that thing we call a _plug_?” she answered, and he smiled.

“Okay, so what’s the problem? Why aren’t you saying yes? You could do more with the company using half of what it has than I could, and we both know it.”

“It’s not that,” Felicity said, drawing her legs up onto the chair with her and picking at her food. “I like the work. I love cybersecurity, and Applied Sciences is my version of the unicorn play palace or whatever, but…it’s _your_ company. It’s your family’s. Your mom was okay with me being temporary CEO because the alternative was Isabel the Hellspawn of Pure Evil. I don’t think she — or whoever she still has on the board — is going to be happy if I decide not to give up the big chair.”

Oliver looked inquisitive over his breakfast. “And since when did what my mother thinks become a factor in your decision-making?” he asked.

“Well, I don’t think it’s smart to piss off the in-laws,” Felicity muttered, before realizing how it would sound out loud. “ _Not_ that I’m mistaking anything we’ve done as a proposal, I mean — psh, marriage, am I right? People don’t get friendship certificates, why pay the State of Washington for paper proof of a commitment? I mean, _taxes_ , sure, but who even pays taxes anymore —”

“Felicity.” Oliver pushed the coffee mug closer to her. “You had a point.”

“I did.” She chewed on a strawberry, trying to remember when and where she’d lost her train of thought. “Oh, the CEO thing. Right, so your mom helped me — and you — on the condition — non-verbal, but still — that me being CEO is temporary. Holding onto it just feels… _icky_. It’s like something Isabel would do, and in case it’s escaped your notice, I don’t like being Isabel.”

“I don’t think _anyone_ likes being Isabel,” Oliver said mildly.

“Oliver,” Felicity said. “You’re right. If I was worried about pissing Moira off, you and I would never have gotten together. That’s not my concern, believe me. Not wanting to steal anyone’s company and hijack a legacy — that is. Queen Consolidated belongs to your family, and it should be a family decision that decides where it goes. You should choose the best person for the job, and for obvious reasons, make sure that person isn’t also trying to exact revenge on the family name. Just two conditions.”

“While my father was CEO, he and the company lawyers exploited union contracts and put a lot of people in Starling out of work. While my mother was in charge, Queen Consolidated’s earthquake machines leveled the Glades. During my tenure as CEO, I was so distracted with being a vigilante that I didn’t notice that my partner was the revenge-hungry associate of a psychopath from my past, and she nearly got entire control of the company, which she would have used to cause a lot of harm to innocent people,” Oliver recited, all while refilling his coffee mug. “Believe me, Felicity. Queen Consolidated’s legacy is in _desperate_ need of hijacking.”

Felicity pulled her fork out of her mouth. “Anything sounds bad when you say it like that.”

“Okay, how about a compromise?” Oliver said, sounding amused. “End of the month. You’ll continue with the temporary CEO position until then, and if you don’t want to do it, things go back to the way they were.”

“I’m sorry, is Slade getting strapped to a rocket bound for Jupiter at the end of the month?” Felicity asked.

“No, but I’m not going to force you to do a job you don’t want to,” Oliver said. “I think you’re perfect for it, and clearly, I’m biased. So, end of the month. That seems fair, doesn't it?”

Felicity nudged his knee with her foot. “You’re really cute when you’re in _CEO_ mode, you know that?”

“Funny, I thought it was the suit. Do we have an agreement, Miss Smoak?”

Felicity considered it, and stuck out her coffee mug like it was a champagne glass. “I believe we do, Mr Queen.”

Oliver reciprocated the gesture, and with the caffeine-themed toast over, Felicity leaned across to kiss him on the mouth (maple syrup, mm) before climbing off her chair. “Gotta go. Late for work. A million meetings about that biofuel project with Mercury Labs, and some moron left everything at the company all… _wonky_.”

“You’re welcome,” he said.

Felicity made it two steps, doubled back, and put her arms around Oliver from behind, making him look up in surprise. “Kick Tommy’s ass for me,” she said in his ear.

He turned his head and kissed her on the cheek. “Consider it done. See you tonight.”

“See you tonight.”

* * *

Tommy landed on the floor with a thud that made the glass in all the cabinets rattle. “I think I can taste my spine,” he said, as Oliver switched the Bo staff he’d been sparring with from one hand to the other so that he could help Tommy up. “You got a lot of rage underneath that eight-pack. Or is it sixteen? I think I might be seeing double.”

To Oliver, making inappropriate observations was a surefire sign that Tommy was fine. “ _Get up_ ,” he said.

Tommy twisted his neck, wincing as his shoulders cricked. “Hold up, did I make this worse for myself because of my entrance this morning? I’m taking bets.”

“What do you think?” Oliver answered. “Left, block.”

Tommy obediently took up his position. Oliver waited a beat, and swung. The staffs crunched, and Tommy forced him back with the maneuver they’d been practicing and followed it up with two rapid-fire strikes. Far from being impressed, Oliver slapped his staff out of the way and kicked Tommy behind the knee, making him land with a grunt, and pushed the butt of the staff against his throat.

“Don’t drop your guard just because you’ve landed a hit,” he said. “Again.”

“Bite me,” Tommy said, getting off his knees and reaching for the towel.

Oliver disassembled the Bo staff and left both halves on a worktable. “Have you talked to Speedy?” he asked, tossing Tommy a bottle of water.

Tommy caught it. “Well, if an abundance of snarky one-liners and otherwise non-responsiveness counts as talking, then yeah. We’ve talked. You?”

“I tried yesterday, and the day before that,” Oliver said. “She’s still angry.”

“Yeah, no duh, Sherlock.” Tommy wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, still breathing hard. “What did you say?”

“I told her mom misses her, that we’re sorry, and…” Oliver lifted his shoulders. “Everything.”

“Not everything,” Tommy said. “We didn’t mention that Malcolm came back to deliver the news in person.”

“We sent the League of Assassins after him and he hasn’t been heard from since,” Oliver said. “I think it’s safe to assume that they wouldn’t send us an obituary. I don’t see the point in haunting her with Malcolm’s ghost.”

“Take it from someone who shares half his DNA with the guy,” Tommy said, with a grimace, “he’s a stubborn bastard, dead or alive.”

Oliver shook his head. “We can’t keep doing this. It doesn’t matter what dad knew — he loved her, we all know he did.”

“He was more of a dad to me than Malcolm was,” Tommy agreed. “But she’s hurt. Take it from someone who’s been there, people hurting don’t see clearly.”

Oliver glanced at him. Tommy and Thea were brother and sister, but they’d also been in somewhat identical positions concerning life-changing secrets. Thea’s was about Malcolm, Tommy’s was finding out that his best friend had been the Starling City vigilante.

Oliver remembered thinking that Tommy would never look at him again, much less that they’d still be best friends, now, and they’d be partners, in crusades driven by their respective fathers.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Finding out, it should have been…different. Happy.”

Tommy shrugged. “Yeah, well. Since when has anything in our lives ever worked out the way it should have?” he said, with a wry smile. “I’m sorry that my dad ended up driving a wedge between everyone. He’s a world-class ass, beyond the grave or not.”

“Good thing you broke the mold,” Oliver said, and Tommy’s smile became a grin.

“You’re one to talk. First Queen man to become a trophy wife,” he joked. “Felicity’s a catch, buddy. Don’t mess it up.”

Oliver picked up the Bo staff and twirled it around. “I think what I’m about to do with this _definitely_ earns me a few brownie points.”

Tommy didn’t need to be warned twice. He was off, ducking underneath a worktable and coming out the other side. “Since when did you have such a sucky sense of humor?”

* * *

Oliver walked into Verdant as though he was expecting a direct attack, but that turned out to be a needless worry. Thea turned her back as soon as she saw him, moving a box down from a shelf and starting to unpack.

“Shouldn’t you be at work?” she asked, her voice flat.

“Took some time off,” Oliver said, walking up to the bar. “I thought we could talk.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, because that’ll just _fix_ everything, won’t it?”

“I don’t know how else to,” he said. “Except to tell you that I’m sorry.”

Thea dropped another box onto the counter with a _slap_. “You’ll have to be more specific,” she said. “Sorry I had to find out from Slade Wilson? Sorry you didn’t get a chance to try and lie to me some more? Sorry I found out just how _screwed up_ I am — just when I thought — for a _second_ — that I could actually be all right?”

The hurt in her voice made his insides twinge, because it wasn’t directed at him, but herself. “Speedy, you’re not screwed up, why would you —”

“Because I am, Ollie. My real father leveled the Glades, left a _crater_ in the middle of Starling City with mom’s help, killed five hundred and three people, and one of them was _Laurel_ — your Laurel, Tommy’s Laurel — the Laurel you both loved, the Laurel who was like my sister — the Laurel who used to help me with my math homework —” Thea broke off, like the words she wanted to say were choking her. “If that’s not screwed up, I don’t know what is.”

“Tommy’s not screwed up,” Oliver said. “He loved Laurel too, and Malcolm…Malcolm as good as killed her. It’s not easy to live with, and I can’t speak for him, but he knows better than to let what Malcolm did define him for the rest of his life. He’s not worth that, Speedy.”

“I know he’s not, but he’s my real dad, isn’t he?” Thea snapped, her voice echoing in the empty space. “Malcolm Merlyn is my father. I’m not Thea Queen. I don’t have a right to that name — the daughter of Robert Queen does, and as of last week, turns out she never existed at all.”

“ _Speedy_ ,” Oliver said, leaning across the bar. “Dad might not have been your biological father, but he raised you, and he _loved_ you. Do you remember that time you broke your arm riding? He was supposed to be on a business trip to Corto Maltese but he flew straight back and came to the hospital to see you, and he wouldn’t leave even when the nurses got mad. He stayed there for a whole week until you got discharged, and he stopped to get you ice cream on the way home because you wanted to, even though mom was _convinced_ it was going to make you sick.”

Thea didn’t say a word, but her arms went still, and she was staring at the mirrored backing behind the bar, distant. Like she was remembering too.

“He never missed a birthday,” Oliver said, softer now. “He went to every school play, even when you were just playing a tree, or painting sets. He tried to teach you how to sail, which didn’t work, but he tried for two summers. I can think of — so many — times that dad showed how much he loved you, but I know you remember them too. That’s who a father is, Speedy, and dad was yours. Don’t let Malcolm take that away from you.”

Thea turned to face him again, her jaw set. “But Robert Queen thought that he was raising Thea Queen, not Thea Merlyn. See, that’s the part I’m finding it hard to live with, because he died believing a lie, and you know who led him there? Mom. Malcolm didn’t take anything away from me, Ollie. Mom did. Mom let me grow up with this — this _illusion_. She _let_ her husband raise someone else’s kid, and then got so scared of people finding out that she made a liar out of my brother too.” Thea paused, then let the words drop like stones. “ _Half-brother_.”

“And I love you, Speedy, I always have, and I always will,” Oliver said. “Why isn’t that enough?”

A glass dropped, shattering on the floor with a sound that made him flinch. “Because!” Thea shouted. “Because none of it changes the fact that I have to live with being the daughter of two mass murderers, and pathological _liars_. I was starting to be okay, Ollie, and we both know that I _wasn’t_ okay for a long, long time. The drinking, the drugs, the — the screwed up mess I was after I thought you and dad died — that _stuck_. Until you came back, and I took over the club, and it started doing well, and I had Roy, I had my brother — a brother I trusted. I put myself back together, but you have _no_ idea what it’s like, being in one piece and trying to stop yourself from breaking apart when you know that any second, something could come along and shatter you. Guess what? Finding out that lies and murder are in my genes? _That’s_ it.”

Oliver was silent, because he did. He _did_ know. On the island, after his father had shot himself in front of his eyes, being thrust into a world that was either survival or death. Betrayals, from outside and within, unthinkable choices that meant there was no going back, scars that never faded along with the memories they embedded deep…

He was a mass of broken edges and fissured to his core, weaknesses that Slade knew all too well how to exploit, but it was thanks to the people he had around him — his family, Tommy, Diggle, Sara, and Felicity — people who reminded him that there was always a reason to keep going, to keep fighting.

It was like Robert had told him: _survive_.

Lian Yu and everything since was proof of his survival, but what came next was living.

Thea was still flitting between the two, and try as he might, even Oliver knew that he couldn’t do it for her. All he could do was hope that he might be one of those people to show her that there was a reason to carry on, and try his hardest to be.

“I never told you this because I thought it would hurt you,” Oliver began, slowly, because telling the truth — it still was something he was getting used to. “But dad didn’t drown when the Queen’s Gambit sank. He made it onto a lifeboat with me, but there was nowhere near enough food and water for us, and dad knew it, so he — he shot himself to save me. I saw everything.”

He paused, gathering his thoughts, pulling them back before they could chase down the scene, the sudden first gunshot and the second, leaving Oliver with the words that he’d held in his mind during his darkest nights on the island.

“Before he died, dad told me something,” Oliver said. “ _Survive_. Those were his last words. They came back to me when I needed it the most, and I don’t think I could have gotten through the island — and all the things that happened next — without what he said to me.”

Oliver had been staring at his hands while he spoke, and now he lifted his head to look his sister in the eye.

“Why are you telling me this?” Thea asked, in a very different voice.

“Because I’m sorry,” Oliver said. “I was so caught up in everything that I never realized you were on an island of your own, and you still are. But you’re strong, Speedy, you’re so strong that I think of you when I feel like I can’t keep going. You're right, you put yourself back together and you’re trying so hard to stay that way. I’m sorry that what we did made it feel like you’re starting to break apart, and I know you might not believe me when I say that I’ve experienced what that’s like. So I’m giving you dad’s last words, because I think he’d want you to have them too.”

Thea blinked, and a tear slid down her cheek, followed by another. Oliver felt dampness on his face too, but he didn’t look away. “ _Survive_ ,” he said, very softly. “That’s what dad would want you — want us — to do. I love you so much, Speedy.”

For a moment, he thought she might have been about to speak. But she turned her head aside, her lips pressed tightly together as though to suppress a sob.

“I love you, Speedy,” Oliver said again, and when she didn’t respond, he turned, and walked towards the door.

He hesitated, not wanting to leave her in tears and alone, but she needed to grieve, to process. The island was hers, and he’d given her what he hoped would help her come through it. That was his faith, and his hope.

The door swung shut behind him, and Oliver stepped out into the sunlight.

* * *

Felicity pushed a red pen against her skull, trying to figure out how a sentence she’d already rewritten three times could sound weird in the exact same place.

“Is polymorphian a word?” she asked.

“Use it in a sentence,” Diggle said.

“I thought I just did,” she said, and looked up, a little surprised to see him in the same place as the last time she’d checked. “So are you just…I don’t know, following me around now?”

“I work Security for Queen Consolidated, and part of that job involves following the CEO of the company,” Diggle answered, in his _don’t worry, I’m a professional_ voice that deserved to be part of navigation systems and general stressful environment-relievers. “You might be temporary CEO, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need someone to watch your back.”

“Or, Oliver told you to keep an eye out for a very angry ex-CEO who might come up here swinging for _more_ revenge,” Felicity guessed.

Diggle shrugged. “Part of me’s wondering what’ll happen if the two of you ever go toe to toe, but I’ve always had a very risky sense of curiosity.”

Felicity snorted. “No offence to you as a self-defense teacher, but unless that showdown involves two keyboards and a reinforced modem, I do _not_ see that ending well for me.”

“Hit her from behind with a baseball bat,” he suggested. “Who says you need to play fair?”

Felicity laughed at the mental image, mostly because imagining Isabel getting concussed with anything was just naturally amusing. “So what do you do all day when Oliver’s at the office?” she asked. “Do you guys just talk?”

“Oliver doesn’t have a great attention span when it comes to office stuff,” he said. “He always paid attention during your briefings, but I just figured he was trying to impress you.”

“Worked, didn’t it? Since I’m…y’know.”

“Mm-hm,” Diggle said, very encouragingly.

“Shut up,” Felicity said, before he could add anything to that _mm-hm_.

“I’m just glad to see that you and Oliver are going strong,” he said evenly. “Doesn’t hurt that you’re good at pulling him back from doing something stupid. That whole CEO mess could have turned out a lot worse if you hadn’t stepped in.”

“With Moira’s help.”

“Making nice with the in-laws,” Diggle teased. “Didn’t think that was possible, with Oliver’s family.”

Felicity threw up her hands. “Oh my god, between you and Tommy and the _fire alarms_ at six AM, I’m starting to wish that none of you ever found out.”

“Blame Slade Wilson for that one. Oliver also has me watching out for hidden cameras on your tail.”

Felicity heaved a sigh into her hands, a state of being that lasted about two seconds before her assistant interrupted, sounding his usual level of low-key panicked (it made him very good at scheduling).

“Miss Smoak, Mr Raddus asked if you have the comments on the biofuel rundown? He and the team are having some trouble with Mercury Labs —”

Felicity pointed at the side table near the door. “Blue binder on the left pile — I think. Thanks, Gerry.”

“— and the people from STAR Labs called, they’re on their way up to see you,” he added. “It’s about the warehouse space.”

“Warehouse space?” Felicity blinked, running through the plethora of things she’d had to familiarize herself with over the last few days, and coming up short. “Never mind, I’ll cram. Tell them to come right up.”

“How many things are you in the middle of right now?” Diggle asked.

Felicity shrugged, currently running a search through her files for something to do with STAR Labs and warehouse space. “That reminds me, I rigged up everything on the Foundry network to be dummy-proof. As soon as the skeleton key signal pops up, you guys’ll be able to see from the computers, even if I’m still stuck at work — which I anticipate as a highly likely possibility. Should be crash-resistant. Even for Oliver. And Tommy. You, I’m not worried about as much.”

“Thanks. How long did it take you to dumb it down?” he asked bluntly.

“Long enough for me to appreciate the wonders of everyone on the team having complementary skills,” Felicity said, briefly breaking off from her search to smile at him. “Aha, the warehouse thingy.”

She was still reading when Diggle shifted, clearly eyeing new visitors. “They don’t look like STAR Labs people,” he said, and Felicity looked up.

And stared. More specifically, at the Rubik’s cube T-shirt that was currently on the person of one Cisco Ramon, walking towards her office with Caitlin Snow — both of STAR Labs, and people she’d met because they’d been taking care of Barry during his coma.

Cisco had been in the middle of his three-sixty-degree panoramic of the office when he spotted her, his face splitting into a broad — pretty default — grin. Felicity pushed out of her chair and met them outside the door, still trying to make sure she wasn’t imagining things. Because the usual setup wasn’t in an office in Starling, but a cavernous (and nerd dream) lab space an express train ride away.

“Uh, aren’t you supposed to be in Central City? A question that should in no way be interpreted as me not being happy to see you, because I am,” she said, her eyebrows completely raised.

“My question first,” Cisco said, moving his finger in a circle to indicate the whole room. “You never mentioned that you were _in charge of everything_. This whole _office_ is bigger than my apartment.”

“Forgive Cisco,” Caitlin said. “He gets a little overexcited. And who starts a sentence with a detailed job description about what they do?”

“ _I_ try to,” Cisco said. “But STAR Labs and _mechanical engineering whiz_ just don’t cram together. Anyway, what happened? Who died and left you in charge? Unless someone actually did die and leave you in charge, in which case, I am _so_ sorry for bringing it up.”

“It’s like there’s two of them,” Diggle commented.

Cisco’s eyes widened. Felicity hadn’t even noticed that Diggle had come out to join them, but he was now looking at Cisco like he was some kind of suspicious clone. “Hey man,” Cisco said. “You’re really tall. And serious. I’m Cisco Ramon, not a security threat. Unless it’s on the dance floor, amirite?”

Caitlin shook her head silently, which was a good thing, since Diggle either didn’t know how to respond to any of it, or chose not to. “John Diggle, I work Security for Queen Consolidated,” he said.

“You have a bodyguard.” Cisco clapped his hands together. “That’s _awesome_.”

“Hi, Felicity,” Caitlin said, shifting Cisco slightly out of the way with the clear view of trying to get things back on track. “And Mr Diggle, nice to meet you. We’re here representing STAR Labs. The city cancelled the lease on our warehouse in Starling, and I think we spoke to someone here and they said they were going to rent us some space to store our prototypes.”

Felicity paused, because judging by everything she knew of STAR Labs and the recent negative press (particle accelerator going very publicly _ka-boom_ ), there was no way in hell anyone at Queen Consolidated, with its previous leadership (the half that turned up to meetings, anyway) not operating based on goodness-of-heart, would have agreed to rent a beleaguered research facility space to store their stuff.

Unless STAR Labs’ inventory included prototypes that someone wanted to get their hands on, for otherwise non-commercial but nefarious hidden purposes. “Would that person’s name be Isabel Rochev?” she asked, and sensed Diggle eyeing her from the side.

Caitlin glanced at the file she had. “Yes,” she said, looking a little suspicious now. “Why?”

“Oh, nothing.” Felicity waved a hand. “She’s just not here anymore. Long story — I replaced her, and there’s a whole longer story after that. Anyway, you’ll have to fill me in. How can I help?”

“The plan was to get someone from Queen Consolidated to assess the number of prototypes meant for storage in order to decide how much space would be appropriate,” Caitlin explained. “Of course, all the prototypes are sealed up and labeled with serial numbers for security purposes, and we can’t disclose their precise nature.”

“But pinky promise, no hazardous inventions,” Cisco added. “All good, peaceful stuff. Like a wave ind—”

Caitlin cleared her throat. “Unfortunately, we can’t really say any more than that.”

“I totally understand,” Felicity said. “And of course — we’d love to help. I think I actually have some space in my schedule. Why don’t I head down there with you?”

“Really?” Caitlin glanced at her office. “You seem pretty busy. We don’t want to cause any trouble, someone from management should be fine —”

“Free as a bird,” Diggle said, who _thank god_ , understood what she was getting at. “I’ll pull the car around.”

“Thank you,” Felicity said, sincerely hoping that no centrifuges would be harmed in the process of the assessment.

And that they had a Mirakuru soldier-proof door for STAR Labs’ new and improved storage space.

* * *

“You’re _where_?” Oliver said, sounding incredibly frowny over the phone.

“STAR Labs warehouse with Cisco and Caitlin,” Felicity answered, shifting a little further down the stacks to keep out of earshot. “And Digg. Who apparently is now _my_ bodyguard, not yours.”

“I’m glad you’re not as good as disappearing as I am,” he said. “Are you sure about this? Didn’t STAR Labs cause the explosion that killed those people in Central City?”

“Same night Barry got struck by lightning and put in a coma. Oh, and now he’s under their care because his condition got worse,” she added. “Irony. Everywhere.”

“Right,” Oliver said, as stilted as could be expected at the mention of anything _Barry_ -related. “So is it smart to help them store their prototypes? The board won’t like it, and you have to think about that as CEO.”

“ _Temporary_ ,” she stressed. “Temporary CEO, and very nice try to you. And I know the board won’t like it, but it’s either that or saying no and potentially have their prototypes go to whatever other storage facility they manage to rent, which probably won’t be as safe and under our watch as a Queen Consolidated one.”

“Cyrus Gold stole a centrifuge from our Applied Sciences storage.”

“Exactly, and we _knew_ when and where and what it was because the warehouse was QC. Any other warehouse, not so much.”

Oliver didn’t say anything at first. “I don’t see much of a choice.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” she said. “So how’d it go with Thea?”

Silence, again.

“That great, huh?” Felicity glanced towards the shelves, where Cisco was currently demonstrating what looked like a batter’s swing in front of Diggle, while Caitlin tapped away on a computer terminal for the purposes of narrowing down which prototypes were going where.

“I told her what my dad said to me, right before he died,” Oliver admitted. “Maybe I shouldn’t have, but…what she said to me, about how the lie affected her, it sounded like it’s about more than just Malcolm as her father. It sounded like it might actually make the difference between her being all right and not, and I just — I couldn’t let her struggle without trying to help.”

“Your dad told you to survive, didn’t he?” she said, quietly.

“Yeah,” Oliver said. “I want her to, Felicity. I can’t let my sister fall apart.”

“I know,” she said. “I know you love her, and she’ll see that. She’ll see it matters more than a lie that can’t change who her real dad is.”

“I hope so.”

“ _Hope_ ’s a good word, Oliver,” Felicity reminded him.

There was a pause. “I love you,” he said.

She smiled, stupidly, leaning against a column with her phone to her ear. “Love you too.”

“See you tonight?”

“See you tonight.”

Felicity hung up and pocketed her phone, walking back over to the computer area where Caitlin was still running the estimations. “Everything looks good so far,” she said. “I’m just waiting for the estimation to finish compiling itself.”

“Great,” Felicity said. “I’m sure we can have the lease options to you by the end of the week.”

Caitlin smiled in her reserved way, and Cisco clearly took the pause as a moment to jump in. “So,” he said, still using what looked like a short piece of aluminum support as a baseball bat. “What’s Barry been missing out on? I know boss CEO lady is one of ‘em, but you gotta give me more than that. He has to hear the highlights during our catchup session on Tuesday.”

“Isn’t he in a coma?” Diggle said.

“Well, yeah, but he can totally hear what’s going on,” Cisco said. “Ask Caitlin. She’s the doctor.”

“There’s some research to suggest coma patients retain a level of sensory awareness while they’re comatose, but of course, without having asked Barry himself — we won’t know for sure.”

“Ergo, I can talk to him as much as I want and ask him about it when he wakes up.” Cisco winked.

Felicity laughed. “Barry’s in great hands, then.”

“Not just ours, Ir—” Cisco was cut off by Caitlin hitting his arm. “What? I was just gonna say —”

Diggle looked over their heads. “Did you hear something?”

They all went quiet, and they heard it again. A _clack_ , as though one of the keycard-operated doors had opened and closed.

Caitlin frowned. “I thought it was just us in here.”

“Might be security.” Even so, Cisco clutched his quasi baseball bat more tightly as he moved towards the next junction. The STAR Labs warehouse was like a small maze, boxes on shelves piled floors-high up to the ceiling, with security lights on the far walls and between the aisles that ran between each sector.

That plus nighttime, equalled not necessarily the most secure-feeling-inducing setup.

As Cisco approached the corner, Felicity felt her phone buzz, and she pulled it out of her pocket. Diggle glanced at her, and she showed him the screen. The tracking algorithm she’d set to find the skeleton key’s signal had come back with something.

“Where?” he asked.

The address came up a second later, and Felicity frowned. _426 Crescent Way_. “I think that’s… _here_ ,” she said, and somewhere close by, the lights went out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Changed some things, as you can probably tell. Digg and Felicity are at the warehouse with Cisco and Caitlin, Oliver gave a sorta similar version of what he says to Thea in 3x03, etc.   
> Oh, and Tommy gets to take the piss out of Oliver and Felicity cuz NOW HE KNOWS. Bwahahaha.


	33. Break-In (The Man Under the Hood, Part II)

Diggle pulled out his gun and cocked it. The sound made Felicity’s pulse jump a little more, which wasn’t saying much considering that it was already in full palpitation mode.

“ _Cisco_ ,” she said, hurrying after him ( _heels, damn heels_ ). “I don’t think you should be —”

Cisco heaved a sigh of relief. He was standing at the junction, looking down the aisle at someone near the doors. “It’s just a security guard, guys,” he said, and waved at him. “Hey, we’ll be out of here in a sec. Thanks for checking in. Place gives me the heebie-jeebies too.”

Felicity made sure she had a good grip on Cisco’s arm in case he ran off again, checking corners before she peered down the length of the aisle at the bulky man in uniform. One of the ceiling lights in the row was flickering, while the ones closest to the glowing exit sign at the end of the warehouse had gone dark, but she could just about make out the hat and badge. The sight should have reassured her that it wasn’t Slade, _if_ the alert on her phone hadn’t been triggered by the skeleton key being used at the warehouse. Which meant that everyone — including and especially anyone in a Security uniform — was most definitely _not_ safe.

“Sir.” Diggle made sure his gun was out of sight, but he walked a few steps forward, a hand raised. “We think there’s been a security breach, and it might be best if you came with us.”

“What security breach?” Caitlin said blankly. “It’s just —”

Before she could finish her sentence, the security guard made a noise, sounding almost surprised. The light was still blinking when something dark appeared down the front of his shirt and he tipped soundlessly forward, his body hitting the floor with a thud.

Another split-second flicker of light showed a shape protruding from his back, a shape that looked a _lot_ like a knife. Caitlin gave a horrified gasp, and if Felicity’s vocal chords hadn’t momentarily decided to take a shock break, she probably would have joined in.

“ _Uh_ ,” Cisco said indignantly, pointing at the figure that replaced him. “What is _that?_ ”

Felicity had never seen Slade Wilson in full _psychopath_ form before; that was a dubious distinction reserved for a group of people who had just about one thing in common, the fact that they were all dead. Despite the lack of firsthand experience, she didn’t need much warning that the imposingly tall, armored figure with a black and orange mask was bad news, even less so when his only response to the four of them was to tilt his head slightly to one side, like a predator when it caught sight of new prey.

“Digg,” Felicity said, her voice sharp with fear.

Diggle’s reaction was instantaneous; his gun was at shoulder level and going off in quick succession. His shots caught Slade in the chest and abdomen, shots that should have guaranteed Slade would end up on the ground and bleeding from something vital, but the bullets only seemed to spark off his armor, and Felicity saw his hand reach towards his belt despite the sword along his back, like he couldn’t even be bothered drawing his main weapon.

“Duck!” she shouted, and dragged both Caitlin and Cisco down to the floor with her.

Half a second later, she was glad she did, because of the whizzing knife that cut close enough for her to feel the breath of air as it passed.

Diggle’s gun clicked, empty, and Felicity looked around — ears ringing — to see the knife sticking out of a crate, exactly where their heads had been just a second before.

“He’s trying to kill us!” Caitlin said, like it was the first time someone had hurled a knife at her face.

Sometimes Felicity forgot that not everyone was so accustomed to having a bullseye plastered across them just by virtue of their choice of social circle.

“Yeah, well, in Starling City that’s called Wednesday night,” Diggle said, reloading his gun as Slade started to walk towards them — menacingly slow, as though he had all the time in the world. “And if you wanna live to see Thursday I suggest we all start running. _Now!_ ”

They didn’t need to be told twice. Caitlin pushed a shellshocked-looking Cisco off the floor into a run, while Diggle caught Felicity’s outstretched hand and pulled her up along with him.

They pelted full-speed down the next aisle, but Felicity couldn’t help making the amateur— and incredibly reflexive — movie mistake to look over her shoulder to check if Slade had suddenly sprouted super-speed too.

Nope, just his shadow, which was weirdly just as heart-stoppingly terrible.

“You know where you’re going, right?” she said. “Because I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that at least one character gets psycho-murdered from running straight into a dead end.”

“ _Why would you bring that up now_?” Cisco answered, in a high-pitched voice that she related to on a deeply spiritual level.

Thank god for Caitlin, because being a doctor and trained to handle emergencies of the life-threatening nature (though admittedly those training scenarios probably didn’t involve being threatened by masked murder men), her panic went hand in hand with some hard thinking. “I think we might have something a little better than that,” she said, as they sprinted past a sign that read _CAUTION: Experimental Section_.

“We’re not allowed in there!” Cisco pointed out, jabbing also at a wall lined with protective suits. “Not without those!”

“It’s either that or get skewered like the security guard back there,” Caitlin shot back, swiping through the steel-grilled access gate to get all of them inside.

The door slammed shut at their backs with a digitized sound from the lock re-arming itself, which — compared to a padlock and some chains — was weirdly the less reassuring option, since Slade had the skeleton key tucked somewhere alongside a plethora of murder-friendly weapons. Clearly Diggle agreed, because he was eyeing the door with extreme skepticism. “That’s not gonna hold,” he said, gun in hand.

“I know,” Caitlin said, scanning the shelves full of numbered boxes, her eyes darting from left to right as she read them, and _fast_. “That’s why we’re going for something a little stronger.”

Felicity looked down at her buzzing phone. _OLIVER QUEEN_. She had no doubts whatsoever — or at least, super-strongly hoped — that he was on his way, but before she could think about picking up the call, Diggle was shooting again, because Slade was advancing towards them with his sword drawn. “Whatever you two are doing, do it fast!” he shouted.

“Got it!” Caitlin heaved something out of a crate, which looked to Felicity like an oversized hairdryer, only with a satellite dish for the top. “Can you work this thing?” she said to Cisco.

“What the hell is that?” Felicity said.

Cisco was on his knees with a kind of maniacal gleam in his eye she associated with coffee addicts in an after-hours Starbucks and/or the mass opening of Christmas presents. “The guy who made it got fired by Dr Wells for being a complete psycho,” he answered, taking it into his arms like it was a baby, while also trying to find the equivalent of a safety catch on the body of the thing. “And if I remember it correctly, this thing harnesses particle energy from its self-generating fuel cell and directs it —”

Felicity was crouched over the weapon too, and she unlatched something that made a hopeful clicking noise. “Energy blaster, we get it. Now what?”

Cisco stared, both hands grasping at the air but not much else, with the kind of _oh holy frack_ expression that went hand in hand with blanking on a test. “Dr Wells didn’t really let the psycho guy stick around to give instructions,” he said. “Don’t worry, I’ll figure it out. Just give me a minute to remember how to charge this thing.”

Caitlin was staring wide-eyed at the far corridor. “ _Cisco_ ,” she said. “We don’t have a minute.”

“I’m thinking, I’m thinking!”

Felicity swung around. Slade was moving towards them, and this time he reached back to draw his sword, sliding it out with a deathly _snick_ of cold steel. As if that wasn’t chilling enough, Felicity could see his eye through the single opening in the eerie mask, and it was fixed on her.

It took everything she had to stay exactly where she was, standing between Slade and Cisco and Caitlin, the two of them working feverishly to figure out a piece of experimental technology that unequivocally did _not_ come with an instruction manual, but was simultaneously their only and best shot at getting away from someone who could walk head-on into a hail of gunfire without flinching.

“Felicity,” Diggle said, and it was the only reminder she needed that he wasn’t going anywhere. Breathing hard, she reached behind and grasped Diggle by the arms, because a secret weapon wasn’t much of a weapon if the super-soldier knew it was coming.

“Guys,” she said, her voice wavering with fear. “Any second now would be great.”

Slade was fifteen feet away and advancing when Felicity heard the energized whine of a machine coming to life. “Oh, sweet Jesus, it’s alive,” Cisco said. “We’re about to die, and it’s _alive_.”

“ _Wait_ ,” Diggle said, and Felicity knew he was thinking along the same lines. Their best chance at the longest of all long shots was getting him as close as possible, which — unfortunately — involved repressing every instinct in her body to put as much distance between them and the _Kill Bill_ sword that had their names on it.

“The longer the chase,” Slade said mockingly, raising his sword to the level of Felicity’s throat, “the slower the kill.”

Felicity didn’t even blink. “Dream on, asshole,” she said, and yanked Diggle aside. “ _Now!_ ”

They both slammed into the wall as the thing went off with a roar. A flash of blinding light exploded out of the blaster and rippled through the door in the form of a bluish pulse. But better still, it collided with Slade head-on and sent him flying, at least twelve feet backward along with a shockwave that made every beam in the place rattle and crates topple from the shelves.

Felicity looked past Diggle’s shoulder. Slade was a shape in the middle of the floor, and so, very much _down._

The air smelled strongly of burning ozone, and the smoking blaster landed on the floor with a thunk. Cisco looked at everyone else in the stunned _I can’t believe we just survived this_ silence. “I think that’s a sign we keep running,” he said, pointing to the back exit.

Diggle holstered his gun. “Agreed.”

And they took off.

* * *

“My officers found three dead security guys on the premises, and two more in the loading bay along with one missing truck,” Quentin said, reading off the report one of his officers had given him. “No sign of the man in the mask.”

Felicity added the foil shock blanket the paramedics had given her on top of the one currently around Cisco’s shoulders, while Caitlin sat on the arm of the leather reception couch with her hands in front of her mouth, staring at a patch of floor.

“Well duh,” Cisco said, shivering. “He wasn’t just gonna stick around and wait for the police to show up. That’s classic _Psycho 101_.”

Quentin pointed at him with a pen. “Is he normally like this?”

Caitlin blinked out of her stupor then, like a big sister alerted by a question regarding a more troublesome younger sibling. “Yes,” she said. “Don’t worry, sergeant, I’ve had him tested.”

“Good.” Quentin turned to Felicity, who had Diggle protectively at her back. He narrowed his eyes, looking around Diggle’s broad shoulders like he expected someone else to pop up. “What, no Oliver? I thought these things usually involved all three of you.”

Felicity folded her arms, more to feel warm than anything else. Being within goosebump distance of psychopathic murder swords tended to do that. “Can you track the plates on the truck?” she asked. “They should have a record of all the vehicles here — I mean — traffic cameras —”

“I know, I’ve got my detectives on it,” he said, his gaze softening slightly at Felicity’s habit of suggesting ideas for his investigations. “What were you two doing here, anyway? Isn’t this a STAR Labs facility?”

“It was a work-related matter,” Diggle said, his hands on Felicity’s shoulders. “Miss Smoak was representing Queen Consolidated on official business.”

“Suppose it’s a good thing that Queen’s such a slacker,” Quentin said, offhandedly. “Can’t imagine how he’d handle this kind of situation. Probably would have been him in the morgue.”

Felicity and Diggle exchanged looks. “That’s why he keeps me around,” Diggle said.

Quentin grunted. “Okay, well, I’ll send Detective Hall back over — she has some follow-up questions for your pals. Stay safe, all right? Judging by the description, this was probably the same guy that nabbed Thea Queen. And — uh — maybe it might be a good idea to let some…mutual friends…in on the warning.” He gave Felicity a significant look at the last part, and she nodded.

“I’ll spread the word, sergeant,” she said. “Thanks.”

Quentin walked off, and they turned to Caitlin and Cisco, still in the middle of processing. “Sounds like we were lucky to get out alive,” Diggle said. “Good thing you guys keep your toys close on hand.”

Cisco lifted the shock blanket to sniff at the collar of his sweatshirt. “I just wish our toys wouldn’t leave me smelling like a plastic factory fire.”

“I can’t believe I can actually use the sentence: _a guy in a mask came after me with a sword_ ,” Caitlin said, shaking her head while she stared out the windows in reception — either that or she’d been blinded temporarily by the sea of flashing police cars parked outside.

Cisco rubbed at a smudge on his hands. “You know you’re only making it sound totally awesome, right? Which it totally shouldn’t, because five people died, and that would make us terrible people.”

Caitlin looked up suddenly, eyeing Felicity and Diggle with an uncomfortable level of acuity. “Do you know who attacked us?” she said.

“What?” Felicity said, blinking hard. “Why? I mean — not _why_ would he attack us — because clearly, he’s got a few screws loose, but why would you think we know anything about him — that…why.”

Cisco looked like he was mentally counting the number of _whys_ she’d managed to cram into one sentence.

“No, Dr Snow, I’m afraid we don’t,” Diggle said, with his best poker face.

Caitlin raised an eyebrow. “Really? Because neither of you seem surprised at all that a lunatic in a mask came chasing after us with a sword. And the only reason for that would be if you were Cisco — which you’re not. So do you know who it was?”

“No,” Felicity said, in what she hoped was an altogether convincing denial.

It wasn’t.

“Then why’d Mr Diggle say there was a security breach when we thought it was just a security guard coming in to check on us?” she asked.

 _Dammit._ Lying to geniuses was hard.

“Because I’m in charge of protecting the CEO of a multibillion-dollar company, and based on experience, I find that it’s best if I’m extra-careful with my clients in Starling City,” Diggle said, which wasn’t a lie, at all.

Caitlin only folded her arms with a skeptical look on her face, but Cisco squinted at Diggle as though he was seeing double. “If I weren’t in shock, I’d be high-fiving you right now for sounding like the coolest guy in the world.”

“ _Felicity._ ”

It was McKenna, looking worried, and before she knew it, she was getting a hug (a nice one). “Hey,” Felicity said, soothed anyway by the smell of nice shampoo and friend-to-friend concern. “Isn’t hugging interviewees against cop protocol or something? You’re supposed to be scary.”

“I know, but I’m imagining what Tommy would do if he were here,” she said, before letting Felicity go. “You all right?”

Felicity nodded. “Yeah, thanks for asking. Really.”

“Okay, good.” McKenna smiled in reassurance before turning to the others. “Hi, I’m Detective McKenna Hall. I just have a couple more questions about what you told my colleagues.”

There was a hasty rustle and a pop that brought to mind frantic flailing, and Cisco was suddenly in Felicity’s personal space, all but edging her out of the way. “ _Hi_ ,” he said.

Felicity checked, and found Caitlin pulling a pair of foil blankets off her face, like Cisco had shoved them in her direction in his hurry to get off the couch. Diggle shook his head, staring at the ground. “My god.”

“Hi,” said McKenna, too busy flipping through her neatly written notes. “You’re Cisco…Ramon, right? STAR Labs?”

Cisco practically hopped off the ground with glee. “You know my name. The hot detective knows my name. Oh my god, my grade school self needs to see me n—”

“ _She has a boyfriend_ ,” Felicity coughed into her hand. “Sorry.”

“Wish I could say that’s the first time it’s happened,” Cisco said. “You know him? Is he nice? How much can he bench?”

“He doesn’t need to, because I do,” McKenna said. “Now, Mr Ramon —”

“—Cisco, please.”

“— everyone’s statements seems to corroborate the fact that you were the one who shot the…”

“Prototype energy blaster,” Cisco volunteered.

“Right — _that_ — at the perpetrator,” McKenna said. “Did he say anything to you? Did he threaten you?”

“Talking, no,” Caitlin said. “But killing a security guard in front of us and pulling out a full-length sword from his back kind of did the threatening for him.”

Cisco tried to get back in McKenna’s line of sight when she turned her attention on Caitlin, which went more or less disregarded. “Could you positively identify him? Did you see his face?”

Caitlin shook her head. “He had some kind of mask on,” she said, staring at the glass walls as she thought. “It looked…like a helmet. Definitely some kind of protective gear. I think there might have been only one eyehole in the mask thing — but it was all happening so fast, maybe I wasn’t seeing clearly. Mr Diggle fired shots at him, and they just… _bounced_ off. It was like he had some kind of body armor.”

“Being cray-cray helped too,” Cisco said. “Maybe he’s a droid. That makes sense — droids only need one eyehole for the camera. Maybe he’s the Terminator, which would make me Sarah Connor…and totally waiting for my Kyle Reese.”

McKenna had a look on her face that suggested she was trying to decide whether Cisco was a hundred percent serious. Or _sane_. “Okay, you’re in shock,” she said. “I can send someone over to help.”

“Believe me, I’ve only spent a couple of hours with him, but I’m pretty sure that’s his default setting,” Diggle said, causing Cisco to look stung, like he’d expected the former to have his back.

“Damn,” McKenna said, and Felicity knew she wasn’t talking about Cisco. “He’s like some kind of ghost. Every time we think we’re about to catch him, he just disappears.”

“You know who he is,” Diggle said. “Thea Queen identified him as Slade Wilson. He’s still missing, isn’t he? Why would someone innocent run?”

“The man’s just as hard to find as the mask,” McKenna said frankly. “And I’ll be honest, there’s some people in the precinct who think she was a little girl scared out of her mind.”

“Scared enough to pin her kidnapping on a guy she met once at dinner?” Felicity said.

“Hey, I believe her,” McKenna said, tucking the notepad back into her jacket. “And I guess we’re lucky that belief sometimes takes a different road when the law falls behind, right?”

Felicity didn’t need a bigger hint to know that she — like Quentin — had her hopes on someone who didn’t have a police badge, working with people she knew and cared about. But it wasn’t the kind of thing to say out loud near a dozen police officers, so she gave Felicity’s arm a squeeze. “You’re free to go, but if anything comes up, I’ll call,” she said.

“Thank you, officer,” Felicity answered.

Caitlin watched — with much less wistful longing than Cisco — as McKenna walked back to her colleagues.

“What I wouldn’t give to be at home in my pajamas with some takeout,” she said. “Pizza. Dumplings. _Tequila_.”

“Please, we all know you’re a wine girl,” Cisco scoffed. “One responsible glass, circa New Year’s Eve party. I mean, Ronnie and I —”

The remark was completely offhand, the kind of offhand where Felicity found herself making references in front of people about what Oliver or Tommy or Diggle would do in a given situation, the kind of offhand that meant bringing up things that maybe shouldn’t have been said out loud.

Caitlin’s shoulders tensed, and Cisco clapped his mouth shut, instantly looking remorseful. “Cait, I’m sorry,” he said, touching her arm. “I didn’t mean to —”

“I know,” she said, and smiled, but there was a faraway look on her face again. “It’s fine.”

Cisco still looked worried, and Felicity was the one who broke the awkward pause. “I’m just really glad you’re okay,” she said. “I swear, Starling City isn’t usually this crazy.”

Caitlin looked cautiously optimistic, and Cisco seemed to take it as a chance to move the subject onto something else. “Yeah, it would’ve sucked if Barry hadn’t gotten the blow-by-blow of that time we used an energy blaster to get away from a psycho-murderer,” he said. “Or y’know, you could tell him that story yourself, the next time you’re in town. It’s been a while since you stopped by.”

Felicity scratched behind her ear. “I know, but things have gotten kinda hectic lately, and —”

"Yeah, but you were juggling, like, a _billion_ things the last time we saw you," Cisco said, looking genuinely concerned. "Everything okay?"

The doors burst open with a slam that made everyone look around in alarm, and it faded — on Felicity’s part, at least — when Oliver walked straight in, not in the Arrow suit, but a more normal-looking leather jacket and t-shirt/jeans combo, holding his motorbike helmet like he couldn’t have spared the two seconds to put it down. She'd known Oliver long enough to have a decent idea of his repertoire of facial expressions, and those usually gravitated towards _intense_ , but this one was practically blazing with it, and he was focused on her.

Felicity moved so fast that she might have been embarrassed, if seeing Oliver after another Slade near-miss wasn’t a clear and total relief. They more or less collided in the middle, ending up with Felicity’s arms around his neck and Oliver holding her tight.

“ _Ohhh_ ,” Cisco said, like that had answered his question. “Gotcha.”

“Hey,” Oliver said softly. “Are you —?”

Felicity nodded against his shoulder, her eyes squeezed shut. “Yeah,” she said in a whisper. “Not a scratch. Thanks to Digg.”

Oliver made a sound that was nearly a laugh, and she felt his arms tighten just a little. “Thank you.”

It was directed at someone behind her, and Felicity guessed that he was talking to Diggle.

The hug had gone way past the necessary time frame to make sure no one was bleeding and/or banged up, but Oliver seemed to want to hold on for a little longer to make sure, and he turned his head to kiss her cheek before pulling away. Felicity could feel his hand on her back even when they turned to face the others, like it was Oliver’s reassurance to himself as much as it was to her. “Hi,” he said, as though he’d just noticed it wasn’t the three of them. “I’m Oliver Queen.”

Cisco’s mouth was wide open, but nothing came out except a noise that seemed like a cross between a nervous laugh and a gasp. “You’re Oliver Queen,” he said, eventually (and with all eyes staring nervously at him). “Oh god, that’s embarrassing. For me, not you — because I just — but we won’t talk about _that_ part — wow, Felicity, you’re around really cool people, like _all_ the time.”

Snub. Definitely a snub. “Thanks,” she said.

“I’m Dr Caitlin Snow,” said Caitlin, clearly deciding that it was time to try and salvage the conversation, “and that’s Cisco Ramon. We’re from STAR Labs, and —”

“We — actually, Dr Wells — just got robbed,” Cisco said.

“Robbed?” Diggle said. “So you know what he took?”

Caitlin threw Cisco a warning look before he could chime in. “No, he doesn’t. We’ll need to go over inventory again to make sure, and unfortunately, that’s proprietary information we can’t release without prior approval from Dr Wells.”

Cisco opened his mouth, looking indignant, and Caitlin stepped on his foot in full view of everyone. “Sorry,” she said, coolly. “It’s a secret.”

Oliver’s laser stare was still on Cisco, as though he could sense which was the weakest link in terms of secret-keeping, which only made Caitlin increase the pressure on his shoe.

“Uh,” Felicity said, seeing as Cisco was about to lose a foot to Caitlin’s high-heeled boot. “We’re just really glad you’re okay, and if — uh — that estimation comes in, send it my way, and we’ll work out some storage options, okay?”

“Okay,” Caitlin said, and Cisco got his foot back, wincing. “You’ll come visit, right? I know Barry’s still the same, but —”

Felicity nodded. “I know, and I’ll try. As soon as I can.”

She could have sworn the pressure from Oliver's hand went up, as though he'd done an involuntary clench at the thought of her visiting Barry. But when she looked over, his expression hadn't shifted at all.

“Don’t worry though, Iris pretty much comes in every day to check on him,” Cisco added, and Caitlin raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Talks to him, holds his hand and everything.”

“ _Cisco_ ,” Caitlin said, in exasperation.

“What?” Cisco gestured at Oliver, who raised his eyebrows. “She’s dating — like — a _gazillionaire_. She should know that Barry’s not being left in the lurch. It’s all _fine_. It’s fine, right?”

Neither Oliver nor Diggle seemed to be willing to make eye contact with each other, or answer Cisco’s query. “Totally,” Felicity said, still processing the barrage of new information from the last twenty seconds. “I guess we’ll — _I’ll_ — see you around, then.”

“It was really nice to meet you both,” Oliver said.

“You too, man. And mazel tov,” Cisco said, flapping a hand. “Caitlin’s the geneticist, but even I can tell that you guys’ll have beautiful ba—!”

He was cut off by Caitlin’s heel stabbing into his sneaker again.

The police cars were still a wall of blinding red-and-blue flashing lights when Felicity walked out into the parking lot between Oliver and Diggle, and she blew out her breath, feeling weirdly deflated. Like in a _limp balloon_ kind of way.

Which was _so_ not the point of what just happened, given the Slade factor and the near-death. But since when had their personal lives ever made the considerate move of shushing until there was time to deal?

Spoiler alert: _never._

“Here I was, feeling guilty for moving on while Barry was in a coma,” she muttered. “Turns out he beat me to it.”

She could sense Oliver’s worried stare, one that also had very little to do with Slade.

“Fast, isn’t he?” Diggle said, sounding — in spite of the situation — just a little amused.

* * *

“So bullets bounce off him now,” Tommy said, nodding very slowly. “Well, that’s all _horrible_.”

Sara was sitting on the table beside him, and she glanced over. “It wasn’t horrible before?”

“You know what I mean,” he muttered.

“At least Slade’s moving how we thought he would,” Oliver said, from behind Felicity’s chair. “He was blocked from using QC’s resources, so he stole it from somewhere else.”

“With the recently unemployed She-Devil’s help, I’m guessing,” Felicity muttered, a sentiment not quite hidden over the sound of her typing. “Since Caitlin and Cisco wouldn’t tell us what went missing, I hacked into Harrison Wells’ personal archives for a full inventory, cross-referencing anything with compatible functionality for what Slade has in mind and the location. Side note, if I ever end up unemployed and looking for work, _do not_ mention to the Director of STAR Labs that I once took a tour through his personal computer.”

“It’s cute how you think any of us here could function as job references,” Tommy said. “Between the ex-assassin and the one-hit-wonder-CEO that willingly signed his company over to a super-villain, I think you’re better off checking with the nineteen-year-old running the nightclub upstairs.”

“ _Anyway_ ,” Oliver said, punctuating it with another glare in Tommy’s direction, “what did you find?”

Felicity brought it up on the expanded monitors. “That,” she said, with relish.

Diggle peered at the blueprints now on the expanded monitors. “I have no idea what that’s supposed to be.”

“Because it’s not patented. Not yet, anyway,” Felicity said. “It’s a prototype bio-transfuser, which combines advanced cell salvaging technology with an artificial circulatory compressor that —”

“English,” Oliver reminded her, gently.

“It’s meant for multiple blood transfusions. The risk with emergency surgery is bleeding out, and patients have the best chance of recovery if the blood they get is concentrated, meaning rich with blood cells, and —”

“—less plasma dilution,” Sara said. “It was one of the things Ivo studied on the freighter — emergency trauma surgery. Blood transfusions are more effective if they’re fast and concentrated, but we didn’t have the technology.”

“Aren’t you full of surprises?” Felicity said to her, and eliciting a faint smile. “Okay, so clearly, Slade’s not interested in trauma surgery. But he _is_ interested in being able to deliver concentrated blood to multiple subjects, _fast_. And unfortunately, I’ve played around with the design and with some retrofitting, he could definitely infuse the blood inside the transfusion chamber with the Mirakuru serum and have it metabolize there, instead of in the people he’s injecting. That’s significant, because we know Slade’s been having some trouble with the success ratio of his Mirakuru men.”

“In that ninety-nine out of a hundred of his lab rats end up dead?” Tommy suggested.

“Exactly,” she said. “Well, he’s not going to have that problem anymore, because retrofitting the machine takes care of the blood-brain barrier that’s been making most of his subjects reject the serum and go into toxic shock. If he does it — and he probably will — the chances of a subject dying mid-process could drop to almost nothing.”

Oliver swore. “We weren’t expecting that.”

“No, we weren’t, but the silver lining in this general cloud of _awful_ is that the bio-transfuser is a power-guzzler, meaning that as soon as it’s turned on, it’ll show up as a big enough drain on the grid, and I’ll be able to narrow down its location. We’ll know where he is, and we’ll have a small window to try and stop him.”

“How small?” Diggle asked.

Felicity scanned the specifications of the machine. “Thirty, maybe forty minutes.”

“What are you thinking?” Sara asked, looking at Oliver.

Oliver was clearly deep in thought. “Slade’s only option is to use his blood,” he said. “The bio-transfer would drain him, especially if he intends to make more than one Mirakuru soldier at a time.”

Sara raised her head, a gleam in her eye. “Meaning he’ll be weak,” she said. “And hooked up to the machine.”

“He won’t leave himself unguarded. Slade’s too careful for that,” Diggle said.

“But armed thugs are easier to take on with the big guy out of commission,” Tommy added. “We surround him, and then —”

“— we take him off the board,” Oliver said.

Everyone looked at Felicity, like she was the one with the final go-ahead. She looked at uneasily back, not liking the idea of her friends going headfirst into a setup of Slade’s design. Somehow — and maybe this was to do with his general non-sunny, impossible-to-faze predilection for backups, and backups for his backups — it all seemed too easy. Suspiciously easy, like it was always a trap meant to lure them in.

“It’s a plan,” she said carefully. “It’s a dangerous one, but I don’t see a lot of options in front of us.”

It was as close to agreement as Felicity would get, and Oliver knew it. He nodded, looking around at the others. “Okay,” he said. “Stay alert. When it happens, we need to be ready to move in.”

At that, the group began to disperse. Sara went straight for the training equipment alongside Tommy, while Diggle and Oliver hung back at Felicity’s workstation.

“Thank you,” Oliver said to Diggle, for the second time. “Thank you for staying with her.”

“Hey, you never need to ask,” Diggle said, putting a hand on Felicity’s shoulder. “Anything to protect a friend.”

Felicity patted his hand. “Next time there’s a hacking emergency, you come find me.”

Diggle winked and shrugged off his suit jacket. “I’m late for a meeting, but I’ll get back as soon as there’s trouble.”

“And would this meeting involve Lyla?” Felicity inquired.

Diggle only smiled. “Behave, you two.”

After Diggle had gone, Oliver pulled a chair closer to Felicity’s and sat down, watching what she was doing on the monitors, in his quiet, _I-don’t-need-to-be-entertained-I’ll-just-sit-here_ way. “Smart,” he said, as she combed through missing persons and police reports. “He’ll need subjects to make Mirakuru soldiers.”

“Well, there’s your reason to keep me around,” Felicity answered teasingly. “I do occasionally manage a few smart ideas.”

There was a pause, during which Oliver was clearly trying to put together a question. “Are you okay?” he asked. “It’s not the first run-in with Slade you’ve had so far.”

Felicity rubbed at her wrist. The bruise from where Slade had snatched at it was long gone, but it seemed to ache now at the thought of how close he’d been. First time, no mask and armor. Second time, the full Mirakuru fear package. No less dangerous in either iteration.

In the full getup, he’d looked like something from a nightmare, and chills began to spread up her skin. It wasn’t just because she’d seen him murder someone in front of her, it was that he dressed like a soldier for war — actual body armor that could deflect bullets — and in spite of all she knew about Oliver and his combat skills, that was just a whole other level. Green leather and some protective reinforcements didn’t make it stop bullets — or swords.

But Oliver didn’t need to hear that she was terrified for him, so she went with the next true thing. “I was just thinking about Cisco and Caitlin,” she said, chafing at her arm to get rid of the goosebumps. “I’m glad they weren’t hurt, which I know makes me sound like a terrible person because those security guards _so_ did.”

“It doesn’t,” Oliver said. “It makes you human.”

There wasn't much Felicity could say to that, because being human was precisely what gave Slade the advantage over them, thanks to the not-so-insignificant fact that he was chemically enhanced beyond rational belief.

But Felicity left the scans running and swiveled her chair around, so that her knees were nudging at Oliver’s. While Slade was one of the inevitable topics Oliver clearly had on the agenda, a side-effect of being _together-together_ alongside being partners meant that personal and work had to blend.

“Is it too late to back out of our job agreement?” she asked, and Oliver looked up, momentarily blank until he remembered.

“Being CEO isn’t always that dangerous,” he said.

Felicity looked up at the ceiling, counting off on her fingers. “Shot at by the Hoods during a business meeting, shot at during a guns-for-cash charity event, shot at by the League of Assassins…are you starting to see a pattern here, or am I just spiraling?”

“To be fair, most of the times I’ve been shot at have more to do with the Arrow than board meetings,” he said. “Sorry.”

Felicity smiled, and held out her hand for Oliver’s, which he took, running his fingers along the creases in her palm in a gesture that was getting as familiar as it was soothing. “So are you dying to ask how I know Caitlin and Cisco, and what Barry has to do with everything?”

Oliver made a face at their hands that suggested nonchalance, but Felicity tipped her head sideways, leaning on her shoulder, and he gave up the ghost. “Yes,” he admitted. “Bad timing, I know.”

“Not unusual timing, by our _lofty_ standards,” Felicity said. “Cisco and Caitlin both work at STAR Labs with Dr Wells. Barry got transferred there after his condition deteriorated, and since their boss researches the wacky and weird, they’re probably the best people out there to take care of him. Not that I know how comas work, but his is turning out to be…unusual.”

“Barry was always unusual,” Oliver said. “And Iris?”

“I have no idea,” Felicity said, honestly. “Barry never mentioned her to me, which, in hindsight, probably means that she was something special. I mean, you don’t really tend to bring up…those kinds of special in front of someone new.”

“Really?”

Felicity gave him a soft smile. “Trust me,” she said. “When you’re far gone for someone who’s…unavailable, it’s not smart to mention that you’re trying to move on. That’s the kind of thing you keep to yourself, because keeping it quiet’s better than admitting out loud that it might never happen.”

“You sound like you have firsthand experience there,” Oliver remarked.

“My dream’s not so quiet anymore,” Felicity answered. “It gets bigger, and brighter, and better every day.”

Oliver mirrored her smile, though it was a short-lived one. “Does it bother you?” he said, and Felicity wondered if he meant Iris being Barry’s frequent visitor and possible _Special Someone_ all along, or what Cisco said about her moving on. “Things with you and Barry never really worked themselves out, and I never asked you, when we…started. Maybe I should have.”

“And why would you think that?”

Oliver shook his head a little. “I saw you and Barry together, and you guys were…good. You both worked well in the investigation, probably because he didn’t need translations for all the…incredibly intelligent things you say, and he made you laugh, always. You looked happy when you were around him. He could do that — turn a bad day into a good one.”

Felicity waited, and Oliver smiled like he’d said something silly. “Anyone would be lucky to be with you, and Barry was smart — and _brave_ — enough to act on it. If he hadn’t been struck by lightning and put in a coma, you’d be with him, and I…”

“…probably wouldn’t have said a word,” she guessed. “Right?”

“Probably not,” Oliver said. “Because he wouldn’t have put you in Slade’s crosshairs. He wouldn’t have had a mother who threatened you to keep a secret. He also probably wouldn’t be out on the streets every night with a bow and arrow. He would have been safe, and…normal. Mostly normal. I stole you, Felicity, and now I’m starting to think it wasn’t fair. You’re in more danger with me than you should be, and it’s not fair to you.”

“And in this _very_ bleak personal assessment that encompasses my love life,” Felicity said, “did I get a choice in you quote- _stealing me_ -unquote?”

Oliver gave her a look. “You know what I mean.”

“I do,” she said, and got up from her chair so that she could sit a little closer, on Oliver’s lap to be precise, because it was the kind of conversation that worked better if he couldn’t run away.

Felicity put her arms around his neck, and he looked up at her, trusting, but also uncertain — so uncertain, still. “I _chose_ you,” she said. “Oliver, I chose you. Barry was a good _what if_ , and we get a lot of _what if_ s when we have our hearts set on something that’s not easy. But I wouldn’t change a thing about what I have now, homicidal ex-mentors inclusive. You’re my dream, and I know it’s not going to be easy, but it’s worth fighting for. You don’t get that with safe and normal.”

Oliver’s hand was on her thigh, and he seemed to be thinking, which was always a good sign. “When I heard that Slade almost hurt you again, one of the things I thought to myself, was that I’d rather see you happy with someone else than happy but in danger with me.”

“We’ve been here before, Oliver,” Felicity said quietly. “When Slade first showed up at your house. We had almost this exact same conversation, and I recall telling you in no uncertain terms that I thought what we have is strong enough to survive Slade Wilson. Are you telling me you’ve changed your mind?”

“I watched you stop Isabel from becoming CEO of Queen Consolidated,” Oliver said, like it was an answer to her question. “You messed up Slade’s plan all on your own, and before that, you were standing up to him in person. You’re the bravest person I know, Felicity.”

“I had help for the company thing,” she said. “And I also managed to score the win because I _know_ you. I know what your blind spot is, and I’m sure you know mine, and that’s what we do. We watch each other’s backs, we make up where the other person falls short because we know they’ll do the same for us. That seems pretty destruction-proof to me.”

Oliver inhaled, deeply, which was how she knew that he’d taken the things she said to heart. Or they’d gotten through the inhumanly thick part of his skull and hit brain. “You know what I’m like. Always the optimist,” he said dryly.

Felicity gave him a little squeeze. “Do I make you happy?”

“Happiest I’ve ever been,” he said, without hesitation. “Being with you means that I’ve thought a lot more about a future than I’ve done before. It’s new for me, and I — I don’t think I could lose that.”

 _A future_. The way he said it sounded like he also meant _hope_. Felicity wondered if she’d ever heard him mention it before, and came up startlingly, bewilderingly short. “Planning ahead?” she said. “That’s new.”

“You’re the one who brought up marriage,” Oliver said, and she gave him a nudge with her elbow. But he was teasing again, in his cute, unexpected way that was purely meant for her.

Felicity decided that the events of the day merited a little private cuddling. Tame stuff only, because she knew that Tommy was a godawful busybody and even the risk of getting thunked with one of Sara’s intimidating Bo staff swipes wouldn’t stop him from catcalling them from across the room.

She brushed her hair back from her cheek and leaned into him a little more, feeling his arms tighten around her. “I love you,” Oliver said.

Felicity shut her eyes, breathing him in. A future and a moment like this didn’t sound that bad at all. “I love you,” she whispered back, and decided that — barring any sudden new developments — it was a pretty good way to end a day.

* * *

“That’s gonna bruise,” Tommy declared, pressing on a welt that one of Sara’s sideways chopping motions had raised. “Did someone fuse steel to your bones, or something? I don’t get how you can hit so ha—Sara?”

She was staring blankly across the room, and he waved a hand in her face — which, in hindsight — he probably shouldn’t have done to a trained assassin, because a second later he was twisted around in an escape-proof martial arts hold, with Sara’s hand around his wrist and her knee in his back.

“Jesus, sorry for asking!” Tommy said, and she immediately let go.

“Sorry,” she said, looking on in concern while he rolled his tingling shoulder. “Sorry — reflex. I was surprised.”

“Remind me to leave you alone for April Fools’,” he said, going for a trusty pack of ice they kept in the freezer drawer for situations like so, leaning on a worktable while he iced his shoulder. “Everything okay? You’ve kinda been a little…off, lately. Well, today. You don’t zone out when we train, unless you’re getting bored with me.”

“It’s not that, Tommy. You’re getting good.”

Tommy gave her a look of deep skepticism over his ice pack. “What’s going on?”

Sara leaned her chin on the steel cabinet, looking down at him. “Just…seeing them together, makes me think, you know?”

“Who?” Tommy looked around. Given the angle of where they were — the first aid area was a little out of the way, screened from view by the concrete columns — he had to stretch his neck before he caught a glimpse of Oliver with Felicity, the two of them doing the shy-peoples’ equivalent of rubbing noses, which was being asleep — or close to asleep — together in the same chair. Annoyingly tame. “Ollie and Felicity? Wait, you’re not —”

“No,” Sara said, brushing off the thought, and Tommy heaved an internal sigh of relief. Because _man_ , would things have gotten awkward if Sara had decided to hop on that train. Namely the same train that had nearly gotten her to the bottom of the North China Sea, left an unresolved fissure in her relationship with her sister, and with more scars than he could count.

If that wasn’t bad _juju_ he didn’t know what was.

_Oh wait._

“It’s… _neither_ of them, right?” he said, gingerly. “Because — you know — you bat for both teams.”

Sara gave him a look. “It’s neither of them.”

“Just checking,” he said meekly. “Can’t be helpful unless we’re on the same page. So — uh — what about them makes you think?”

“It’s not just them. It’s you and McKenna. It’s Lyla and Digg. Thea when she had Roy.” Sara breathed out. “It’s realizing that the last time I loved someone was when I was still in the League of Assassins, and I’ll never see her again, not without hurting the both of us. Before that, I was fooling around with my sister’s boyfriend, and we ended up on a yacht that sank to the bottom of the ocean and put us both through hell.”

“Nothing’s perfect, Sara,” Tommy said. “You’re talking to someone who _wrote_ the book on dysfunctional relationships. I was in love with my best friend’s girlfriend for most of my life, and when I finally got my chance, I screwed it up. Bad. So you’re not the only one who wishes they could have done things differently.”

“But you’re fine now,” Sara said. “You’ve _been_ fine for a while. You and McKenna — you guys are good together. She watches out for you, and she’s part of the reason you wanted to do better in the first place. I still don’t know what that’s like. You just saw what I am — someone waves a hand in front of my face and I react like they’re trying to gut me with a knife. I sleep with a weapon under my pillow, when I sleep at all, and most days when I come face to face with a lowlife in the streets I have to _fight_ myself so that I don’t kill them. Because that’s who I am now. I’m… _wrong_ , and lately, I’ve been starting to feel like everyone’s on a good path, everyone but me.”

Tommy shook his head, because that was just — not it, at all. “What are you talking about? Sara, you’re the Canary. You — you save people, you help the city, you fight with us, and we couldn’t do it without you.”

“It’s never going to bring Laurel back,” Sara said, and she had tears in her eyes, tears that were more angry than sad, bright with defiance. “She loved me, and I did something bad to her, and I know it was never going to be possible to undo it, but I’ll never be able to make it right. I’ll never see her again, and I’ll never know if she would have forgiven me. I won’t, Tommy, and saving people when there’s a voice inside my head that tells me I should kill them — because bad people who do bad things don’t change, and the city would be better off without them — that’s just living a lie. I’ve been fighting not to feel like one of those people, but maybe I am. Maybe everyone’s better off without me around.”

“What about your dad? Quentin just got you back from the dead,” Tommy said. “It would destroy him to see you disappear again.”

Sara smiled a smile as brittle as glass, wiping the dampness from her cheeks. “But I’m the reason he and mom split up, I’m the reason his daughter — the good one, the one who always did everything right — was in so much pain, and he sees me every day. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt him if I left. Maybe he’s just too afraid of hurting me to admit it.”

“Hey,” Tommy said, standing up. “Don’t say that. Sara, don’t.”

He put his arms around her, and Sara hugged him back, but reluctantly. Like she didn’t want to be distracted from the larger point.

“Everyone has someone that brings out the best in them," she said, into his shirt. "Someone who can…find the light when all they can see is the dark. Maybe Laurel was that person for me and I ruined that forever, I broke the trust we had and I’ll never get it back — whatever I do. Maybe that’s my punishment, for what I did —”

“Sara, that’s not true. Laurel may not be around — and god I wish she was — but that doesn’t mean you can’t honor her memory. What Ollie’s doing, what he’s done, it’s been about honoring his dad, and you’re a lot more like him than you think. Why is doing the same thing for Laurel not a good path?”

It seemed like an age before Sara answered. “You’re right,” she said, in what struck him as an unconvincing tone of voice. “I’m just…tired. It’s been a long day.”

“Every day’s a long day,” Tommy said. “This doesn’t feel like one to me. Feels like you’re struggling with something.”

“That’s my secret,” Sara said, and smiled again, pulling away. “I’m always struggling.”

Tommy kept a hold of her hand, even though he could sense her trying to slip free. “So talk to me. Talk to us. Let us help you. We’re your friends.”

“Yeah,” she said, quietly. “I will. I promise.”

“You’re lying,” Tommy said, and she didn’t answer, but turned silently for the staircase and climbed, until she'd vanished into the shadows.

* * *

“This is _weird_ ,” Felicity said, as Oliver crunched up the estate driveway from where he’d left his bike, phone to his ear. “I feel like I should be getting ready to climb through a back window or something. And wearing something with animal print on it. Or sparkly. Wait, that’s bad for camouflage, or you’d have sequins on your suit. Ha, what suit? I didn’t just say that. There’s no _suit_.”

Oliver wasn’t entirely surprised that she was babbling; he _was_ surprised that she’d already started, seeing as she — by his estimation, anyway — was still at the office. “Felicity,” he said. “It’s just dinner.”

There was a rustle, and he pictured Felicity one-handedly sending documents off with her assistant before turning back to the phone call.

“With your _mother_ ,” she said. “And we all remember how well that went the last time. Three cheers for post-aperitif violence, everybody.”

Oliver shifted the bottle of wine he’d brought as a polite gift to one arm, looking for his keys to the mansion door with the other. “I realize that at this point, wanting my girlfriend to have dinner with my mother at least once without things going _horribly_ wrong is a pipe dream,” he said flatly. “But I’m trying things out as an optimist.”

“Well, when you say it like _that_ ,” Felicity said. “Hey, maybe having Tommy and McKenna there’ll break up the bad _juju_ , right? Unless your mom still remembers that you and McKenna used to date, which is a whole other level of weird. Maybe we should all hang out less.”

Oliver paused, breathing in the chilly night air with the door open just a sliver. “Tell you what, if you really have to disappear, library window works the best. Short drop into the bushes, and there’s no kitchen sink to trip you up,” he promised.

Felicity laughed. “Sounds like you’re speaking from experience there,” she said. “Anything interesting to share with the class?”

Oliver smiled. “Nothing that matters now,” he answered.

Felicity exhaled, loudly and decidedly. “Okay. I’ll wrap up now, be there in…thirty minutes?”

“See you then.”

“See you then.”

Oliver slipped his phone back into his pocket as he pushed into the house. There were voices coming from the drawing room just off the foyer, something he guessed was campaign-related based on the sight of his mother’s campaign manager standing guard at the doorway.

His first and immediate plan was to get into the kitchen unnoticed, but Mr Francis spotted him and called out.

“Perfect timing,” he said, like the purpose of him standing there was to catch Oliver as he walked in. “Your mother’s just finishing up her interview. Come on in.”

Oliver left the bottle of wine on one of the side tables and walked into the drawing room, fixing an expression of polite inquisitiveness on his face as he did. “Hi, mom,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Didn’t mean to interrupt anything. I just came a little early to see if you needed help with dinner.”

“I think _early_ ’s the operative word,” Moira said, patting his arm with a laugh. “I wasn’t expecting you so soon. Won’t you sit?”

She was in one of the cream-colored armchairs, and upon her turning back to smile at the reporter sitting on the matching couch, Oliver mirrored the action, realizing — with an unwelcome jolt usually preceding bad news — that he was looking at Victoria Vale.

Smiling at him like she was a shark and he was the scent of blood.

“Hello again, Mr Queen,” she said, adjusting the silver audio recorder resting on her knee. “I was just interviewing your wonderful mother.”

“You’ve met?” Moira’s tone made him pause to give her a look. While he couldn’t say the same for Tommy, Vale was _not_ one of the girls who used to climb out his bedroom window. If anything, she might have thrown him out of it, given his tendency to explore his other options while being in a relationship. “Oh, of course. The piece in _The Journal_. It was very good, very nuanced.”

“Thank you,” Vale said, with a swish of her dark curls. “Your son’s fantastic to interview. Cracks his own jokes and everything.”

“That’s certainly reassuring to hear,” Moira said. “Oliver, would you like to sit? Miss Vale assures me we’re nearly done.”

“Just a few more questions,” she said, smiling another red-lipped smile. “Not that your mother really needs it. She’s a shoo-in, from what I’m hearing.”

Moira brushed off the compliment, but Oliver only smiled politely. He still remembered what Victoria had said to him as the Arrow, telling him with utmost certainty that Moira couldn’t be trusted.

Victoria didn’t like Moira, and from what he’d seen, she wasn’t the type of writer who took assignments she wasn’t interested in. Which meant she had an agenda, and not a beneficial one, at that. Even so, Oliver was more than sure that Moira had the damage control mechanisms to stop anything remotely negative to her campaign reaching the news — whether that meant shutting down the magazine or ruining a journalist’s career. She’d certainly done it before.

Oliver moved to sit in the sofa across from Vale. “Please, don’t let me interrupt,” he said. “It’s like I’m not even here.”

Vale restarted the recorder with a _click_. “Mrs Queen, you must be well aware of the skeptics who doubted your campaign from the start,” she said. “But you’ve recently pulled ahead of Sebastian Blood in the polls, and with less than a week until Starling City heads for the voting booths. What do you say to that?”

For someone who was winning (and by a significant margin), Moira’s smile was graciously understated. “I say ‘thank you’ to the voters for their support,” she said. “I’m glad our message seems to be resonating with them, and I’m glad that they see me as the candidate with a vision for their city, one with the experience and the apparatus necessary to make that a reality.”

“And to the undecided voters, why should they prefer you over Candidate Blood?”

Moira thought briefly about her answer, her hands — and their glittering rings — poised in her lap. “Well, quite simply, I have a family,” she said. “Alderman Blood does not. He’s a revolutionary, in more ways than one, but the problem with dreamers is that they tend to lose sight of the values that matter, the values that _ground_ us. My children are my world, and as a parent, I have plenty of experience with wanting the best for my children, and keeping the balance between dreams and reality. Even more so, as a parent, I’m well aware of what it means to sacrifice what I can for the good of my children.”

Vale nodded, but Oliver couldn’t tell if she was particularly convinced. “Now that we’re on the subject of family, wouldn’t you say that running _for_ office is the opposite of sacrificing for your children? Barely two weeks ago, your daughter was being held hostage by a masked maniac. Surely, the right thing to do would have been to back out of the race, rather than continue to put your children in danger.”

Francis opened his mouth to interrupt, while Victoria merely blinked innocently at him, as though she couldn’t see Oliver’s frown — or sense the tension in the room. “Miss Vale, we were clear on the line of questioning. That’s personal, and borderline off—”

“No, Mark, it’s all right,” Moira said, raising one of her hands. “I understand what Miss Vale is asking me, and I wish to address it.”

“Please,” Vale said, with a look in Oliver’s direction.

“My daughter being kidnapped — a fact that was revealed to me on live television, in the middle of a citywide broadcast — was a harrowing experience for us all, and no mother wishes for her children to be in danger. My first priority was Thea, and certainly, I would have dropped out of the race without a second’s hesitation, but I simply…couldn’t think at the time. I wish I could describe how it felt, but there…I don’t think there are the words to do it justice. My mind was just focused on getting my daughter back home safe, and when I did, I told her that I was backing out of the election to focus on spending time with her, to help us both heal from a traumatic experience.”

Oliver silently lifted his head, careful to conceal his thoughts. Because he was sure that conversation — that offer — had never occurred, because the last time Moira had spoken to Thea had been at the police station, in the interview room when the lies — _the_ lie — had all come crashing down.

Moira’s gaze alighted on Oliver as though she’d sensed his sharpened attention. The eye contact was brief, and she looked down at her hands again, with a small smile that would have looked only sad to anyone else. But to Oliver, it was ironic. She knew as well as Oliver did that he wouldn’t contradict her in front of Vale, that her instinct — despite the rift caused with Thea over not telling the truth — was still to trust that her children wouldn’t expose her lies.

Especially if the lie was to protect the family.

“Yet here you are, still in the race,” Vale said.

Moira looked back at Victoria, her expression thoughtful, and determined. “And I credit it to my daughter,” she said. “My son as well, but Thea told me to stay in the election, and run. She reminded me of a time, nearly a year ago, when I was afraid, and I let myself do the unconscionable. When Malcolm Merlyn threatened the lives of my family, I let myself be ruled by fear, and as a result, I can never undo the damage done to this beautiful city, or forget the part I played in it. My daughter reminded me that I could not make the same mistake twice, that I had something much more meaningful to contribute the city, to help make it better as mayor, and to drop out of the race due to this… _intimidation_ by masked men and threats, it would be unforgivable. I could not turn my back to the needs of Starling City a second time, and I will be forever grateful to my daughter for reminding me of it. She’s my strength, as are both my children. They are the reason I’m even here at all.”

Oliver sensed movement in the corner of his eye, and turned. His seat gave him an unobstructed view of the far entrance to the drawing room, the one that Vale had her back to, and he saw that Thea was standing in the doorway, arms folded. Instead of interrupting when Moira lied about the reason she stayed in the race, Thea was completely silent, looking at her mother with an expression that suggested both disbelief and intense distrust.

He knew that expression.

It was the same look Oliver wore when Moira tried to clutch at his arms, pleading for him not to walk away from her, because she’d threatened one of the most important people in his life, all to protect a secret she’d kept that would break the family into pieces.

It had, and here they were.

“Well, thank you, Moira,” said Vale, getting to her feet. “I think I’ve gotten everything I need for the feature. Best of luck with the election.”

Moira got to her feet as well and shook Victoria’s hand. “Thank you, Miss Vale.”

“Oliver,” Victoria said, and he looked back at her with a start.

“Goodbye,” he said, briefly gripping her small hand.

Moira and Francis went to show Victoria out, and Oliver was still on his feet when they swept out of the drawing room.

Once they were gone, he looked back towards the doorway. Thea was still half-hidden from view by the vase of flowers and the heavy sideboard, but she stepped out from behind it as the voices receded into the background, her arms crossed.

“I’m surprised the words didn’t choke her,” she said coolly.

“Speedy,” he said, but she cut him off before he could finish.

“Wait, that’s _vampires_ and taking the Lord’s name,” she said, tapping the side of her head. “Or was it witches? Funny how I always get those two confused with mom.”

“The interviewer blindsided her with the question,” Oliver said. “It would’ve looked bad if she didn’t answer, so she told that story.”

“You mean _made up_ that story,” she stressed. “Doesn’t it make you sick? How — messed up — does she have to be, to be able to lie like that? With her son sitting right there?”

Oliver didn’t have much to say. Even Moira’s purposive use of the truth made him deeply uncomfortable, but he also knew that their truce had extended only as far as protecting the family was concerned. No lies to each other, not the public. Moira would never make that kind of deal, not now, not ever.

The fact that she’d even made the distinction didn’t make him feel any better about treading the neutral line between his mother and his sister, because he knew that deep down, Thea had every right to be angry.

Especially since Oliver had gotten into the trained habit of lying to those closest to him about what he really did at night. Which didn’t make him any better than his mother, not really.

“It’s mom,” he said, lamely. “I know. It makes me angry sometimes, but it’s mom.”

Thea made a derisive sound under her breath. “Exactly,” she said. “And she’s never going to stop.”

“I don’t know that,” he said. “Changing — even a little — takes time, and patience. It took me a long time to change my bad habits.”

“Because being early for dinner ranks _exactly_ on the same level as being a slightly improved pathological liar,” she said sarcastically. “Go mom.”

“Speedy,” he said quietly. “Did you think about what I told you?”

Thea looked at him, but she didn’t ask what he’d meant. “It’s funny. You know, I’ve had a lot of time to think lately, and you know what I keep coming back to? Where and why it all started to go wrong.”

“Malcolm?” he asked.

She shook her head slowly. “Mom. That’s why you and Tommy lied, right? Because she said it would break the family apart? She played the _I’m your mother_ card?”

“She didn’t —”

“Just stop, Ollie. _Stop_ protecting mom. You’re just…letting her do it all over again. To you. To Tommy. Don’t you see what she is? She poisons the people around her, with lies, and excuses, and threats. That’s why you stayed away, right? After you started dating Felicity? Because of mom?”

Oliver couldn’t lie about that. “It was…complicated.”

“No, it’s not,” she said, simply. “You told me that I should _survive_ , right? Well, there’s something that’s tearing me apart, and you know what? It’s mom. It’s always been mom, and it’s not going to change. Not now, not ever. She knew my whole life who I really was, and even if you think you can forgive her, I can’t. Not for turning you and Tommy, the only family I have left in the world, into liars.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“I’m done,” she said. “With her. I’m just… _done_. If I’m going to survive this, I can’t see her again. I can’t be her daughter, I can’t let her be in my life, because I can’t trust her again, and I’m not stupid enough to try.”

Oliver felt his heart sink, all over again. Thea might as well have been standing in his shoes, when he’d severed all ties with his mother. They were a family of repeated patterns, especially in their mistakes, and it made him realize how tired he was. How inescapable it all felt.

Maybe it was always meant to be.

“I thought that way before,” he admitted. “And it helped, for a while. Maybe…it’ll help you too.”

As defiant as she was, even Thea seemed surprised. “You’re…not going to stop me?”

Oliver exhaled, slowly. He knew telling his sister, who was easily angrier than he had been when he’d cut things off with Moira, that the separation would only end up hurting her…it wouldn’t go anywhere.

Because it had been what he’d needed, at the time. Until circumstances forced him to realize that he couldn’t cut himself off from family, not anymore.

So he held out his arms, and it was a silent relief when Thea went into them, albeit reluctantly. Like it was the first time they’d ever hugged. The thought hurt like a cut, another small wound alongside the ones that hurt the deepest, but Oliver accepted it for what it was. Thea’s feelings were the only thing that mattered, and right now, he needed to be there for her, the way he should have for the last year, and all the time he’d been away.

She was small, and she’d always been small, but holding her reminded him of it all over again…how _young_ she was. A nineteen-year-old him would have been sleeping off a hangover in some hotel room, maybe on some nameless girl’s floor, making a half-hearted excuse to the girlfriend he’d made a habit of cheating on and chalking up more missed classes and fail grades because he knew his parents would always welcome him back with open arms.

Not Thea. Despite less than stellar role models in her life, Thea had gone further than Oliver could have, at her age. She’d kept the drinking and the drugs at bay and had been running a successful nightclub almost on her own, instead of partying her way through college after college like he did. Now she was lonely, conflicted, with more on her shoulders than the old him would've been able to bear.

Thea pushed her forehead against Oliver’s shoulder. “I don’t hate you, Ollie,” she whispered, in a low, broken voice almost too small to catch. “Or Tommy.”

It was enough. For now, it was enough. More than he’d expected, better than he could have hoped.

“Whatever you have to do, Speedy,” Oliver said softly. “Just know that you have people who love you, who are going to be there, when you let them. On _your_ terms.”

Brother and sister moved apart, and Thea almost wore something of a smile. Soft, sad, but maybe just a little hopeful.

“Thea.” Moira entered the room, and her expression shifted into one of pleasant surprise, clearly interpreting the hug as a sign of reconciliation. “You’re early.”

Thea’s reaction was instantaneous, and she sidestepped before Moira could get any closer, moving towards the fireplace instead. Her arms were folded again, defensive. It was the equivalent of a door slamming shut, and Moira faltered.

“I’m not staying for dinner,” she said. “I’m just here to tell you that you can’t have your campaign rally at Verdant this Friday. This house is yours, and you can tell whatever lies you want to the press right here — but you’re not going to do it from a stage in my club. That’s where I draw the line, mother dearest.”

Moira’s expression grew guarded again, and Oliver moved to stand in the middle, like he was the arbitrator. Thea looked past him at their mother, like she couldn’t imagine what the problem was.

“We can still be civil,” he said, like it was a ground rule, the only one he felt even remotely confident about them keeping. “All of us.”

That got him an eye-roll, as Thea interpreted it in light of the reporter who’d just walked out of the house. “Don’t worry, Ollie, I’m not gonna screw up her chances to sit behind the big desk. Hey, if Starling City’s stupid enough to vote for her, they deserve what’s coming their way. When it comes down to _Moira Queen_ or a few hundred thousand people, who d’you think Mrs Mayor’s gonna choose?”

The venom in her voice made him wince.

Moira had never been the kind of mother to show her feelings with ease, or to show distress at a blow that might have floored anyone else, and she didn’t now, but Oliver could see the hurt behind her eyes, and in the way her voice remained tightly controlled, as though she was restraining whatever emotions were trying to force their way through.

Her response to chaos had always been ice-cold control. Now it was hurting her with a daughter determined to draw blood.

“You may hate me, but we all have responsibilities in this situation,” Moira said calmly. “I have mine as the candidate, and you have yours as the owner of the event venue.”

“You’re not stepping one foot over the threshold of Verdant, do you hear me?” Thea snapped. “You’ve poisoned enough of my life as it is. I’m not stupid enough to invite you to poison it some more.”

“We can’t just change the venue of the rally with less than a week’s notice,” was the even-toned answer. “That’s irresponsible, and I won’t do it.”

“ _Irresponsible_ was playing hard and fast with the truth, like my real father,” Thea retorted. “I’m sure you and your _experience_ and that crap about sacrificing for your family can come in handy to weather this crisis. Verdant’s off the table.”

Moira drew herself up, her head high. “Thea, you signed a _contract_ ,” she said quietly.

Oliver shut his eyes, because he wished his mother had said anything but that. “She doesn’t mean it,” he said to his sister.

Thea was looking at Moira with a chilly smile. “No, she _really_ does,” she said. “Just when I thought you couldn’t be any more of a bitch — you prove me wrong. Threatening to slap your own daughter with a lawsuit. That’s real nice, mommy dearest. Class-A parenting. Should’ve told Vicki Vale that, but I’m sure she already knows you’re a Gold Standard psychopath, asking you that kidnapping question. Nearly got you, too.”

Moira didn’t speak, and Thea brushed past her with contempt. “Oh, and the next time you make up a story about your kids telling you to _face your fears_ , or whatever fairytale crap you’re trying to spin, use Ollie. Not me. I’m done with you.”

Moira didn’t move, her face as still and carved as granite while her only daughter proceeded to walk out of the house like it was someone else’s home. The door opened to the sound of voices, cut short by Thea’s brusque reply, and slammed again.

Tommy and Felicity had arrived at the same time, and the latter was still looking at the closed door with visible disappointment. Their faces said just about everything regarding what they'd heard, but Moira straightened her shoulders and turned to greet her guests with a smile.

“There you are,” she said, as though nothing was the matter. “Thank you for coming.”

* * *

Tommy joined Oliver by the small side table where the drinks were kept. Oliver was shaking something without particular interest or conviction, and Tommy had a feeling it didn’t have a lot to do with the conversation going on in the drawing room, even though — given the personal histories — it was probably a smart thing to keep one ear tuned into an exchange between Moira and Felicity.

“Saw Thea on my way in,” he said. “Based off the thundercloud hovering above her head, I’m guessing that long-awaited mother/daughter talk did _not_ go well.”

“Define _well_ ,” Oliver muttered. “Nothing caught fire or exploded. But that’s about the extent of any positives I can think of.”

Tommy grimaced, adding zest to the waiting glasses without asking Oliver what he was making. “I think I just thought up a new definition of _suck_.”

Oliver gave him a look and went back to the others with the drinks. Felicity chafed his arm as he sat down, her expression concerned, and he smiled briefly at her. Tommy sat on the arm of Moira’s chair, as was his usual habit. “So, what are we talking about?”

“I was just asking Felicity about life at the office,” Moira said. “Transitions are always _so_ chaotic, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t becoming overwhelming.”

“Ha,” Felicity said, while the unhappy look on Oliver’s face got chased off by one of pride. “As long as I have my coffeemaker, any crisis — not a problem.”

“Yeah, must be nice not having to report to a total idiot for a change,” Tommy said, before shrugging. “What? I meant Isabel Rochev. Ollie’s only _sporadically_ a moron.”

“Thanks,” he answered, while Moira laughed.

The jokes seemed to have loosened the two of them up, because Oliver put his arm on the back of the sofa, behind Felicity’s shoulders, and she was leaning into him a little during the conversation, instead of sitting like she had a plaid skirt on and it was Catholic school.

They were well into the subject of cybersecurity and discovering Moira’s surprising knowledge on the topic when she inadvertently glanced up at the mantlepiece clock. “Should we be worried about McKenna? She’s not usually late.”

“She had to go home after work to change,” Tommy said, pulling out his phone. “Something might have held her up. Maybe Sebastian Blood’s having a parade in the middle of Main Street.”

The call was on its third ring when the doorbell went off, and they all got to their feet as McKenna came into the room, already apologizing. “Sorry I’m late,” she said, while Tommy went straight to help with her coat before anyone noticed the bits of dried leaf on one sleeve that had probably come from leaning on the side of the front door to swap her flat shoes out for heels.

And they said he was a crappy detective.

“You look great,” he said, kissing her cheek before he went to start on her drink. “The usual?”

“That’d be good, thanks,” she said, as Moira seated her in the closest chair. “I’m really sorry, I was about to head out when something new came onto the wires, and it was a complete nightmare getting the next shift in —”

“That sounds awful,” Moira said, looking concerned. “What happened?”

McKenna looked reluctant to say. “I’m sure it’s all over the news by now, but there was a prison transport on its way to Iron Heights, and something ran it off the road —”

Tommy had been shaking her drink, and he nearly lost his grip on the metal shaker at the words.

“Tommy?” McKenna looked around. “Are you okay?”

“Finger cramp,” he lied, waving said hand around to illustrate his point. “Uh — what — how many?”

“Twenty prisoners, all high-risk,” she said. “It’s a press nightmare already.”

“I can imagine,” Moira said. “Are you sure they can spare you tonight?”

“We’ve got plenty of people on it,” McKenna said. “The transport crashed outside of town. I’m sure they couldn’t have gone far.”

Tommy looked over his shoulder at the others. Oliver was sitting ramrod straight like someone had zapped him with a cattle prod, while Felicity had gone tight-lipped and quiet. All signs that they had more or less the same internal thought process going on beneath the surface, because none of them needed much of a connect-the-dots diagram to understand who — under the particular circumstances — would have uses for a van of dangerous inmates.

Which was not good. Not good at all.

* * *

The last time Felicity had been invited to dinner at the Queen mansion, her love for food and appreciation of Raisa’s cooking had been more than slightly dampened by the unfortunate fact that a fellow dinner guest was Oliver’s one-eyed psychopath of an ex-mentor from Lian Yu, making the food a slightly lower priority on the list than — oh, what was it? — _survival_.

The roast chicken sliced like butter, but Felicity had other things on her mind, namely the fact that Iron Heights was short one reinforced bus full of highly dangerous convicts, and that unequivocally could _not_ bode well since Slade happened to be in the market for a bunch of new lab rats to turn into his own personal band of mercenaries.

The mood was — to put it lightly — _tense_. Apart from the obvious gap in the guest list that had been left by Thea, everyone else in the know had to be wondering what Slade’s next move was, and the last place they wanted to be doing that thinking was at a dinner table, making polite conversation.

“Election day’s next week,” McKenna said. “I hope everything’s going well, Moira.”

Moira made a slight face, as close to one as she’d manage, anyway. “My knees have stopped shaking every time someone mentions a ballot box, which I think bodes incredibly well, McKenna, thank you for asking.”

“Sergeant Lance says he’s rooting for you,” she added. “The Police Commissioner likes your pension plan over Sebastian Blood’s.”

“ _Take that,_ ” Tommy muttered loudly, to the amusement of those present. “Sorry, didn’t realize I was audible.”

Oliver turned his head suddenly, like he’d heard something to raise his hackles. Tommy noticed, which meant a few seconds’ head-start before McKenna did too, so Felicity hastily coughed into her napkin, drawing attention off his reaction in case Moira was watching. “Sorry,” she said, patting her chest. “Went down the wrong way.”

Then she coughed some more. Like to _really_ sell it.

“Oh dear. I’ll see if Raisa can get you some tea,” Moira said, getting to her feet. “I’ll be right back, please excuse me.”

“No,” Oliver said hastily, pushing back his chair. “I’ll go, mom.”

“Oh,” Moira said, looking slightly nonplussed at the sudden tea-fetching initiative. “Well, thank you, Oliver.”

In a show of truly remarkable timing, Tommy got up too, and there was a split-second when everyone stared at him, waiting for the reason he hadn’t seemed to have thought of yet. “Bathroom,” he said, after a cringeworthy pause. “Too many drinks. Be right back.”

They both left the dining room from opposing doors, but Felicity had no doubt whatsoever that whatever had drawn Oliver’s attention, it wasn’t good.

She only hoped that her boyfriend — for politeness’ sake — hadn’t dropped his habit of arming himself to the teeth.

* * *

Tommy pushed through the door and into the foyer, having been forced to make a detour under the last-minute pretense of using the facilities. He was peering around the foyer when Oliver came down the stairs, like he’d done a sweep.

“Nothing,” he said, in answer to the question Tommy hadn’t even asked.

“Did you hear something?” he asked.

Oliver nodded. “Outside. It’s not an animal.”

Maybe it was living on a deserted and hostile island for five years, but Oliver had a kind of certainty when it came to these things that naturally made itself averse to questions, so Tommy went along with it. “Okay, so are we thinking that Slade dropped by for dessert?”

There was a muffled _snap_ , as though something nearby had cracked down the middle, and Tommy held up his hands. “I was _not_ serious.”

Oliver was looking at the drawing room doors. “It came from there,” he said, producing a flechette literally from one sleeve, razor sharp and perfect for hurling straight at trouble’s more sensitive parts.

Which reminded Tommy that he was a little short of any tricks, since no one in the Foundry had _ever_ issued a memo that leaving home base meant having to literally pad oneself with martial arts paraphernalia.

“The one night I decide to leave my throwing stars at home,” he muttered, reaching for an ancient walking stick they kept inexplicably in the umbrella stand, despite the fact that the person who'd last used it was probably dead going on eighty or so years.

Oliver went up to the doors, and pressed silently down on the handle. He nodded as a signal, and swung the door wide. Tommy followed after him, ready for trouble, but was in _no_ way prepared for what constituted — even for them — a development straight from the left field.

The drawing room doors, glass and latticed, were broken straight through, like someone had shoved their leg through the panes and asked questions later, if any. The lamps near the windows had been overturned, and one of the bulbs still sparked feebly, joining the sound of a live current humming from exposed wires.

Slade Wilson was the first culprit that sprang to mind, but then the figure by the fireplace straightened up, looking like something from a horror movie.

Tommy peered hard at the face, half-hidden by a familiar red hoodie. “Roy?” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gahhhhh, have I mentioned how fun it is to write Flarrow stuff, even pre-pre-Flarrow?  
> Oh, and DUN DUN DUN.


	34. Roy, Raged (Seeing Red, Part I)

“Roy?” Tommy said.

Familiar, but only in terms of appearance, and even then — not quite. A very eerie _not quite_. The Roy they knew was a piece of walking snark with an extremely guarded good side reserved only for a few special someones, none of whom were currently present. Even the last time they’d seen him, when he’d been furious and lashing out, he’d still sounded something like himself. Tapping a little too much into his inner rage and old resentments, but he’d still been _Roy_.

Now, Tommy wasn’t so sure. Something was missing behind his eyes, like the Mirakuru — unchecked for the week or more he’d been gone — had inflicted some kind of damage they were now seeing in full view. Like it had pushed Roy way, way down and brought out the madness that came with the serum.

They needed Thea to calm him, but Tommy’s brotherly instincts weren’t the slightest bit okay with the thought of his sister going anywhere near Roy when he was this out of it. And it was a far, far _out_. Like rings-of-Saturn _out_.

Tommy moved a little closer. “Roy?” he said, as the red hood came up, and he met a blank, icy stare in answer. “What’s wrong with him?”

“I don’t know,” Oliver said, all his prior expertise with the Mirakuru seemingly coming up short with answers, and he held up one hand like he was trying to calm a dangerous animal. “Roy, it’s us. We’re your friends.”

Oliver took a step forward, and not-Roy’s eyes snapped in the direction of the movement, skittish, ready for the slightest sign of trouble. “Roy,” he continued. “It’s Oliver. You remember us. We’re here to help you. I’m Thea’s bro—”

As soon as the word _Thea_ hit the aether, not-Roy flew into action like he’d been hypnotized into standing still, and the name was his trigger phrase. He hurtled at Oliver, who moved fast enough to avoid the fist that Roy threw straight into the molding, coming out with a handful of dust and drywall.

“ _Crap_ ,” Tommy said.

Instead of slashing at Roy, Oliver went on the defensive, rolling out of the way as his old protege came after him with all the professional courtesy of a stampeding bison. He twisted and weaved while Roy’s (admittedly much skinnier) arms whistled through the air like they had the force of solid cinderblock behind them. Undeterred, (and Tommy wasn’t sure whether this was a good or bad thing) Oliver avoided taking him head-on, using glancing contact from the sides of his forearms and the flat of his hands to throw Roy’s punches off course, all while he concentrated on not getting a hole punched straight through him.

Cool that Oliver had a plan and all, but despite the visible confirmation that he and Roy were both technically unarmed, it was like watching someone taking liberal swings with a pair of solid steel beams — at a person who had nothing but his fists.

Tommy couldn’t just sit and watch.

In a movement as quick as it was silent, Oliver caught Roy’s wrist with a snap and shoved him back, planting his forearm beneath Roy’s throat to pin him against the wall.

“Roy!” Oliver said, breathing hard. “ _Stop_.”

 _That_ was his brilliant plan? “Oliver, he’s not wasted on tequila shots,” Tommy said urgently, while Roy twisted against Oliver’s grip, the glare in his eye making it perfectly clear that he’d already planned their painful deaths. “He’s — _look out!_ ”

The last part was directed at Oliver, because Roy threw him off and swung a punch aimed to break Oliver’s skull. The punch went awry, sweeping a whole row of picture frames off the mantelpiece and sending them pelting across the room like flying bricks, but Oliver didn’t even flinch. “Stay back,” Oliver warned Tommy, like he could sense what he was thinking. “You’re not —”

Whatever Tommy wasn’t, he didn’t get to hear, because Roy — instead of stepping over a fallen coat rack like a normal person — snatched it up, fifty-or-so pounds of antique ebony and metallic inlay, and hurled it at Oliver’s head like it was a spear.

Thank god Oliver ducked, leaving the fifty-pound projectile to impale one of the oil paintings with a resounding crash.

 _That_ was when Tommy moved. Not because he had any particular affinity for the muddy-looking marshlands and duck (or was it squab?) hunters in the now shish-kabobed painting, but because Oliver was his best friend and _goddammit_ , the only person who could throw things at his head was Tommy freaking Merlyn.

An unspoken rule pretty much any bad guy in Starling City had broken at least once, but that was besides the point.

“Hey!” Tommy slammed his shoulder into Roy, literally and metaphorically forcing his focus off of Oliver. He'd missed the lesson on doing Oliver’s martial arts dodges, but the general theory was to avoid a direct hit. That — he could do. Sort of.

The only problem: colliding his shoulder to Roy’s back _hurt_. Like _rollerblading into a brick wall_ hurt, but Tommy recovered (again, sort of) by ramming his knee in the general direction of an area he hoped was still vulnerable to a whole lot of pain.

Only Roy blocked him before he could say _reflexes_ and Tommy staggered, his knee stinging, which put his aim slightly off when he swung the stick like a truncheon. Again, instead of ducking as per human instinct, wood met the palm of Roy’s hand with a slap, followed by the soft splintering of his grip strength snapping it straight in two.

_Fantastic._

Roy’s hand was in the front of Tommy’s shirt, and before _that_ could fully sink in, he was skidding across the carpet. He slammed back-first into the coffee table, upsetting the vase of flowers that broke with a crash, showering the carpet and himself with glass fragments and water.

“Roy!” There was a heavy metal sculpture on the mantelpiece, and Oliver swung it into Roy’s back, making him grunt — but more out of frustration than pain. But it was enough to split his focus, and Oliver went on the defensive again, careful to skirt just out of arm’s reach as Roy swung punches that could smash holes in human chests just as easily as the walls.

It gave Tommy enough time to swipe the iron poker from beside the fireplace, and Oliver — seeing this — leapt up to snap one of the curtain rods into two, holding it like a Bo staff.

They flanked Roy from either side, circling, forcing him to stay put and watch them suspiciously for next moves. “We don’t hurt him,” Oliver said, as though it needed stating. “We bring him in.”

“Maybe someone should tell _him_ that,” Tommy said, as Roy decided he preferred to take down the small fry first.

Spoiler alert: it wasn’t Oliver.

As far as coordinated team-ups went, Tommy had a decent idea of Oliver’s arsenal in the hand-to-hand department, which was how he knew, when Oliver’s punch forced Roy to duck, that the complementary move was to try and sweep his legs out from under him.

Theory was cool with it, but execution clearly had other plans, because Roy interrupted him mid-maneuver with a block that felt like hardened cement against his leg bone and deflected Oliver with a forceful slam that sent him staggering back. Tommy slashed at him with the poker, but it could land, Roy caught him around the throat and hauled, holding him two feet off the floor with only one arm.

Tommy lost his grip on the poker and clutched instead at Roy’s fist, trying (and failing) to dislodge the iron grip currently compressing his airway.

“Roy!” Oliver shouted, but he was out of options, and they both knew it.

“ _R-oy_ ,” Tommy croaked, forcing the sounds out against his better judgment. “ _St-op_.”

He was staring down at Roy, but there was no corresponding glimmer of humanity, no signs of anything behind the mask of cold rage. Oliver had gone flying across the room again from trying to attack Roy and Tommy was choking for breath, fighting hard against the urge to pass out — when the doors banged open.

“Oh my god!” someone gasped, and there was a click that sounded like a gun being armed.

“Harper!” McKenna was standing in front of a horrified-looking Moira and Felicity, her police-issued handgun drawn and pointed at Roy’s chest, and he knew from the sound of her voice that she’d shoot, no hesitation. “Put him down!”

Tommy couldn’t shake his head. _Don’t_ , he thought. _Thea_.

Three gunshots went off in quick succession, and Tommy felt something warm spatter the front of his shirt before he fell, landing hard on the carpet with black spots in front of his eyes, gasping hoarsely for breath as his oxygen-deprived brain throbbed furiously inside his skull.

McKenna was checking his chest for wounds, but Tommy turned his head, searching for Roy. The red hoodie made it hard to tell where McKenna had shot him, but Roy looked down at the blood on his fingers, almost like it was some kind of reminder, and then turned. He grabbed the edge of the broken glass doors and kicked his way through the rest, leaving behind a warped frame and an eerie smear of red so dark it was nearly black.

“Tommy,” Moira said, while McKenna continued to kneel at his side, repeating police code into her radio. “Sweetheart, are you all right?”

Felicity was helping Oliver to stand, who still needed to brace the wall for support, scratches gleaming fresh on his face and neck.

“What happened?” McKenna said, grasping Tommy’s hand to help him sit up.

His head was still spinning, but he realized that the room looked like a hurricane had blown through it and back out again, photo frames on the floor and smashed, holes in walls and shattered windows, not to mention the state of himself and Oliver, from being thrown around like the human equivalent of plastic frisbees.

Oliver only shook his head, and Tommy croaked, his voice too shot to speak.

Moira was still looking between her son, the shattered windows, and McKenna. “That was Roy Harper, but I don’t understand. Why would he — break in and attack you?”

“It wasn’t Harper,” McKenna said. “There’s something wrong with him. He looks like a junkie — he’s high on something, not thinking straight. I have to bring him in before he hurts somebody.”

“ _Wait_ ,” Oliver said. “He’s not —”

“Dangerous?” McKenna looked incredulously at Oliver. “Christ, he almost strangled Tommy with _one_ hand, and you’re saying he’s not dangerous?”

Oliver didn’t have much to say to that, and neither did Felicity. McKenna gripped Tommy’s forearm, looking worried, and Moira had a strange expression on her face as she took in the state of affairs, something uncomfortably close to understanding.

Tommy exchanged an uneasy glance with Oliver, the two of them winded, panting for breath. Why would an obviously Mirakuru-ed up Roy choose to hit the mansion?

The answer, as uneasily as everything else, came too quickly.

 _Thea_.

* * *

Felicity carefully pasted a pair of butterfly stitches over the cut on Oliver’s forehead while Diggle and Sara looked on. “Nothing?” she said. “He didn’t recognize you?”

Tommy shook his head at the same time as Oliver did, holding an ice pack to the bruises sure to be forming around his throat from the one-hand chokehold.

Sara drummed her fingers on the table, looking agitated. “He’s out of control,” she said. “Dangerous.”

The last word — along with the look she shot the both of them — sent a signal that neither missed.

Oliver stared back just as baldly, a signal that he wasn’t about to budge. “It’s _Roy_ ,” he said. “We’re not going to take him out.”

“We’ve all agreed to take Slade out,” she said. “What makes Roy any different?”

“Because he’s _Roy_ ,” Tommy croaked. His throat hurt when he tried to talk, but he had to, because he couldn’t believe that she was actually asking the question. “He’s Thea’s Roy, our Roy, Verdant Roy, Glades Roy. And he’s just a kid.”

“He’s a kid who would have grabbed Thea around the throat and choked the life out of her if she’d been at the mansion,” Sara said, her voice as hard as iron.

Tommy realized he’d dropped the ice pack, and she was only sounding that way because she could see the marks on his neck, _that way_ being a total and chilling lack of forgiveness.

“Since the Mirakuru got into his system, he’s been a human super-weapon,” she continued. “But now that the poison’s eaten away his mind, he’s a threat. A threat we need to handle.”

“Hold on,” Diggle said, before either side could retort. “We’ve seen Slade. He may be crazy, but he’s still capable of identifying who’s who. Is there any chance that this is just a stage in the Mirakuru’s progression, and Roy might get something back — eventually?”

“That’s not really something you can test from a blood sample,” Felicity said. “And on top of that, we don’t know if the Mirakuru has an individualized effect on each subject it comes into contact with. Slade might have responded a certain way because he wanted revenge — he needed his mind for that. When we last saw Roy, he was just… _angry_.”

“Exactly,” Sara said. “You don’t need thought when it comes to blind rage, and for some reason, that rage? It’s directed at Thea.”

“Stop it,” Oliver said.

“You know I’m right!” Sara was small, but she stood in front of him, glaring full force and crackling with a presence that made her seem taller than any of them. “You know there’s a part of you that thinks neutralizing Roy is the only option to keep Thea safe. We can’t chain him up in a basement and train him like a pet. You knew that on the island when you put an arrow through Slade’s eye, so what makes things any different now?”

“ _Sara_ ,” Felicity said, who didn’t know the half of what happened on the island, same as him. But she’d spoken — just like he would have — because the look on Oliver’s face was shock, and most definitely guilt.

A second later, Oliver had recovered, or at least moved quickly enough to hide the rest from view. “Because Roy’s important to my sister,” he said. “If I kill him, she’ll never forgive me.”

“Maybe this is a secret you’ll have to keep, if the alternative means her being dead at Roy’s feet,” Sara responded, ice-cold in her logic.

Tommy ran his hands through his hair, because he couldn’t believe they were even having the discussion. “You sound like Moira.”

Sara only turned her flinty gaze on him. “Moira made the same choice when it came to Malcolm Merlyn,” she said. “Can you?”

“What if it were me infected with the Mirakuru, and Laurel was the one in danger?” Tommy asked. “What would you do?”

Sara looked at him for a long moment, and Tommy wasn’t sure if the pain in her eyes was because he’d mentioned her sister, or because of the answer she was about to give.

“I’d kill you,” she said. “To save her.”

There was a long silence, and Sara slid her jacket off the steel table. “I’m hitting the streets,” she said, heading towards the stairs. “Call me if anything changes.”

The door slammed, and Tommy shook his head, trying to figure out how and why things had the precision to snowball _just_ when people were in the middle of soul-searching conflicts, and to pick an example — wrestling with killer instincts and an inner darkness triggered by guilt that wasn’t capable of going away.

“What about Moira?” Diggle asked, reasonably. “Does she suspect anything?”

Oliver shook his head. “She hasn’t so far,” he said. “Besides, she’s distracted over Thea.”

“Your mother’s a smart woman, Oliver,” Diggle pointed out. “It’s pretty damn clear that Roy should have killed you both — unless some kind of training kept you alive.”

It was Tommy who held up his hand. “Let’s just limit the number of migraine-inducing questions for tonight, shall we?” he said. “How am I supposed to find a scarf big enough to cover Roy’s handprint? Yet another sentence I’d never thought I’d say.”

“Someone needs to talk to Thea,” Felicity added — appropriately ignoring the last part. “If Roy’s after her, Verdant’s the second place he’ll look.”

“He’d better do it before Friday,” Diggle said. “Isn’t your mother having a rally here? The place’ll be teeming with armed security.”

“And reporters,” Tommy said, unwillingly. “Super-strong hoodie man trying to kill the candidate’s daughter might just catch their attention.”

“We don’t know that he wants to kill Thea,” Oliver said. “We don’t know that, and we can’t let that cloud our judgment when it comes to deciding what to do about Roy.”

Diggle glanced at Felicity, and he grunted, like he was about to do something he didn’t want to. “Look, I’m playing Devil’s Advocate here, but are we letting _our_ judgment get clouded by the fact that he’s Roy? Oliver, I know you picked him off the streets and trained him yourself, but if something goes south, it’s not your fault. You didn’t inject him with the Mirakuru, Slade did.”

“Slade’s only here because of me,” he said. “The Mirakuru is in Roy’s system, infecting him, because of me.”

Felicity made a small noise, like she could recognize Oliver’s guilt-spiral before it went full-strength. “Roy’s still our friend, and I’m as against hurting him as you are, but we all know that Sara doesn’t need anyone’s approval to do what she has in mind,” she said. “She was taking down gangbangers and serial killers in the Glades on her own before we caught up. If she’s decided to take Roy off the board, she will.”

Oliver inhaled, sharply, his hands on his hips. “I just don’t understand what’s wrong with her,” he said, quietly. “I thought we were trying to do things differently. I thought she was trying to be…something else.”

“Like you did when you first got back from Lian Yu?” Tommy pointed out, knowing full well the risk of getting his head chomped off, throat bruises notwithstanding. “Oliver, you’re in a different place now, but you’ve been at this for two years. When you got back from the island, I’m guessing you didn’t see things all that differently from the way she does. Friend or foe, right? Kill or be killed.”

“I made some exceptions,” Oliver said, but his jaw was set. “I didn’t kill Malcolm.”

Tommy stood up, letting the ice pack drop. “Sara’s just gotten back from a League that puts its operating policy in the name. _Assassin_. That’s what she’s been taught, trained to do. Fighting alongside a couple of friends for a few months won’t change that.”

“It changed me,” Oliver said.

Tommy agreed. “And who did you have?”

Oliver’s gaze flicked towards the side, and Tommy knew who he was thinking of. An army vet with an unfailing moral compass and a certain blonde computer genius with knack for hope. “So what are you suggesting?” he asked, in a different voice.

“She needs time,” Tommy said. “This thing with Roy…it’s all jumbled up with a bunch of other things, about Laurel, about guilt, about…I don’t know, trying to get back something that got lost a long time ago.”

“And what if she kills Roy in the meantime?” he asked. “What’s that going to do to Thea?”

“We’ll make sure that doesn’t happen.” Tommy looked at Felicity and Diggle, who nodded. “That’s kinda what we do, right?”

Felicity put her hand on Oliver’s arm. “We have enough pit viper venom from the last time we went after Slade, and I’m patched into traffic cameras and CCTV networks all over the city,” she volunteered. “Facial recognition should pick him up, and we’ll know where he’s going.”

“I think we should all call it a night there,” Diggle said. “It’s been a long day.”

“Yeah,” Tommy said, because Oliver still wasn’t speaking. “It has.”

* * *

It was hours later when Oliver walked back into the Foundry, damp in his hair from the cold, misty rain, soaked to the skin from circling the city on his bike, looking through old haunts and anywhere Roy could be.

Nothing.

It was the same with Slade, as though the Mirakuru had given them both the same level of stealth that allowed them to vanish like ghosts, but a part of Oliver thought, _hoped_ , that maybe it was Roy — the Roy Harper he’d encountered on the street — acting like his old self. He’d lived his whole life as a pickpocket in the Glades, unnoticed, no family to speak of, just like hundreds and thousands of other young men and women who never showed up after dropping off the face of the earth.

It felt like grasping at straws, because Oliver had seen firsthand how different Roy was now, reappearing after weeks without a trace. Even on Lian Yu, Slade had remembered who they were, in cutting, painstaking detail, and the situation had deteriorated all the more for it.

With Roy, the only thing left seemed to be blind rage, an all-encompassing fury triggered at the mention of Oliver’s sister, and he’d nearly killed Oliver’s best friend. Tommy had nearly _died_ because of the Mirakuru in Roy’s system.

That was on Oliver too.

Oliver was so absorbed with his thoughts that he didn’t realize the absence of quiet in the Foundry until there was a particularly loud _thud_ , the kind that suggested a heavy object hitting something immovable, and the rattle of a chain that indicated it was probably the sandbag at the training area in the basement. Diggle and Felicity were both frequent users of the boxing equipment, but based on the time of night, he didn’t need to guess who it was.

Felicity had her back to him, earbuds in, leather gloves strapped around her fists as she sank them — rapidly, furiously — into the canvas surface. He could hear the breath hissing between her teeth at each blow, see the perspiration gleaming on her shoulders and back, darkening the roots of her hair.

Oliver set his bow down on top of a steel cabinet, following it carefully with his loaded quiver. Clearly, the both of them hadn’t taken up Diggle’s advice. He was suited up, and she’d decided to practice her hand-to-hand.

Felicity only noticed him after a particularly hard punch that sent the sandbag swinging away made it come swinging back, and she sidestepped to avoid getting knocked off her feet, catching the bag with both arms and inadvertently looking over her shoulder.

Oliver felt the slight uptick in his pulse when they locked eyes, and she smiled — as instinctive as it was warm — happy to see him.

“Hey,” she said, breathing hard. “You’re back.”

Oliver tried not to look too sheepish as he stepped up to the training area, bracing the heavy bag to keep it steady. “Nice punch. You’re keeping your wrists straight.”

For a moment, he wondered if he should have phrased the compliment better, but Felicity flashed him a grin over her raised fists, like she’d gotten it anyway. Judging by how flushed her fingers were — what he could see of them underneath the gloves — she’d been at it for a while. “Work was bugging me,” she said. “No wonder you’re always doing the salmon ladder. If only I could pull-up my troubles away, I’d be looking _— at — a — whole — different — level — of — fitness_.”

“Sorry,” Oliver said instinctively, knowing what he did about her reluctance to be CEO.

“Not a complaint.” Felicity threw two jabs and followed it with a cross, her eyes on her target. Even so, Oliver wondered if he’d imagined the flash of understanding that crossed her face when she saw him. “You forgot I was here, didn’t you?”

“Old habits,” he admitted. “I’m used to being alone after —”

“I don’t think you can call riding around the city on your Ducati a _walk_ ,” she interrupted. “Call me nitpicky, but I think that’s the very definition of _not_ walking.”

Oliver breathed out, feeling the bag shudder beneath his hands. “I can’t do nothing,” he said flatly. “Even if it means riding around the city all night, hoping to run into Roy — I can’t just sit here and _not_ do anything.”

“I know.” It burst from Felicity like a frustrated exhale, and she punctuated it with a hit that made the whole sandbag jump.

They looked at each other from opposite sides of the sandbag, and Oliver saw her expression twist. “Oliver, you have to separate what’s going with Roy from what’s going on with Thea, and with Slade. I know it’s easier said than done, but you are going to run yourself into the ground if you can’t take a moment and —”

“I know, I know. But be honest with me,” Oliver interjected, and Felicity tilted her head to one side, as though to remind him of the obvious — that _honest_ was her default setting. “Is there any _universe_ where what’s happening to Roy isn’t my responsibility?”

Felicity looked at him for a long moment without speaking, and when she finally did, her voice was low and as kind as a caress, like a hand over his heart. “If there is, it’s a universe where you’re not you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Oliver asked.

He hadn’t meant to sound angry, but maybe he had. Maybe because it skirted too close to what he already knew, deep down. A flaw, a vulnerability — something he couldn’t change.

All the same, Felicity stood her ground. “It means that you have a good heart,” she said slowly. “But you have a tendency to blame yourself for the choices that people make on their own. _Guilt_ , Oliver. That’s your Achilles heel. Always has been, and it’s part of the reason I love you, but it’s also why Slade _can_ and _will_ get into your head.”

“That’s not the point. Roy’s _my_ responsibility,” Oliver said. “I brought him into this life because I _knew_ the Mirakuru was going to change him. I made a mistake with Slade, and now it’s too late for me to help him. But that was never supposed to be Roy — he was supposed to be different.”

The chain creaked as Felicity pushed the bag, unintentionally, and Oliver pulled as a matter of reflex, stopping them both from tipping. “You tried your best, Oliver,” she said earnestly. “No one can say you didn’t try. Roy’s just…Roy’s always been angry.”

 _Angry._ Felicity would never have suggested taking out Roy, and Oliver knew it. But he could sense that she was trying to soften the blow, to prepare him for the worst — if it happened, and their uneven luck with Slade meant it was a significant possibility. Still, her words cut a little too close to the warnings he’d heard from Sara earlier that night, reasons why killing Roy instead of trying to save him was the smart thing to do, and Oliver couldn’t hear it from someone else. Not again.

So he pushed away from the sandbag, away from Felicity, facing the back of the Foundry instead. Steam hissed from the pipes overhead, and water slid slowly from his hair to bead on his neck while Oliver tried to think.

Felicity gave him a few seconds before she touched his back, just a reminder that she was still there. “Talk to me,” she said. “Oliver, I’m here.”

He breathed in, slowly, trying not to feel like the walls were closing in all over again. “How do I stop?” he asked. “How do I stop…letting it get to me?”

Felicity’s face fell, but he kept going. “You said that I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t feel this… _guilt_. But what if I wanted it to stop? What if I didn’t want it anymore?”

“Don’t,” she said. “You don’t mean that.”

He shrugged, pretending it didn’t cost him something. “What if that's the price of stopping Slade?”

Felicity seemed to be thinking, and she put a hand squarely on his chest, over his heart. “This part of you feels guilt, and I know it hurts, and I know I give you plenty of hell for letting Slade use that guilt to get inside your head. But cutting yourself off from that part of you — it means cutting yourself off from your humanity. That’s what sets you apart from Slade, and that’s the part of Roy you need to bring back.”

“Sara thinks it’s gone.”

“I don’t believe that,” she said, and the fierceness in her expression made Oliver regret thinking that she’d put Roy down as a lost cause. “I’m not giving up on Roy Harper, but I’m not the person who matters most to him. Behind all that eye-rolling and unnecessary snark, he looks up to the Arrow, and Oliver Queen. So don’t give up on him, because I _swear_ he hasn’t given up on you either.”

In default of an answer (because he really couldn’t think of anything to counter Felicity’s better one), Oliver looked around, at the practice bows and archery targets Roy had used to train, and the scarred walls from when he’d learned to aim.

Where Oliver had taught him. Tried to. Succeeded, to a degree.

Seeing all of it was a reminder — an intentional one — that Roy Harper had survived a lot of things. Being abandoned, living rough, and waging war on the underbelly of Starling City even though no one else seemed to think anything was wrong. He’d survived his city collapsing because of Malcolm Merlyn, and he’d survived the Mirakuru, slim-to-nonexistent chances be damned.

Roy Harper was a fighter, and thinking he was anything less…that would be a betrayal Oliver couldn’t forgive.

So he breathed out, and turned back to Felicity. “You’re right,” he said.

Felicity smiled, igniting a small burst of warmth inside his chest, and she stood on tiptoes to put her arms around him. Oliver turned his face into her neck, his hands on her back, and it was a reminder that came in a rush — that she was warmth, and hope, and _strength_ —

There were traces of cold rain on Felicity’s face when Oliver kissed her, the faint tang of metal from the old steel factory and a nearby storm. It was tentative at first, until she jumped, laughing at the touch of his hands on her hips. “You’re _freezing_ ,” she whispered. “You’re also wet, and I’m all sweaty…”

“I know,” he said, against her mouth. “Couldn’t care less.”

Far from pursuing the point of contention, he felt her hands unzipping his suit, freeing his shoulders, his chest, her fingertips and palms brushing ridges and slopes and scars.

“Gloves,” she muttered, like it was a quiet profanity, and Oliver took her hands, easing the beaten leather from her skin.

Her knuckles were flushed pink, but she looked at them with pride. So did he. “We’ll be okay,” she said, as they both looked down at her hands, resting against his marked chest. “You know that, right?”

Oliver nodded. “I do.”

Felicity shifted her arms to the back of his neck when he lifted her from the ground, and carried her across the Foundry towards the bed. It was darker and colder than her house, but her smile was still the same, against his lips and in the shadow, her hands hadn’t changed, not in the way they moved gently over his scars and old injuries. Her sighs and laughs and exquisitely soft sounds were how he remembered them, her hair still accidentally got between kisses and made them laugh — messy and completely lacking in self-consciousness — and it was more than a distraction. It was a reminder that there was a safe haven for him, for them, somewhere, no matter the darkness, and Felicity showed him without saying a single word.

He loved her for it.

For all her talk of the light inside of him, Felicity carried something much stronger with her, something pure and real that just _was_ , a fact she seemed to be utterly unaware of, and Oliver was happy to close his eyes and let it wash over him.

It was the worst time to be, but he was happy.

* * *

Oliver woke disoriented, even though it was with the vague sense of having slept for hours. Felicity’s head was near his shoulder; she was asleep, her hand loose and relaxed on the pillow beside her face, breathing peacefully in and out. Something wasn’t right, only he didn’t know what.

Then he went to the computers, and realized what was happening.

Oliver bent over her, shaking her shoulder. “Felicity,” he said, laying a hand on her cheek.

She woke almost immediately, blinking at him in confusion. “What’s wrong?” she said hoarsely.

“Slade,” he said. “He’s made a move.”

* * *

Felicity didn’t like it. She was barely dressed, and she didn’t like it. Ungodly hour of the night, when people were home and resting and not expecting the worst, and Oliver had suited up in a worryingly short period of time, before she could even begin to get the team awake and alert.

“You need to wait for backup,” she said.

“I know. I’ll do it there.”

“ _Oliver_.” Because she of all people knew how likely it was that he’d wait around outside the abandoned (so-called abandoned) power plant, doing tricks with his bow until everyone showed up.

As though he knew the protest that was coming, Oliver caught her in a tight hug, his face in her hair, one hand on her back as always. “I’ll be careful,” he said.

Felicity pulled his face down to hers and kissed him, too worried to do anything but make sure he felt it. “You’d better be,” she answered, fiercely.

Oliver nodded, and she reluctantly, inevitably, let him go, watching with her hands over her mouth as he mounted the stairs in his suit, bow at his side. As soon as the door slammed, she turned back to the glowing computer screens.

 _Okay_.

Time to work.

* * *

Oliver descended down into the darkness, his bow held out in front of him. The air was eerily alive, moving past him and towards the high ceiling of the abandoned power plant, whispering, watching.

The structure was in the round, like a silo, and the stairs he took bordered the sheer drop to the bottom of the facility; he could see the outline of the long columns through the gaps in the steel grating beneath his feet.

“No sign of them,” he said quietly.

Felicity sighed. “You went in. God, you’re inside. Oliver, you told me —”

“You said it yourself that once the machine’s turned on, it’s only a small window to stop Slade. How much time do I have left?”

“Twenty minutes,” she said, with palpable reluctance. “Maybe less. The others are headed your way, and I re-emphasize my previous recommendation that you _wait_ for them to help you.”

“Felicity,” he said. “Just stay close, okay? Tell me what I’m looking for.”

“You mean the evil underground lair with vats of toxic waste?” Felicity said, typing in the background. “The machine’s still drawing power from the grid, but I’m reading inspection reports that the earthquake destabilized the foundations of the plant you’re in, and they never repaired them. So if they _had_ to pick a place in there, I’m guessing it’s high.”

Oliver emerged onto a steel bridge connecting the two wings of the circular facility, four walkways suspended over a five, six-floor drop and meeting in the middle, and at the center —

The machine whirred, lights blinking above the panel built into the back of the bio-transfuser, _STAR LABS_ dimly visible on the body of the invention. Wires snaked out from it, their insides running with dark fluid that could only be blood, and Oliver saw that they disappeared through entrances from the other walkways — where the escaped inmates would be — but its source was connected to a chair faced away from him, screened from view by the bio-transfuser.

 _Slade_.

Oliver stepped out, and as soon as he did, there was a faint rattle, like two feet had landed on the steel grating too.

“Am I interrupting?” Isabel said, emerging from the shadows. She looked the same as she’d been when they were partners at Queen Consolidated, although there was something more volatile about her now, and infinitely colder. Like the facade had dropped at last.

There was a gun at her side, but Isabel didn’t seem to notice — or care that he had an arrow pointed at her chest. “I’ve never seen you as the Arrow before,” she said, almost conversationally. Her eyes swept him from head to toe. “Leather and a hood. Not very bulletproof. Then again, you were never the smartest one in the room, were you?”

Oliver didn’t answer, and she tapped the side of her head, beneath her ear. “She’s listening, isn’t she?” she said. “Felicity.”

“Isabel,” Oliver said. “You don’t have to protect Slade. He’s just using you. Just like he’s used everyone else. He promised you revenge on my family? He didn’t deliver. You have no reason to follow him, so step aside. I don’t want to do this.”

“Please, let _me_ ,” Felicity muttered.

“Slade did promise me revenge on your family,” Isabel said. “And the only reason I didn’t get it was because of Felicity Smoak.”

Oliver felt his gaze sharpen, and Isabel made a dismissive sound under her breath when she saw it. “Always so predictable,” she said, and her arm moved.

His arrow sparked off the barrel of her gun and sent it flying, and Oliver launched himself at Isabel, who rolled, coming up crouched in front of the machine.

“You know, your father was a fool,” she said, as Oliver deflected her slashes and kicks. “Choosing your family over freedom? That was one of them. Loving someone else’s daughter? That’s another. Sacrificing himself to save _you_? Well, you tell me.”

Oliver caught her last punch and yanked, intending to put her in a lock hold, but Isabel twisted out of it — her limbs a blur — and landed with the ease of a gymnast.

“What do you mean?” he demanded. “My father knew about my sister?”

Isabel threw her hair back from her face. “Of course he knew,” she said disdainfully. “Robert was a fool, not an idiot. Of course he knew that Thea was Malcolm’s. But he loved her anyway, and look what that got him — buried on an island in the middle of nowhere.”

She lunged for him again and Oliver blocked her, grabbing the back of her jacket and throwing her into the railing, where she landed with a crash and was still.

“Oliver? Are you okay?” Felicity asked.

“Yeah.” The floor might as well have been spinning, unsteady beneath his feet, but Oliver didn’t have the time to think about what he’d just heard, and what it meant. He turned and strode rapidly back to the machine, nocking a fresh arrow as he did, only —

It wasn’t.

He must have made some kind of sound, because Felicity sounded worried, more worried than before.

“What’s wrong?”

Oliver pushed back his hood. “It’s not Slade,” he said, touching one blanched arm as though he expected it to be as cold and lifeless as it looked. “It’s Roy.”

“Oh my god.”

Roy had been shot at the mansion, that he remembered for sure, but there was no sign of any injury now, no sign at all that there’d been so much as a shallow cut. The obvious fact that he’d healed — that he was capable of healing — should have been reassuring, if Roy didn’t paradoxically look like he was on the verge of death. Oliver gave him a shake, only half-expecting some kind of response. Something ugly and acidic was twisting inside his chest, and he wrenched his gaze away from Roy’s deathly pale face with difficulty, forcing himself to focus on the matter at hand.

How to stop the machine. Wires and tubes snaked from Roy’s arms; the machine carrying the blood out of real veins and into artificial ones, processed inside the machine and fed to the waiting inmates, spreading the same disease, the same madness.

Oliver pulled an arrow free of his quiver, gripping the shaft so tight that he might have snapped it. “I need to destroy this thing.”

“ _Don’t_ ,” Felicity said, and he could hear her typing at full speed. “The bio-transfuser’s mid-cycle. You could end up killing Roy if you don’t shut it down properly. A forced malfunction and a power failure trigger two _very_ different failsafe mechanisms — we have to make sure it’s the one we want.”

“Which is?” Oliver stepped behind the machine, staring at the panel and its scrolling numbers and symbols he didn’t understand. He could feel the frustration eating at him, the impatience, from knowing that Roy — his responsibility — was dangerously close to death, that Slade had put him there, and they were running low, very low on time.

“You have a network uplink with you, right?” Felicity said. “Patch me into the machine, and I’ll see what I can do to disrupt it.”

Oliver almost corrected her, until he found the small plastic disc in his belt. He’d gotten so used to carrying one as a matter of habit that it slipped his mind.

“Okay.” A tiny blue light blinked to life when Oliver activated it, and he was inches from attaching the base to the console when he caught a gleam of something. It was a vial in a row of others, some empty, some half-full, the contents all a poisonous green.

He reached out and took the last one in the row, storing it carefully in his belt too. But before he could reach out to attach the uplink, there was movement in his peripheral vision, and Oliver threw himself aside.

Not a second sooner, because a piece of jagged scrap metal glanced off the railing with a deafening clang, tearing it in half, and tumbled down the sharp drop, exactly where he’d been just seconds before.

“Oliver? Oliver!”

“I’m fine,” he said, but his hand was empty. The uplink had spun dangerously close to the edge, and Oliver turned to see that Slade was standing behind him, looking contemptuously at ease in a suit and tie, despite having thrown a piece of solid steel like it weighed absolutely nothing.

“Hello, kid,” he said.

* * *

Slade broke the silence first.

“I thought you’d be thanking me,” he said. “The last time you saw Mr Harper, he was trying to kill you and your childhood friend in your own home. You’ve already lost Laurel Lance — do you think Tommy Merlyn merits the risk too?”

Something about the sentence felt _off_ to Oliver for some reason, only he was too distracted with thinking through the possibilities of Slade’s attack, his strategy, to hone on precisely why. “Slade,” he said. “Roy’s just a kid.”

“Precisely,” Slade said, stooping briefly to check Isabel’s pulse. She was crumpled where she’d fallen, still unconscious, and he let her arm drop — seemingly satisfied that she was still alive — before taking a step towards Oliver. Just one. His sword was in his hand, sheathed in black, and he made no move to draw it.

“He came to the mansion,” Slade said. “Lost, seeking guidance, even after you turned your back on him — you let the poison eat away at his mind, until all he had left when we found him was blind rage. He was easy to overpower, easier to take, and I must thank you for that.”

“Oliver, he’s trying to stall,” Felicity said. “The cycle’s almost done. If we’re going to stop this and save Roy, patch me into the machine — _now_.”

Oliver had his bow in one hand, but he stayed crouched, pinpointing the exact place he would need to dive, and what he’d need to do in order to get there.

“Slade, let Roy go. Keep him out of this. This fight, it’s you and me. It’s between us, and if you want to punish me —”

“It’s too late to beg,” Slade said, in a steel-edged whisper. “You should have protected him better, just like you should have protected Shado, and your sister, and everyone you love.”

Oliver shook his head at the name _Shado_. “It was five years ago,” he said, low and angry, in spite of how he could _not_ afford to lose his temper. “Five years. Just let the island stay in the past — it’s not worth all this destruction you’ll cause with the Mirakuru soldiers. Innocent people will _die_. Is that what Shado would have wanted?”

“Don’t you use that name!” Slade snarled. “You have no right.”

“I knew her too,” Oliver persisted. “I remember what she was, and she would never have kidnapped a nineteen-year-old girl, she never would have drained the blood out of kid like Roy Harper, and she wouldn’t be trying to make an army of monsters. Let’s be honest, Slade. We both know why you’re doing this, and it’s not to honor Shado’s memory, or to avenge her. You’re doing this to satisfy a vendetta, nothing more.”

Slade laughed, a dangerous sound, taut, and unforgiving. “ _Let go_ , he tells me,” he said. “The island may have been five years ago, but I’m not the one who wears her hood every night and fights crime with a bow and arrow, I’m not the one using blood to atone for my guilt, my sins. So when you abandon that bow, and the hood you have no right to wear — maybe I’ll believe you when you say the island’s in the past. Because it isn’t, not for you.”

Slade didn’t have a weapon, but his voice, his words, they were dangerous enough on their own. He bent slightly, a gleam in his eye. “The island’s got a hold on both of us, kid.”

Oliver moved. He shot an arrow that exploded into wires, zipping tight around Slade’s wrist and tethering him to the railing, and he followed it with another arrowhead that burst into a cloud of smoke, engulfing the air around them.

Then he dived for the uplink.

His fingers closed around the hard plastic and he raced for the bio-transfuser, attaching the disc to the whirring machine with a _click_.

“Felicity,” he said. “You’re in.”

He never heard her answer, because there was a taut _snap_ of steel wires, and Slade forced Oliver to throw himself clear. His fists left dents in the grating where they landed, and Oliver backed away, firing arrow after arrow. Slade’s sword flashed upward like quicksilver; he knocked the first two out of the air and caught the third, his stare burning with hate as he snapped the shaft cleanly in two. Oliver seized a moment to look straight up, searching the ceiling for cracks in the cement. He wasn't sure if it was his imagination, but the ground felt like it was shot with tremors, like their fight was starting to destabilize the already weakened foundations of the abandoned plant. Either way, it only emphasized what Oliver already knew, which was the fact that they were short on time. 

But first, he had to deal with Slade.

“If you could feel the power coursing in my veins,” he said hoarsely, casting the pieces of the broken arrow out into the empty space. “You would be afraid. Because no arrow can stop me, and soon — there will be others standing by my side. Others that will ensure your friends, and your family lie dead at your feet, but Felicity…”

There was a strange buzzing sensation beneath Oliver’s skin, something live and dangerous, triggered by hearing Felicity’s name from Slade. They both knew it, and Slade leaned a little closer to finish his threat.

“… _I’ll snap her neck myself_ ,” he whispered, and Oliver didn’t realize he was moving until he was, throwing himself at Slade with a roar.

The Mirakuru was responsible for making Slade as good as invincible, and like the fight with Cyrus Gold and Roy, attacking someone with the serum was like fighting at half the speed, against someone with the density of solid concrete and the lack of empathy that was as good as cruelty.

Slade’s sword flashed upward and Oliver swung his bow to meet it, blocking a slash that should have gutted him from throat to navel, and their weapons crashed together with a shower of sparks and a steady, grating pressure that made the muscles in his arms sting in protest.

Slade only smiled. “Don’t forget that I taught you how to fight, kid,” he said, and wrenched their weapons aside with a single tearing motion that sent his bow flying out of sight, using the moment when Oliver left himself open to slam him in the chest.

The breath seized in his throat and he tasted rust on his tongue, but Oliver swung his arm. Slade didn’t even dodge his punches; they caught him in the jaw, more like annoyances than anything that could cause physical pain. Oliver was about to hit him again, when Slade caught his fist and jerked, forcing him to his knees. For a second, Slade’s sword point dug into his chest, and Oliver thought that he was going to run him through.

Only he didn’t.

Everything elbow to shoulder was on fire, and it got worse when Slade brought his foot down somewhere behind Oliver’s right leg, and there was a sharp _crunch_ in his knee — followed by an indescribable pain that wiped his mind blank.

Oliver’s breath left his throat in an explosive gasp, and he was scrabbling to put his weight on a leg that didn’t seem to be capable of bearing anything, anything apart from communicating an incredible, throbbing agony. He was still too dazed from it to resist when Slade grabbed him by the front of his suit, dragging him roughly along the floor — careless, dismissive, like he was something inanimate — towards what, he wasn’t sure.

His comm link had been lost somewhere, and his mask was askew, sliding down past his face, near his throat. His skin was slick with perspiration, and Oliver felt the nausea rise when Slade lifted him clear off the ground, clear of the torn railings, like he was about to throw Oliver off the side.

Then —

“Hey!” said a voice.

 _No,_ Oliver thought, desperately. _Run._

_You can’t stop Slade._

The thoughts only multiplied, taking on more than silent panic, but desperation, because Slade seemed to recognize the person who’d spoken. “Why, Mr Merlyn,” Slade said. “How nice of you to join us at last.”

Oliver forced himself to focus, even though his vision was blurred, and dulling fast. Tommy was there, and for some strange reason, the bow in his hands was Oliver’s, and he’d nocked an arrow in it, one pointed right at Slade’s eye. “Put him down,” he said.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun dun.  
> And I'll be honest, I have no idea what happened to Oliver's knee on the show. Was the injury ever specifically explained? So I guessed.


	35. Hit Where it Hurts (Seeing Red, Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 5x20. JUST. I CAN'T. EVEN. GAHHHHHH.  
> (*Happy flailing*)

While the medical research on the crazy super-soldier serum _had_ to be thin on the ground, Tommy was more or less sure that — if anything — the one thing the serum _didn’t_ do was adversely affect hearing. Willingness to see reason and listen to sense, sure. But not hearing plain English. The opposite, actually.

“Put him down,” he said, sounding a lot braver than he _really_ should have been.

Because Slade had his best friend and was probably going to hurt him even worse than he already had, but now was _not_ the time to think about calling a time-out until he found someone more qualified to take on a trained mercenary-assassin-turned-invincible.

Also on the list of things _not_ to think about — that time he’d faced his unarmed dad with a steel pipe and wound up getting his ass kicked. Because unhelpful.

Oliver’s stare was glassy, and Tommy wasn’t even sure if he was fully conscious, given the inhuman amount of pain he had to be in. Probably not, given how Oliver’s normal reaction to seeing Tommy using his bow without permission should have involved a death sentence.

Desperate times. Even more desperate measures.

“Mr Merlyn,” Slade said, making no move to release his grip on the front of Oliver’s suit. “How nice of you to join us at last.”

Tommy decided that the circumstances merited a slightly stronger-worded rephrase. “I said put him down, asshole,” he said.

Slade cocked his head. The railings on the steel walkway weren’t in particularly great shape, but the one Slade had chosen to drag Oliver off to were even worse, warped and split down the middle like something had ripped the pieces in half.

With barely a hitch in his breathing, Slade held Oliver up, over the edge, over a few hundred feet of nothing. “I’d think very carefully about my next words,” he said. “Even Oliver won’t be able to survive the fall.”

Okay. Bad move.

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of Tommy’s face, and he resisted the urge to ask Felicity how hacking the bio-transfuser was going, or how close backup was. Because that would be giving away their not-really plan in a terrible situation, and because he needed to think fast to stall Slade.

“He’s survived worse,” Tommy said, utilizing his ironic talent for faked bravado. “He’ll survive you. There’s going to be six feet of dirt on top of your crappy IKEA casket by the time we’re done with your sorry ass.”

Maybe not the _best_ line he could have gone for, but it was the time wasted that meant something. At the very least, Slade seemed curious, even if fell _way_ short of looking threatened. It was a look he’d seen before, the night Tommy had thrown a knife to get him the hell away from Felicity, as though he was something with only the vague potential to be interesting.

Like Tommy needed the reminder. Oliver was the one with the hero skills. Oliver was the one with the ability to make plausible threats and take super villains head-on. Tommy wasn’t the first pick of the draft, in any scenario, behind Sara, Diggle, and most definitely Felicity.

Tommy wasn’t the hero his best friend was, yet there he stood, trying to be one.

Slade had to know it.

“I’m very much an admirer of your father’s work,” Slade said. “It’s such a shame he’s run into trouble with the League of Assassins. You know, maybe if you offered your allegiance to Ra’s al Ghul, he’d accept it as repayment for your father’s misdeeds. Sins of the father, atoned for by the son.”

_Good. God_. If Tommy’s conversational topics while suited up were going to inevitably relate back to his dad and his super not-happy murder club, he was going to start looking into masks and secret identities pretty soon.

“Yeah, sounds great,” he said sarcastically. “Shredding my soul in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of masked killers? Sounds like a _real_ vacation.”

Maybe it was a super villain thing, snark bouncing straight off them like it didn’t matter. “I stood where you are once,” Slade said, like he was doing Tommy a favor with his advice (gross). “On the island, Oliver and I cherished the same woman. Her name was Shado, and she chose him, while I stood aside. Because I thought that he’d care for her, make her happy. But he killed her.”

A pause, the kind that came with the twisting of a blade, buried hilt-deep in someone’s back.

“Doesn’t that sound familiar?”

Oliver groaned, quietly. He was coming around, or Tommy hoped he was. He also hoped that Oliver’s first reaction to realizing that he was being dangled over a vertical fall too scary for contemplation was _not_ to start struggling.

Tommy almost forgot that Slade asked him a question, and only belatedly fumbled for his response. “Sounds like you should mind your own goddamn business,” he answered. “I don’t comment on your nonexistent love life.”

Slade ignored him. “Doesn’t it eat away at you, knowing that Oliver cost you a life with Laurel Lance?” he asked. “Or is it a relief, deep down, because you know she died before she could choose _him_?”

Oliver was definitely awake now, and his stare slid past Tommy, a hazy, unfocused blue. The same color they’d always been, through the twenty-something years they’d known each other, through good and bad, worlds overturned and put back again. That had to count for something. _Come on, Ollie. Stay with me_. “You’re asking why I trust him?” Tommy asked, silently willing Oliver to look back at him.

Their eyes locked, and Tommy moved his head in a minuscule nod, meant only for Oliver to see. “Because I always have,” he said, simply.

Slade made a derisive sound in response. “Then you’re a fool, Mr Merlyn.”

Tommy was about to agree when the persistent whir of the bio-transfuser ground suddenly — and noisily — to a halt, which Tommy took as an extremely good omen. “I’d hold on, if I were you,” he said.

Slade didn’t seem to understand. “I thought you wanted me to put him down.”

“Not you, dickhead,” Tommy answered, and let go of the bowstring.

Slade caught the resulting arrow with his free hand, but just as his mouth opened to make another super-villain comeback, the arrowhead exploded and blew him clear. He dropped Oliver — whose last-second grab onto the warped railing nearly stopped Tommy’s heartbeat altogether —and stumbled back towards the edge, blinded by the white flash of the explosive arrow. But before he could latch onto something for balance, Tommy threw a right hook into Slade’s salt-and-pepper jaw, slammed Oliver’s bow into his chest like a baseball bat, and forced him over the side.

But there wasn’t time to watch Slade plummet the rest of the immensely satisfying distance, because Tommy had to go for Oliver, dropping the bow in favor of hauling at his not-insignificant muscle mass to stop him from joining Slade in the basement. “So _that’s_ why you don’t let me use the explosive arrows,” he grunted.

“Tommy,” Oliver forced out, his face flushed from the strain of holding on. “What are y—”

Tommy had Oliver by the arm, so tight that he was probably cutting off blood flow, but he didn’t care. “Felicity, I have him,” he said, into the comms. Then, just in case his best friend got any funny ideas: “I’ve got you, you stupid bastard, and I _swear_ I’m gonna kill you if you fall.”

“Did you —” Oliver still seemed to be having trouble focusing, which Tommy hoped with every fiber of his being did not mean he was about to black out again. “Did you just —?”

“Improvise?” Tommy suggested helpfully, starting to pull him up by the arms. “What gave you that idea? Come on, grab onto me. Put your back into it.”

Oliver gave another almighty groan, pushing with his arms as much as Tommy pulled, and he finally slid the rest of the way, over the rails and onto the floor. Tommy tried to catch him as best as he could, but it was either the weight or the reflexes that meant he slipped, and Oliver gasped — a sharp, terrifying sound that encompassed a whole word of pain — as his right foot buckled upon contact with the ground.

“Oliver —” Tommy began.

“My knee,” he grunted, as sweat poured down his neck. “It’s just my knee.”

“ _Just?_ ”

“Oliver? Oliver!” Felicity sounded frantic. “Are you okay?”

Oliver seemed to have misplaced his comm link, so Tommy answered for him. “Bad shape, but he’s alive,” he said, tightening his grip around Oliver’s shoulders. “We’ll get him home to you ASAP.”

“Tell her I’m fine,” Oliver said, despite the fact that he was swaying dangerously on his one working leg, gulping down breaths like each of them were enough to make him sick.

“Yeah, you look _great_ ,” Tommy answered, as though _he_ wasn’t about to be sick just looking at him. “I can see how all those shirtless pull-ups really helped. A-plus, Ollie. Your knee looks like a watermelon someone went to town on with a baseball bat.”

Oliver grimaced, wheezing a sound between his teeth as Tommy struggled to take more weight off his leg. “Keep talking about my knee,” he said, which was — to be fair — a classic response to being annoyed by Tommy Merlyn. “And I’m gonna —”

“—kill me?” Tommy said, while they hobbled down the walkway like contestants in some bizarro three-legged race. “Don't see that happening anytime soon."

“Maybe I can help with that,” said a sarcastic voice.

Tommy came to a dead stop, realizing that they had an obstacle. An extremely small, yet completely inconvenient obstacle — in the form of Isabel Rochev. Armed, and looking like she was ready to kill something.

Maybe it was the fatigue from already having faced a big bad, but Tommy’s extremely eloquent response was: “Oh _come on_ ,” he said. “Haven’t you heard of a timeout?”

He’d completely forgotten that Isabel was even in the picture, which made it even more of a surprise to see she had Slade’s sword, _Kill Bill_ style, level with his very transectable spine. As far as he recalled, no one had ever mentioned she knew how to use a sword — though she probably would have made an exception for Moira or Felicity, given the chance. All that aside, Oliver’s bow was near his feet and he was preoccupied with trying not to let its owner black out and fall flat on his face. If he was betting on his total lack of a weapon against Isabel’s confidence in her death threat, he unfortunately had to admit that one was more likely than the other.

Judging by the slippery cat smile on Isabel’s face, she knew it too. Which made Tommy want to do something to wipe it off.

“Tommy,” Felicity whispered over the comms. “Stall her. Trust me.”

He could hear her doing some frantic typing in the background, which made him think that she had a plan. Good, because his mind was completely blank, and _Stall_ was his middle name.

“You haven’t been by Queen Consolidated lately, have you?” he said, trying not to sound out of breath from supporting Oliver’s weight. “I mean, duh, they revoked your security clearance after you tried and failed at your whole _evil plan_ thing, but you should see what Felicity’s done with your old office. I think they’re letting her remodel — what with her staying on _permanently_ as CEO —”

“I meant _buy some time_ , not get yourself killed,” Felicity hissed, but Tommy ignored her.

“Tommy,” Oliver mumbled, who, as out of it as he was, still realized it was a bad idea to antagonize the psychopath who was the difference between them and death. Tommy ignored him too.

“I hate to break it to you,” he said, as Isabel’s face grew steadily darker, “but I just sent your boss on the express elevator to the basement. And when I say elevator —”

Tommy whistled, pointing with his chin over the railing, and for the briefest of moments, he wondered if he’d overdone it, because Isabel looked so murderous that he expected to become a human shish kabob at any second.

Or not.

There was a stir of movement somewhere overhead, and Tommy barely had time to brace before a shrill, piercing shriek filled the vast circular space, one that bore a distinct resemblance to Sara’s Canary Cry — though not quite.

Isabel still had the sword, and as she whirled, looking for her target, a familiar figure zip-lined down from above and swung a knockout punch that sent her skidding across the ground, out cold, and the sword skittering into the empty air beneath the walkway, disappearing into the dark just like its owner.

Diggle was between them and the bio-transfuser, holding his phone in one hand like it was red hot. “Felicity,” he said, simultaneously an explanation for how his phone had doubled as a sonic emitter, and a way of saying _all clear_. “Everyone all right?”

Tommy was so relieved that he only managed to nod. That, and adjust Oliver’s arm across the back of his neck. Oliver was looking over the side of the railing, into the deep shadow. “I can’t see him,” he said.

Delirious pain did funny things to people. Plus, Tommy was also pretty sure that he'd felt the ground shake again, and he didn't want to be around when the concrete supports decided they were due for retirement. He stooped slightly and snagged Oliver’s bow off the ground. “I think that’s as good a reason as any to clear out,” he said, trying not to gorilla-grunt from Oliver’s weight. “Isabel won’t stay down for long. Digg, can you get Roy?”

“On it.” Diggle unsnapped the restraints, shot through some others, and slung a still-unconscious and deathly pale Roy Harper over his back. “Let’s go.”

* * *

Oliver didn’t remember passing out, but he must have, for everything to come in jagged bursts of sound and light. One second it was Tommy, pointing an arrow at Slade. In another second, it was Diggle’s deep voice, giving directions in a hurry while Oliver lurched forward as if he was about to fall. There was a shout of pain; it might have been his. Felicity was there, her face too bright to look at, and she was holding his hood to her chest.

A second later he was flat on something that rattled, wearing clothes that smelled of gasoline and asphalt. Lights swooshed rapidly overhead, voices jabbing, crisscrossing above him as questions were fired and returned with answers.

“Mr Queen, try to keep your eyes open, okay?” A flashlight momentarily blinded him, and he turned his face away. “What happened to him?”

“It’s his knee,” came the answer. It sounded like Diggle. “Took a spill on his bike.”

“Roy,” Oliver was having trouble focusing long enough to speak. Where was Roy Harper? “Is he —?”

Hands pushed him down when he tried to sit up. “ _Oliver._ ” Felicity’s face came into view now, dipping in and out of clarity.

“ _Roy_ ,” Oliver insisted.

Her fingers were squeezing his, squeezing tight. “Roy’s alive. Trust me. Just—”

Before Oliver hear the rest, something cool trickled into his arm and he slipped quietly away.

* * *

Felicity hated moments like this. To be clear, her role in the Foundry — being free of masks and suits and sharp, pointy objects — meant that there generally was a lot of waiting, and listening, and watching from a monitor. She just couldn’t decide if it felt worse, now that she and Oliver were _together_ -together, or whether her imagination would have run wild anyway, with all the things that Slade might have done to crush him, to destroy his will to fight.

They all knew Slade could medal in the Olympics at inflicting the kind of pain that went beyond what she could pick up with a CT scan or a blood test, and with Oliver in the hospital, not to mention unconscious, there was no way of knowing until they were all alone.

The Foundry was dark, more shadowy than ever, as though it reflected the state of things. They were back — briefly — from the hospital because the doctor was still in the middle of running tests, and Oliver was strictly off-limits until those were finished, and because of their own patient they’d set up in makeshift recovery.

“So,” Tommy said, breaking the silence. “Not one of our best efforts.”

Diggle came back from checking on Roy, set up in his own recovery bed just a row of worktables away with a saline drip and a hefty bag of O-negative. He had one of Oliver’s spare hoodies, which he nudged at Felicity’s side. “Might as well settle in for a long night,” he said.

Felicity shook her head at the sweatshirt. She _was_ a little cold — hard not to be in a basement that hissed steam during all four seasons — but she didn’t like the idea of being all warm and cozied up while Oliver was lying somewhere with injuries exposed, the bruises (new and old) around his sides, among which was unmistakably a fist mark, squarely in his abdomen.

The best part was, she couldn’t be sure if Slade was the one who’d left it, or Roy.

Felicity had Oliver’s hood, and she’d been hugging it to her chest since they’d had to remove it, so that Diggle could do a preliminary check for open wounds. She was pretty sure she looked like a moron, holding onto someone else’s suit like it was a security blanket, without much of an explanation either way. Except —

Oliver’s hood. Oliver’s identity. Oliver, as whole and unbroken as he could be.

It was too late to safeguard it now, but maybe a part of her was still trying.

Tommy — his knuckles purple from punching Slade in the face — silently held out a sweating bottle of beer to Diggle, which he accepted, choosing to stand at Felicity’s right.They were on either side of her, Tommy and Diggle, Roy and Oliver both dead to the world or out of reach, and Sara…

“Where’s Sara?” Felicity’s voice sounded like it had been gone over with sandpaper, and the sides of her throat came unstuck like her uncharacteristic silence had caused them to fuse shut, anticipating non-use.

“She didn’t pick up any of our calls,” Diggle said. “Sounds like whatever she was doing out there — she didn’t want us stopping her.”

Tommy took a drag from his beer, then returned the sweating bottle to his swelling hand as a temporary ice pack. “She was looking for Roy,” he said, with certainty. “She was going to find him, and…”

He let the rest of the sentence hang, either too reluctant to voice a terrible suspicion, or because they all knew it, without having to be told.

Diggle didn’t seem like he disagreed with the general train of thought. “Then it’s a good thing that we found him first,” he said, and nodded at Felicity. “And that you figured out how to pull off a distraction like the Canary Cry 2.0.”

Felicity shook her head again, shrugging off the praise. Not because a part of her wished she hadn’t taken a closer look at Sara’s sonic device during the obligatory repair session, but because she wished she’d never had to use it in the first place. They were a team, a team that bickered and had the more-than-occasional issues, but this was different…somehow. This time, Sara had gone AWOL, like Oliver had gone AWOL the time before that. There were fractures, fault lines in the ground they’d all worked hard for, _fought_ for, and she — she knew who’d put them there.

Slade. Always, Slade.

“How mad do you think Oliver’s gonna be because we checked him into a hospital instead of taking him back to the Foundry?” she asked, thinking aloud.

Tommy winced. “Let’s just say I’m definitely making sure you’re in the room with me when he expresses his thoughts on the subject,” he said.

“We didn’t have a choice,” Diggle said. “None of us are doctors. We have an X-ray machine in the basement, but I’d rather not end up guessing at the kind of damage Slade did to his leg — and whatever we have to do to fix it.”

Felicity swallowed, her throat dry. None of them were mentioning the possibility — the likelihood — that it wasn’t something _to_ fix. Rather, something to leave alone until it healed. In the normal, human way.

The only problem being, she wasn’t sure Oliver had the normal, human time to do it.

“So I pushed Slade off the edge — literally,” Tommy said, counting on his fingers. “We got Roy back — but he’s out like a light. Isabel’s not dead — just probably sporting a black eye and a few extra names on her revenge list. How many points is that for us?”

Felicity put a hand on Diggle’s arm, leaning her cheek on his warm shoulder. “This probably makes me a terrible person, but I wish — I wish Isabel had fallen too,” she said.

“Well, reserve a bunk for me in hell, because I’d rather she was six feet underground,” Tommy said flatly. “She would have run me and Oliver through with Slade’s murder-katana if Digg hadn’t punched her lights out.”

Felicity’s feelings towards a very homicidal Isabel were admittedly not in the realm of sympathetic, but that wasn’t her concern. “You saved Oliver’s life. The both of you.”

Diggle’s hand covered her own. “My friends needed me,” he said. “Simple as that.”

Tommy tapped his beer solemnly against Diggle’s. “I owe you one, man.”

Felicity looked from the hood in her lap to Oliver’s bow, lying on the table beside the rest of his gear. “Sounds like Oliver owes you one too,” she said quietly, leaning her shoulder against Tommy’s. “I think you might have had what they call a _hero moment_.”

Tommy shook his head. “Me? Nah,” he said. “I’m just a bartender.”

But he smiled. It wasn’t the trademark Merlyn grin that went hand in hand with the usual charm — it was a glimmer of something small, and _bright_. A smile of genuine, _I-can’t-believe-we-did-it_ relief because Oliver Queen had once again managed to not die, and maybe, just maybe, a little bit of pride — because this time, he’d done the rescuing.

Baby steps. Tommy was used to being the afterthought when it came to comparisons between him and Oliver, which wasn’t fair, for all kinds of reasons, reasons she barely knew the half of because she was late to the friendship game with Tommy. But she’d seen enough to know there was more underneath the inappropriate jokes and the fast-talking. Among other things, there were insecurities, plenty of them. They were old, stubborn, coming from having a father like Malcolm Merlyn and thinking he’d always be the second choice next to his best friend. Felicity was someone with encyclopedia-level knowledge when it came to self-doubt, and she could pick them out as the kind with nagging, snide-sounding inner voices that got a kick out of reminding him why he wasn’t good enough.

Tonight was just another example — maybe a more obvious one — of why they were wrong. Tommy Merlyn had a good heart, one that came with an uncommon instinct for kindness, at stubbornly seeing the best in most bad situations, who was driven to _be_ better because of something more than a sense of justice, or right and wrong, but because of how much he loved his friends and family.

That sounded pretty heroic to Felicity.

Tommy looked surprised when she hugged him, only wincing because he’d patted her back with his sore hand. “Are you hugging me because Digg has too much muscle definition and you want squashy?” he asked.

“Not that,” Felicity answered. “Thank you for saving Oliver.”

They — her and Diggle — were both watching Tommy now, who, somewhat against expectations, wasn’t glorying in a moment that suggested ample opportunities for an _I Told You So_ , or at least some kind of humor. Instead, he just looked thoughtful.

“Maybe this makes me the stubbornest ass in the world, but I’m not ready to let go of him, you know?” he said. “Must be the cheekbones.”

Diggle chuckled, and Felicity smiled too. “Yeah,” she agreed. “Must be.”

The latter checked her watch. “I should probably be getting back to the hospital,” she said. “Someone should stay here with Roy for a bit — just in case. Do you mind?”

“I’ll stay,” Diggle volunteered. “I have a feeling they’ll need Tommy once the rest of the Queen family shows up.”

Tommy grimaced, stretching his arms until his bones popped. “ _God_.”

“Thanks for the beer, man,” Diggle said, which gave him a bright idea.

“We can’t give Oliver anything boozy because of the morphine, right?” Tommy said, with an air of someone wishing for the impossible. “I mean opiates and alcohol —”

Felicity pulled him by the back of the jacket towards the stairs. “Come on, Tommy,” she said. “You’re a hero now. Hero duty calls.”

* * *

Oliver was between sleep and numbness, far from consciousness, but not far enough to escape from the dreams. It was like they’d been lying in wait for him, waiting to claim him as soon as he closed his eyes. There were almost too many to remember — _almost_. Because Oliver remembered the one that seemed to go on forever.

He found himself suddenly on his feet, in an unfamiliar place.

_“He trusted you.”_

There were voices behind him, lurking in the shadowy arches and the slowly crumbling space. A fine rain of dust fell past Oliver at another one of the tremors, and he felt his neck move, slow, dreamlike, as though the nerves and muscles were operating on a delay. He looked straight ahead, and recognized something — a machine.

It was important. It was — it had been — crucial.

Oliver felt himself step towards it, but his movements felt hypnotically slow, as though there was some force, something dark and manipulating, that wanted to keep him there. Eventually, Oliver reached the living machine, and the moment in which he stepped around it seemed like a handful of seconds that dragged on into an eternity.

It was as though he’d been there before, but when Oliver found Roy, he wasn’t surprised. Silent, pale as death and his eyes closed, lost to something deeper than sleep.

The ground shivered beneath his feet, another warning that wherever he was — wherever they were — it was falling apart, and fast, but Oliver felt for Roy’s pulse instead, only to find nothing. Too late.

He was too late.

_“You should have protected him.”_

Oliver knew that whisper, but he didn’t turn. He stared down at Roy’s face, barely alive now.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Pain flared in his leg, and Oliver was on his knees when the darkness fell, extinguishing the dream.

He woke with his breath in his throat, lurching slightly on an unfamiliar bed, set in an unfamiliar room. His veins felt like they were pumped full of something dense and heavy like lead, weighing down his limbs, his torso, making his movements small and ineffectual. There was beeping close to his ear, tubes in his arm. He’d expected the Foundry, and now his gaze flicked past the plain walls, as though it would magically reappear, that he’d wake from whatever nightmare it was now —

“Ollie?” His sister’s voice made him start, and suddenly her face came into view. She looked blanched, her eyebrows crinkled together from worry. “Ollie, you’re okay. It’s us — you’re okay.”

“Speedy?” he said, confused. “What are you —?”

The thoughts were spinning inside his head, nauseatingly fast but dizzyingly clear. His suit — his bow — he’d been dressed as the Arrow when he blacked out — but why hadn’t they taken him straight to the Foundry? They could have patched him up there, it was hardly the first time — unless they’d been caught, then —

Another hand stopped him from wrenching out the IV, and Oliver saw Tommy come up behind Thea, his voice calming and slow. “You’re in Starling General,” he said. “Digg got you here after the accident — on your bike. That drunk jackass in the Chevy came out of nowhere, remember?”

_Accident._ There hadn't been an accident, abundantly clear from the way Tommy enunciated the word _remember_ like he’d meant something else entirely.

“ _Hospital_?” Oliver answered, because it should have been just as clear that the hospital was — and always would be — the last choice when it came to him being injured.

Tommy glared back. “We weren’t sure if you needed surgery. Thank god — _you don’t_.”

Undeterred, Oliver turned his head on the pillow, searching the rest of the room like it could give him the answers he wanted. Felicity, Diggle. _Felicity_. He needed to see her, for a multitude of reasons, to do with the fact that he’d scraped another close brush with death, but mostly to do with the sense and reason and _trust_ he associated with her, without question. If she explained why they hadn’t taken him to the Foundry and chosen a hospital instead — he’d believe it, even though every instinct in his body couldn’t believe she’d agreed to it. Hospitals meant questions, and questions meant time wasted, and they couldn’t —

_Slade_.

Seeing his distraction, Thea touched his face again, gently, calling his attention back to her. “Hey,” she said, in a voice softer than he’d heard in weeks. “I’m so glad you’re okay. When I got the call from the doctor, I just —”

She looked like she was about to cry. Oliver felt a familiar stab of guilt, and struggled to sit up, something he managed — more or less. Tommy had to help him, gingerly, like he was made of glass. “Hey,” Oliver said, just as quietly. “I’m fine. I — I need to be more careful on my bike, that’s all.”

Thea gave a strangled laugh and hit his chest. The movement set off a small pulse of nausea, but a second later she was hugging him, all while Tommy looked completely apologetic behind her back. “Why don't I give you guys a minute,” he said, glancing at the glass pane in the door. “Mr Diggle’s been talking to the police — maybe they managed to get a license plate off the traffic cams or something.”

Thea tried to smooth down Oliver’s hair, stiff with something that might have been blood. “Send him my way, _please_ ,” she muttered.

_Sorry_ , Tommy mouthed, and the door clicked shut behind him, leaving brother and sister alone.

Oliver could tell he was on painkillers from the fuzziness on his tongue, and he could feel the bruises, patches of taut, raised skin where Slade’s punches had landed. Thinking about the fight with Slade set off a pulse in his knee, dulled, but still vaguely painful enough for him to frown. There was something strapped to it, weighty, leaching cool into his skin — the rest hidden by the blanket.

Something wasn’t right with his leg, but how bad? For them to have been out of options outside the emergency room…

Thea was still watching him like he was about to break, and Oliver gripped her wrist, squeezing slightly to show her that he was fine.

“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to get you all worried.”

“I’m your sister,” Thea said. “As long as you have that stupid bike, I’m going to be worried.”

Oliver nodded, silently, and Thea seemed to sense what he was thinking. “I told you — I don’t hate you,” she said. “Whatever problems we have, I’ll always come running if it’s something to do with my stupid big brother.”

He laughed, and the sound morphed unintentionally into a cough, making his ribs ache. “Ow,” he admitted, bracing his side. “Maybe…maybe a break from the bike would be a good idea.”

Thea hit him again, this time in the arm, but he knew from experience that she usually punched harder. “ _Permanent_ break, Ollie. If Tommy’s not gonna back me up, Felicity sure as hell’s going to.”

“Felicity’s here?” Oliver said.

Thea smirked, mischief flitting across her face. “Maybe. But I’m pretty sure she knows you’re not in any shape for making out, so…”

“Shut up,” he said, and she laughed.

“I’ll go get her in a minute — I’m pretty sure she’s with Mr Diggle out in the hall. She was in here for a while, but she thought I’d want some alone time with you. She’s…she’s really nice, Ollie,” Thea said, sounding almost shy. “I like her.”

In the scope of things, hearing his little sister tell him that she approved of his girlfriend seemed like a trivial detail, but it made him smile. “I like her too,” he said.

Thea touched his forehead again. “I’m really glad you’re okay,” she repeated.

It seemed like a lifetime ago, but Oliver remembered something he’d meant to tell her. Something he’d heard from Isabel.

“Speedy, there’s something you should hear,” he said. “It’s about dad. _Our_ dad.”

Thea’s expression became guarded, as if to brace for a blow. “What?”

“Dad knew,” Oliver said, simply. “About Malcolm. He knew you weren’t…he knew, biologically, that you weren’t his, but he didn’t care. It never changed anything for him. Not for a second. You were his daughter, always and forever, and dad knew it.”

Thea shook her head, sinking into the chair beside his bed. “Ollie, I was around when the doctor pumped you full of morphine. Whatever you think you remember — I don’t know, dad talking to you in a dream — it’s not — I mean — it can’t be _real_.”

“No,” Oliver said, quietly. He reached for his sister’s hand, gripping it tight. “I know. I just do. Someone who knew him — that’s how I found out.”

“But you can’t tell me who.” Thea’s face was unreadable, as unreadable as Moira’s when she wanted it to be. “Right?”

Isabel was a wound he didn’t want to inflict on his sister, especially since Oliver knew — or at least strongly guessed — how it had turned out. Whatever had existed between them, neither he nor Thea had ever heard of or met Isabel Rochev before she took over Queen Consolidated. His father had never spoken about her, never showed any sign that she was anything more.

He’d chosen his family, in the end. He’d chosen Thea. It wasn’t perfect, but it changed things. “You’ll have to trust my word on it,” Oliver said carefully. “And I know it’s going to be hard — after everything that’s happened — but you have to trust me. Dad knew, and he loved you anyway. So he never died believing a lie, he died knowing exactly who you were. Thea Queen, and nothing, _nothing_ is ever going to change that.”

Thea was shaking her head in bewilderment, hard enough to dislodge a few more tears clinging to her lashes. “You can’t just say something like that and expect me to believe it. Mom lied to him — and why — _why_ would he raise someone else’s daughter? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Loving someone doesn’t always make sense,” Oliver said. “To dad, it didn’t have to. Anyone could see that he was a better father than Malcolm Merlyn. He wanted the best for you — and that’s exactly what fathers do. They make sure their children have the best chance, the best kind of happiness…”

Thea dried her eyes on her sleeves, rocking forward slightly in her chair. “I have to process this,” she said, looking at her feet. “Wow, I really should get that on a T-shirt.”

“I know it’s hard,” Oliver said. “But you had to hear it.”

“It won’t change anything with mom.” Thea’s head flew up, her jaw rigid with defiance. “Doesn’t change the fact that she lied.”

Oliver didn’t say anything; he just nodded. Of course he knew, and in all honesty he hadn’t expected it to. The reason he’d wanted his sister to hear it, even though it was impossible to question a ghost, even though there was always the chance that Isabel might have lied, was because Robert — Robert’s memory — was what Thea held onto the most, with the stability she’d taken for granted in her family in flux, Robert’s memory could comfort — and hurt her — the most.

And in his heart of hearts, he believed it to be the truth. Robert must have known, and he’d loved the laughing, dark-haired little girl anyway. Thea’s smaller hand found his again, and they were still holding hands when there was a small commotion outside.

Oliver tried to sit up again, but before he could manage it completely, the door was wide open and Moira was rushing towards the bed, while Thea sprang away like she’d been scalded by acid. Tommy was somehow following, sensing he needed to be the buffer with Oliver half-awake, and the room seemed suddenly too small — and much colder.

“Oliver, _sweetheart_.” Moira’s hair was in his face now, her rings cool against the back of his neck as she hugged him. “What happened?”

“Motorcycle accident,” Tommy said immediately, before Oliver could answer. “Lucky he was wearing his helmet.”

“I just spoke to your doctor,” Moira said, patting his legs down as though she expected there to be a broken bone protruding from the skin. “He refused to tell me anything until you were awake — I practically had to threaten him with a lawsuit to get him to come straight here after he finished checking on another patient.”

“Moira, in all fairness, that patient got a rake shoved up his —” Tommy seemed to think better of finishing his sentence. “Never mind. The point is, we’ll all hear what Dr Curtis has to say about Ollie’s knee, and we’ll take it from there.”

“His _knee_?” Moira said, and Oliver flashed Tommy a warning look. “What happened to his knee?”

“I meant — I meant his — uh — knee-slapping…chances.” Tommy looked pained. “In a celebratory sense. Meaning…when he’ll get out of the hospital.”

Moira didn’t look entirely convinced, but before she could take a closer look, Thea snatched her bag off the chair, along with her coat. “Tommy, call me with the prognosis, okay?” she said, looking anywhere but at her mother. “I’m not staying.”

“Thea,” Moira said, imploring. “Please don’t go. Your brother is in a hospital bed, and he should have his family with him.”

“Yeah, he really should.” Thea finally met her gaze head on, and it blistered with accusation. She gestured at the clock on the wall. “I’ve been sitting here for the last _two hours_ , waiting for him to wake up. I rushed here after the hospital told me he’d been admitted. They always call the mother first, so the better question is — how did _I_ get here before you did?”

“Speedy,” Oliver said, at the same time as Tommy murmured, “ _Thea”_.

Moira folded her hands, her posture impeccably straight while her daughter glared at her with hate. Even when they were younger, her response to tantrums and emotion had always been to become as still and glassy as a mirror, and it was only now that Oliver recognized it as her defensive mechanism. “I was in front of five different cameras broadcasting live, and my phone had been left with an aide,” she explained, calmly. “I came here as soon as I got the message. I’m sorry if I’m short of punctual, but I had no idea —”

“You’re supposed to be our mother,” Thea snapped. “ _Get_ _an idea_.”

“Okay, we’re all tense here,” Tommy interjected, “but let’s not lose sight of the fact th—”

“—that Moira Queen would rather finish up her evening sit-down with Bethany Snow, or Keith Frank, or whatever _bullshit_ excuse you have left in your pathetic arsenal,” Thea finished scathingly. “You can’t even help it, can you? You’ve been saying for months that Sebastian Blood’s weak on family values, that he’s the lone wolf, the saint in the clouds, but you’re even worse. You’re not a mother. You’re a sociopath, running on a campaign of complete… _lies_. Your son was in the hospital after an accident, and you didn't even bother to come see him until you finished selling more of your crap on primetime TV.”

The silence grew strained and painful, as mother and daughter stared each other down.

“You want to be mayor more than you care about being a mother,” she said, in a quiet voice imbued with bruising accusation. “You make me _sick_.”

“Say whatever you want, Thea, that’s your right,” Moira said, in carefully measured tones. “But I still love you, very, very much. I’ve done my best, and you will always be my daughter, no matter how much you hate me. And I will always be your mother.”

“That’s the problem.” Thea took a step closer, and it was only so she could step past Moira to get to the door. “I don’t believe you.”

“Thea, c’mon —” Tommy followed Thea out into the hallway, leaving Oliver alone with his mother.

“She didn’t mean it,” he said, tiredly. By now, he was geared to expect a fight every time his mother and sister crossed paths, with worse and worse things used as weapons to draw blood.

In a span of seconds, Moira seemed to shift from guarded stillness to looking as exhausted as he felt, before smoothing it over again, in favor of sitting on the edge of his bed, all maternal concern. “How are you feeling?” she asked solemnly. “Does it hurt anywhere?”

“Mom,” Oliver said. “It was an accident. But I’m fine. I’ll — I’ll be on my feet in time for the rally this Friday.”

Moira still looked carefully, cautiously reserved. Her eyes swept his face and exposed limbs the same way they used to when he was eight years old and was trying to hide a limp or a scrape after breaking the rules, either from playing some kind of game with Tommy, or climbing trees in the grounds. The list was only limited by their creativity, and when it came to mischief, the boundaries had been nonexistent, as far as he recalled. The way Moira looked made him feel like he was eight again, while she took in the scrapes on his face with an pinched set to her mouth, carefully running her thumb along a blooming bruise beneath his jaw.

“Quite a motorcycle accident,” she remarked. “Tommy said the driver raced off afterwards. But from the look of you, he must have stayed behind to throw a few punches.”

Oliver brushed off the implicit question before his mother could get suspicious — if she wasn’t already. “Mom, I still get bruised even if I have my helmet on. But I’m fine.”

“We’ll let the doctor be the judge of that, shall we?” she said gently, smoothing the back of her hand against his cheek. “I’m sorry I didn’t get here sooner. I honestly — I should never have let my phone out of my sight, interview be damned.”

“Mom, I’m not mad,” Oliver said.

Moira nodded. “You’re being generous, but I’m afraid your sister isn’t wrong. I have been…in the wrong. The irony hasn’t escaped me that I’m running on a platform of family values, as a candidate, a businesswoman, and a mother — but behind the cameras, I’ve let my family life crumble to pieces. All my doing. Or more accurately — my lack of doing.”

“You _are_ about family,” Oliver said, neutrally. “You protect them — in the way you know how.”

“Yes, but unlike in politics, when it comes to family, an omission is just as bad as a lie,” Moira said, and Oliver wondered — irrationally — if she was talking about more than just herself. “I’m afraid I’ve made too many omissions to recall.”

“So tell the truth,” Oliver said. “Tell them whatever it takes to make things right with Speedy.”

“We both know that the thing I’m meant to do in order to set things right with your sister — as a start, anyway — has nothing to do with my continuing the campaign,” Moira said, with her usual level of crypticness. “But right now — you are the focus of my attention, my beautiful boy. My beautiful — very _careless_ —” she was rubbing at a smudge above his eyebrow “— boy.”

Oliver managed a smile, and so did Moira. “The risks you take,” she said, and the look in her eye made him wonder, again, if she was talking about something more.

There was a quiet tap on the door, and Oliver caught a glimpse of Felicity’s face through the glass. A second later, she was slipping into the room, holding a spray of blue and white flowers in her arms. “Hi,” she said softly, and Oliver felt himself smiling for real, at how _glad_ he was to see her.

“Hey,” he said, as she set the flowers down on his nightstand. Their hands touched, and she bent to kiss his forehead. “Been here a while?”

“A little while,” she answered, stroking his hair. “Had to check on some things. Hi, Moira.”

“Felicity,” she said. “Thank you for coming to see Oliver. I’m afraid he has a penchant for hobbies that land him in a hospital bed.”

Oliver saw Felicity’s eyebrows contract slightly at the indefinable duality to Moira’s words, but she was saved from having to answer by his doctor. From the look on his face, Oliver could tell it probably wasn’t good news, and everyone else seemed to tense as if they sensed it too.

“Mr Queen,” he said, already apologetic. “I’m afraid we need to have a conversation about your knee.”

* * *

It was late by the time Moira left him to rest, but Oliver wasn’t alone. Far from it. Diggle had seen Moira to her car, and he was now wearing an expression of pure concern, same as the others. Tommy brought them all coffee — as terrible as could be expected from the machines down the hall — and there was a kind of exhausted lull hanging over them all. Felicity’s hand was resting on top of Oliver’s, and it seemed like she was waiting for him to say something. Like it was a courtesy to let him broach the topic first.

When he’d woken up, his first question had been _why?_ But after the doctor’s visit, Oliver didn’t have to ask. He just didn’t want to hear it all over again.

“So,” Felicity said, finally. She must have decided on a gentle approach. “How do you feel?”

Oliver was quiet, because any answer felt like it would be a lie. He could feel that he’d been soaked in sweat at some point, and the only reason he wasn’t nauseous with pain was because of the drip connected to his arm. Instead of speaking, Oliver pushed himself upright, and Felicity made a sound of protest when he shifted his legs clear of the covers, stretching them out. Diggle didn’t make a sound, and Tommy had already seen, but Felicity covered her mouth. His knee was flushed an angry red, only brought down somewhat by the ice, the skin suffused with swelling and the source of a dull throb echoed at the back of his skull. The sight of it made him vaguely sick, and even on painkillers, the inadvertent brush of his heel against the floor set off a muted shiver that made him flinch. The pain centers in his brain might have been dulled, but it wasn’t changing the fact that he couldn’t put his weight on that knee — it was a matter of pure impossibility.

Oliver hunched over slightly, taking deep breaths, pretending the others weren’t watching him like he was broken glass. Felicity was standing at his side, white-faced, and he stopped her before she could reach for the dial on his IV, the one controlling the morphine. “Oliver, you need this,” she said. “This isn’t the kind of injury you can walk off. Your X-rays, they’re —”

Oliver gave her hand a squeeze. “I know,” he said, with difficulty because even speaking took effort. “Not yet. How’s Roy?”

Diggle didn’t have a look of pity, which Oliver appreciated. “Still down,” he said, shaking his head. “The machine drained the kid. Pulse is low, he was barely breathing…he’s stabilized now, but I’m pretty sure the only reason he hasn’t flatlined is the Mirakuru. Anyone else should be dead.”

“We were talking about getting him to a hospital,” Tommy said. “I mean, they’ll know what to do. Just say —”

“What?” Felicity said, and he had a feeling she’d already argued the point before. “An unfriendly vampire got him?”

“It’s Starling City and a full moon,” Tommy said. “Believe you me, that is _not_ the weirdest thing they’ll hear all night. Even a satanic cult ritual might work, I mean, he’s shirtless already. We’ll say they were trying to _Rosemary’s Baby_ him.”

“No,” Oliver said firmly. “It’s bad enough I’m here already. If Roy ends up in the emergency room, they’ll draw blood, run tests. That means attracting attention to the Mirakuru in his system — and the police, after what happened at the mansion. It has to end with Slade — I’m not letting the serum get out again.”

He looked around at that, remembering — dimly. “The serum,” he said. “Where —?”

Felicity pulled it out of her bag, the insides a clear, acid green. Like him, she must have thought the only safe place for it was on her, at all times. “Slade already got his army,” she said. “Even if we hit hard at his ability to mass-produce, he still managed to make himself twenty more super-friends.”

“I know,” Oliver said. “That’s why it’s a good thing we have the Mirakuru.”

“Are you going to take it?” Diggle asked bluntly.

Tommy and Felicity wheeled around with identical expressions of horror. “ _No_ ,” said Tommy. “We saw what the Mirakuru looks like when it gets anywhere near a human system. _Caveman_ , only problem being, caveman knows how to use deadly modern weapons and is also basically indestructible. No Mirakuru is getting _anywhere_.”

“I’m with him,” Felicity said. “Any one of us taking the Mirakuru is hands-down the worst plan we’ve ever had. And that’s saying a _lot_.”

Oliver gripped her arm again, leaning on her as he forced himself to stand. “No,” he said, moving towards the sample vial. “No one’s going to take it. We’re going to use it to make a cure. We couldn’t do that with a blood sample, but we can with the undiluted serum.”

“How do we even know that’s possible?” Diggle said. “The Mirakuru’s mad science — you told us that yourself. It’s not a coincidence that anyone who was around when it was made is long dead.”

Felicity’s arm was around Oliver’s middle, and he could sense her agitation, her fear. He was prepared for anger too, after she heard what he was about to tell them. “I haven’t been completely honest with you,” he said, and for a moment, it was like they’d had the same conversation before.

A repeating pattern. A self-perpetuating cycle.

Felicity tensed, the muscles in her shoulders going tight, but Oliver steeled himself to keep going. “I know that a cure is possible because the doctor — the one who died, who was trying to recreate the Mirakuru serum — he managed to make one.”

If Sara had been there, she might have given him a look — or maybe avoided his gaze. She knew the story, after all. She knew how it ended. But she wasn’t, so Oliver faced the others. “What happened to it?” Tommy asked.

“I never used it,” Oliver said. “I was supposed to cure Slade, but I chose to put an arrow through his eye instead. I thought he was dead — he wasn’t. All of this is because I made a choice to kill Slade Wilson.”

Silence.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It’s all my fault.”

After a long, long pause, Diggle uncrossed his arms. “If it’s any consolation, I think you’ve been punished enough, and I’m not counting what Slade did to your knee. None of us knew he was coming back. That he _could_ come back, after —”

“—an arrow through the eye,” Tommy finished, and they stared at each other. “I guess that new rule of yours is around for a reason.”

Felicity took Oliver’s hand. “I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “But Oliver, we have to talk about your leg. Your knee, it’s —”

“It’s not broken,” he said automatically. “You heard the doctor.”

The distinction didn’t seem to convince anyone, given how he was struggling to stay upright, even while leaning his weight on someone else.

“But you can’t walk. You can barely _stand_ ,” Tommy said. “The doctor told you there’s a torn — a torn what?”

Felicity made a noise like she meant _everything_. “No broken bones, but there’s some torn ligaments in your knee, which I know sounds like a good thing in comparison, only it’s really, _really_ not. It’s putting the stability of your whole leg at risk, which you kind of need to keep jumping off rooftops and do…basically _anything_ vigilante-related.”

The doctor hadn’t said it in the exact same terms, not knowing that he was providing treatment for the Starling City vigilante, but Felicity knew, and she paused, like it was time for him to absorb the information all over again, laying a hand on his arm.

“Oliver, you’re in a lot of pain,” she said softly. “You can’t walk, and…you can’t take on Slade like this.”

Oliver felt his shoulders move, like he was shrugging off the softly-dealt blow. “I have some medicine,” he said. “It’s in the chest I brought back with me from the island. I’ll tell you exactly how much I need and how to make an infusion. It’ll speed up the healing process —”

“Oliver, you’re not listening to me,” Felicity said, with an undercurrent of sharpness now. “You can’t fight Slade.”

“I have to,” he said simply. “Help me.”

“ _No_ ,” she said, and there was a moment of surprise from the others, who’d expected Felicity to be the most steadfast out of everyone.

Felicity pushed Oliver back down onto the hospital bed, hard enough to make the frame rattle. “Oliver, until you fix your knee — a healing time that can and _should_ take six months, _at least_ — you are not going anywhere near Slade. Because he will _kill_ you, just like he almost killed you tonight, and if Tommy hadn’t gotten there after you went in _without backup_ , I’d be having this discussion with someone else over your dead body.”

Oliver knew that they were fighting about more than just his tactical choices as the Arrow, but the thought of being stuck in the Foundry, in a hospital bed, while the others fought his battles for him...he didn’t even want to consider it.

“We don’t _have_ six months,” he said, no less stubbornly. “And I didn’t wait because Roy could have died.”

Felicity’s stare hardened. “You know, you suck at lying about being the Arrow, but you have _no_ shortage of excuses when it comes to risking your life,” she said. “You don’t agree with me, and that’s completely fine — only good luck getting out of this room with an army vet, a trained assassin — once we track her down — and your _extremely_ stubborn best friend here to stop you. Right?”

She turned to the others, and none of them seemed to disagree.

“Felicity —” Oliver began.

“No,” she repeated, stepping out of reach. “ _No_. You almost got killed tonight because you were so bent on stopping Slade. So are we, but we remember that we can’t do it alone. If you’d had Tommy and Digg with you, things would have turned out a _lot_ differently, and you probably wouldn’t be sitting here with a leg you can barely use.”

Tommy, standing behind Felicity in support, winced. Diggle saw Oliver open his mouth again and shook his head in warning, so he reluctantly stayed silent.

“Good,” Felicity said, and took the vial of Mirakuru again. “I’m going to see what Applied Sciences at QC can do, and with any luck, Slade and his new BFFs are going to have something to worry about pretty soon.”

“What do you want us to do with your boyfriend, boss?” Diggle said, and Oliver gave him a look, knowing he was being punished for going in without waiting for the rest of the team.

“Unfortunately, someone has to help him get out of the hospital once he’s discharged,” Felicity said, resolutely avoiding eye contact with Oliver. “Make sure he ices his knee to get the swelling down, also make sure he doesn’t cut his pain meds on purpose, and you have my _full_ support to conk him over the head if he tries to run. I will see you all later.”

No one moved until the door slammed. Diggle went off to shift the IV stand out of reach, while Tommy ducked under Oliver’s arm to help him up, ignoring his bad-tempered attempts to push him off. “Where are we going?” he asked irritably.

“Bathroom — so you can change. We brought you some sweatpants, because I don’t think you want to show those legs off in front of Digg,” Tommy pointed out reasonably. “Though I don’t think it counts as showing off if yours end up looking like they belong on a chicken. Trust me — been there, done that.”

Oliver winced at his knee again. “Is there a silent option where you leave me to fend for myself?”

He might as well have stayed quiet for all the notice he got from Tommy, who seemed intent on musing aloud. “You know, just when I thought there _couldn’t_ be any more silver linings to Felicity dating my best friend, turns out I was wrong. She’s the only one who can get your head out of your ass when you’re being like this,” he said flicking on the light switch in the bathroom.

In spite of his annoyance, and the stubborn pain from his knee, Oliver felt a twinge of guilt. “I’m sorry,” he said, and after a pause, “thank you.”

“For what? I haven’t even helped you with your pants yet.”

Oliver ignored the last part. “You saved my life,” he said. “I tried to stop you from following in my footsteps, but you…took on Slade. By yourself. You saved my life tonight, and Roy’s.”

Tommy patted his back. “I seem to remember some dude in a green suit who saved my life first,” he said. “Funny how he turned out to be my best friend, right?”

Oliver wanted to smile, he did, but somehow he couldn’t quite manage it. Not yet. Tommy seemed to take his silence as a kind of acceptance, and grinned broadly enough for the both of them. “You never have to say ‘thank you’, Ollie. But just…do us all a favor and listen for once, okay?”

Oliver grimaced as his knee gave off another dull throb. “I’ll do my best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THERE'S A NEXT PART. PLEASE READ ON.   
> :)


	36. Temporary Fix (Seeing Red, Part III)

The arrow glanced off the concrete with a spray of sparks, skittering somewhere into the dark. The tennis ball Oliver had thrown rolled to a stop near his foot, and he exhaled, focusing on the action of breathing — instead of the not-so-dull throb in his knee. Ever-present, like a heartbeat of its own. Leeching his focus, his balance, his skill…

Oliver loosed another arrow with a snap, irrational and out of pure frustration, and while it sunk into the already heavily perforated target, it was two rings shy of what he’d been aiming for. He bent, gripping his leg above the knee, feeling a cold sweat gathering at the back of his neck.

He dropped his bow and quiver on the table with a clatter that echoed up into the rafters, and limped towards the workstation where he’d left his medicine. Not the drugs from the hospital; the herbs from Lian Yu. It wasn’t time for another dose of the infusion, but Oliver downed the waiting cup of tea in two swallows, ignoring the smoky, acerbic taste as best he could.

Then he sat down, picking up the pestle to start grinding more. The motions were concentrated in his upper body, and while he had his right leg stretched out in front of him and unmoving, every time he tried to grind the herbs, the movement went hand in hand with a flash of pain from his knee. He’d been out of the hospital for a day, and it wasn’t any better. It was unreasonable of him to expect it, just…

The frustration ate at him. He could barely shoot an arrow, barely make it across the room without feeling as though he was about to collapse, and now even the simplest tasks were colored by the constant undercurrent of physical pain.

It didn’t help that he’d barely seen Felicity since she’d left him at the hospital, after their disagreement about how he ought to handle his injury. Between assuring his mother that he had things to take care of the club and making sure his sister thought he was resting quietly at the mansion, Oliver had been in the Foundry, though not alone. Roy was still there, unconscious, but apart from him, there seemed to be some kind of shift schedule Oliver hadn’t been informed of. Between Diggle, Sara and Tommy, someone was always around — probably to stop him from doing anything stupid.

Tommy had gone back up to Verdant barely an hour before, so Oliver wasn’t surprised to hear the door open and someone else’s footsteps announce a new arrival. Oliver didn’t look around, though he did endeavor to wipe the frown off his face from the ache in his leg, replacing it with a placid expression as though his concentration was completely devoted to the task in front of him.

There was a small rattle, and Oliver looked up to see a fresh bottle of lidocaine next to a syringe. “That stuff tastes horrible, you know,” Sara said. “And your knee wouldn’t be hurting you if you took some of this. Doctor’s orders.”

“That’s a distraction, not a solution,” Oliver answered, carefully measuring another dose of dried ingredients for the herbal infusion. “Painkillers won’t help me heal.”

“And making tea from dead weeds will?” Sara pointed out, in the same even voice. “Not fast enough for what you have in mind, Ollie.”

Oliver shot another glance at the stairs, despite knowing that Felicity was busy at work, and he wasn’t in any kind of shape to make it out of the Foundry without serious assistance. A fact everyone seemed to have no trouble reminding him of.

“Digg’s at QC with Felicity,” said Sara, sensing where his thoughts had strayed. “She’s been there since last night.”

Oliver went back to grinding herbs, increasing the pressure despite the growing protest from his leg. “I know,” he said. “She’s CEO — it means she’s busy.”

Being CEO _was_ busy. He knew that from experience, but he also knew that Felicity’s focus was infallible, her ability to multitask and navigate challenges unparalleled. It meant that she could have been in the Foundry if she wanted to — only she wasn’t, for some reason she wasn’t telling him.

Maybe he already knew. At the hospital, he’d recounted what happened with Slade, that instead of choosing the way that could have saved countless lives and averted a danger hanging over their heads like a death sentence, Oliver had chosen to kill a man who had once been his friend, driving an arrow through his eye when he’d held the cure to his madness in his other hand.

Felicity would never have done it. Oliver would have, and he _had_.

He didn’t blame her for staying away.

Sara didn’t seem to believe that was all there was, but she refrained from comment, choosing to sit on the edge of the table instead. “How are you?” she asked.

“Fine,” he said.

Sara saw the tennis balls and the skewed arrows he’d left in the targets. “Liar,” she said flatly. “The old you used to love any excuse to call in sick.”

“And the old you used to come home from school crying because of bullies,” Oliver answered. “Tell me we haven’t changed.”

Sara didn’t dispute the point; they knew each other so well that the game could have gone on forever. Instead, she turned her head, towards Roy’s immobile form, exactly where they’d left him since he’d been removed from the bio-transfuser. “You’re worried about him.”

_And everything else_ , Oliver added darkly. But he turned in his chair, watching Roy too. “I know he’s strong,” he said quietly. “And I’m not giving up on him.”

It was as though he’d expected her to disagree. Sara nodded, looking down at her folded arms like it wasn’t a surprise. “That’s the difference between you and me,” she said quietly, and Oliver frowned.

“What’s going on?” he asked. “Sara?”

She didn’t seem to hear the question; she was still looking at Roy, her brow furrowed, intent on whatever she was trying to tell him. “I didn’t know you guys had gone to stop Slade,” she said. “Digg and Tommy got there in time to stop Slade and Rochev, but I wasn’t there. I only got back after you came to.”

Deep down, Oliver wasn’t surprised, and he didn’t need to ask. “You were doing what you had to do.”

“What I _had_ to do — what I _should_ have done — was make sure my friends weren’t being hurt by a psychopath,” Sara said, through her teeth, her hands clenched into fists against her arms. “What if Slade had killed you and Tommy?”

“He wouldn’t have,” Oliver said, just as quietly. “That wasn’t his objective.”

“Ollie, I think we’re past the point where you can pretend like you can read Slade,” she said bluntly. “We have no idea what the Mirakuru’s done to his mind, and if what it did to Roy’s any indication, it’s more unpredictable than we know. Slade could have broken your neck, crushed your spine, run you through with his sword — and we both know it.”

Oliver didn’t contradict her. She knew him too well for that, and her words fed the growing feeling of helplessness he’d been feeling since Slade had won, again.

“Is that why you went looking for Roy?” he asked. “To avoid taking that risk?”

Sara was still staring into the distance, her brow furrowed.

“I would’ve killed him,” she admitted. “You were lucky I didn’t get to the power plant in time. Because I’d have killed Roy to stop the machine if it meant that there wouldn’t be Mirakuru soldiers to help Slade. I would have _killed_ a nineteen-year-old kid, someone Thea loves, without blinking — because it was the lesser of two evils.”

Oliver could hear the pain in her voice. It was the kind of pain he’d felt before, sitting alone in the Foundry, in the dark, wrestling with the choices he’d made and what came after.

“Sara, thinking like that…it doesn’t make you a killer,” he said. “I used to think like the same way, and I still do, but I fight it. That’s what we’re supposed to do. We fight that voice at the back of our heads, and do what’s right.”

“ _You_ fight the bad voices,” Sara corrected. “You made a promise to stop killing, and you’ve done your best to keep it. I haven’t, and I don’t think I can.”

“I know,” he said, shifting a little closer — and wincing because of the pain — but he had to, because he could sense that they were hurtling towards something, something neither of them would be able to take back. “Sara, trust me, I know. I’ve been where you are, and I promise, it’s not always going to be like this.”

“Ollie, you’re not listening to me.” Sara blinked, hard. “I _wanted_ to kill Roy. Because you and I, we’re not the same. We’re about as different as night and day, and lately, I’ve been feeling like there’s a darkness inside me that won’t go away, and if every time I draw my weapon and face a threat, I have to think of reasons why it’s not the right thing to do — why I shouldn’t kill them, then and there — there _has_ to be something wrong with me. You don’t need someone like that to face Slade, I’d only hurt you — hurt _them_.”

“Sara —”

They looked at each other. “Don’t,” Oliver said, because she was thinking it. “Your family, they just — they just got you back. They need you.”

“They needed the girl who died on the Queen’s Gambit,” she answered. “They don’t need the murderer pretending to be Sara Lance.”

“That’s why they’ll never know who we are,” Oliver said, slowly. “Because that is what keeps them safe.”

“That’s naive, and you know it.”

Oliver didn’t exactly disagree. “I have to believe in something,” he said.

Sara shook her head, breathing out slow. Then she slid off the table and started walking towards the staircase.

“Where are you going? he asked.

“I need to clear my head,” she answered. “And just take the drugs already. You’re lucky there’s still some kinds of pain you can numb with a needle.”

* * *

Another file hit the stack, and Diggle exhaled, stretching in his chair and suppressing another yawn. “I hate to say it, but maybe we’re looking for something that isn’t there.”

Felicity glanced at the second of the two incredibly uneven piles, and the boxes of documents she’d managed to pull up from Archives. The left, the puny one with maybe a handful of inch-thick dossiers, was dwarfed by the tottering stack of rejected inventions, and even that was a friendlier visual representation compared to the amount of digitized data she’d trawled through over the last few hours. “Nothing here either,” she muttered, trying to keep the _dejected_ out of her voice. Because positive thoughts…and stuff.

Diggle got up, snagging both their drained mugs and heading for the coffeemaker. “Hey, at least you got the serum to Applied Sciences,” he said, pressing a button that made the machine chug away with more energy than either of them could humanly muster. “That’s something positive.”

Felicity pushed her glasses into her hair and leaned back, staring at the ceiling. The only flip side was the fact that it was way, _way_ after hours, and there was no one around to witness the strange scene of the CEO going feverishly through old company documents with her bodyguard.

Maybe it was against the norm of professional respect for her corporate predecessor, but Felicity was pretty sure that ranked pretty high on the list of things Isabel wouldn’t have been caught dead doing. As far as she knew, Diggle had more or less passed as invisible to the Demon Queen — unless she was trying to catch her AWOL co-CEO. For official company business, sex purposes (ew), or otherwise.

Which reminded her of another upside. One of the perks of being the CEO of a billion-dollar company was that Applied Sciences probably wouldn’t question a piece of experimental work she’d put on their desks, even if it was a vial full of _Secret Substance X_ that looked like it could scorch the paint off cars, and assured her that it’d be done ASAP.

So that was one thing taken care of. Now the stubborn, pigheaded buffalo reincarnation she’d decided to date. A horrifyingly painful knee injury was unlikely to stop him, not for long, and in spite of feeling very friendly about the option of _whack-a-mole_ -ing Oliver until the reality sunk in, Felicity knew that he _had_ to be able to fight, because Slade was going to come for him, one way or another.

Tommy said he’d fallen. Five, maybe six floors, total. Enough to kill someone, but Slade wasn’t just someone, and Felicity wasn’t naive enough to start holding her breath for a funeral. Oliver needed to defend himself, and unfortunately, she doubted that some magical healing herbs from Lian Yu were going to stimulate muscle healing fast enough to condense six months into days.

Which explained why she was stuck going through old blueprints and model specs with Diggle’s help, at an ungodly hour of night-slash-day, her eyes aching from the lack of sleep.

“Here you go,” Diggle said, setting her mug clear of the stacks. “Last cup, because I’m cutting you off.”

“Why do you get coffee but I don’t?” she said indignantly.

“You’re smaller,” Diggle said. “My math may be off, but I’m pretty sure your height and weight can only take so much caffeine before bad stuff starts happening.”

“What, the coffee sweats?” she scoffed, sipping at her hot latte. “That’s a myth.”

“Mm-hm,” Diggle said skeptically, reclining with another fresh file. “Not to be the bearer of bad news here, but are you avoiding the Foundry because of your boyfriend?”

Felicity shook her head. “Definitely not because I might grab the nearest heavy blunt object and thunk his lights out,” she said. “I just…I’m so _sure_ that there’s something. There has to be.”

“Why?” he asked, not in a bad way. Just…calm.

Felicity thought about it, she really did. Through the mountain of things she’d had to familiarize herself with for the CEO role at Queen Consolidated, through budgeting and the many, many initiatives on the roster, learning them back to front. To the literal _load_ of underfunded — but high-potential — medical science projects she’d discovered because of it, ones that could do a whole lot of good, though Felicity suspected that the reason they’d been sidelined was because (and she was thinking like Isabel here) poor people weren’t exactly in the best position to pay for hi-tech, hot-off-the-assembly-line medical innovations.

Which left her running a search through the terabytes of data on the QC database for anything that looked both remotely suitable and least likely to explode without warning, and combing through those results to make the final assessment herself.

It was a long shot to say the least, and they — her and Diggle — knew it. But there had to be something. They’d managed to stop Isabel Rochev and Slade from getting their hands on Queen Consolidated, and there _had_ to be some sublime, karmic reason beyond just a defensive play to cover their bases. After everything that had happened, Felicity badly wanted one of them to be an _offensive_ , something that might help Oliver get back on his feet again.

Felicity blew out her breath, trying to find an explanation that didn’t make her sound insane. “Isabel wanted this company — Slade wanted this company — for a reason,” she said. “Queen Consolidated is at the forefront of everything — good things, not just earthquake machines and serum-producing centrifuges. Getting to the CEO’s office has to mean something…or it’s just another point we lose to Slade.”

Diggle looked at her over his coffee with a lot of understanding and zero skepticism. “I don’t like the sound of that either,” he said. “And I’ll be honest, Felicity. If it came down to a bet between you and Queen Consolidated, I know which one I’m backing.”

She smiled. “My specialty isn’t biomedical engineering,” she said. “I’m grade school compared to what Applied Sciences can do with their tech.”

“It’s not about who knows what,” Diggle said. “It’s a matter of trust.”

Diggle had a way of phrasing his answers in a way that made them sound too sensible for further argument, so Felicity smiled at him, and he smiled back. Then, with the equivalent of heaving mental sighs, they both went back to looking through the files. Felicity kept looking until she started to lose count, and the heap of files looked like a pretty appealing pillow by the time she stopped for real. Not for more coffee, but because she was reading, thinking, hardly daring to believe it. She scanned the specs, and scanned them again, until she was nodding to herself. Because as far as cruddy streaks of bad luck were concerned, this was on the level of snatching the CEO-ship from straight under Isabel’s petite nose. “That’s it,” she said, waving her arm to get Diggle’s attention. “That’s exactly _it_.”

Dropping the file he was reading, Diggle circled round to see the monitor. “I don’t understand half of that, but are you saying it can help Oliver?”

Felicity nodded. “Except —”

Diggle tapped on the screen. “That’s not in this building,” he said. “It’s on loan to Kord Industries, and even if we could request it back —”

“— I’ll probably get in a _load_ of trouble,” Felicity said, pulling out her phone. “Even though it’ll probably end up doing more good than sitting on a warehouse shelf. I know.”

“So why are you dialing?” he asked.

Felicity put it on loudspeaker. “Sara?” she said. “Where are you?”

Sara didn’t sound remotely asleep. “Around,” she answered. “Why?”

Phrasing a B&E request took some serious thinking, and the look on Felicity’s face made Diggle pause, as though he wasn’t sure if she was serious. Then he shook his head with a heavy sigh. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

* * *

Felicity glanced at her phone again, her insides and her knees doing a kind of internal jiggle that made her visualize nerve-induced dancing, and not in a cute, _aww_ kind of way. More like a _white coats chasing her around with giant butterfly nets-_ type deal.

Diggle had unequivocally overruled her tagging along with Sara to the Kord Industries warehouse where the prototype was being stored, lifting the embargo only for himself — because apparently he was better at being the getaway driver than she was.

_Rude_.

She’d originally intended to hang around and wait for them to get back, but pacing up and down the Verdant alleyway was out — it was smack dab during cleanup hour and she ran the risk of being asked awkward questions as to why she was hanging around a nightclub alley near 5AM, completely sober and caffeine-infused to the point that she felt like an oversized espresso bean.

Which left pacing the Foundry staircase, quietly, because Oliver was meant to be asleep. She considered removing her high heels to make her descent quieter, and the leather straps were around her wrists when she made it to ground level — and came face to face with Oliver.

Awake. Shy of fresh-faced, but looking better.

“Hey,” he said.

He was sitting up at one of the worktables with a view of Roy’s bed, and she had no idea how he’d managed to get there by himself, apart from sheer force of will. There was a strong tang of medicinal _something_ s in the air, the kind that came in unimpressive shriveled bunches and made her eyes water if she got too close. All signs that he’d been working on the mysterious dried herbs from his Lian Yu chest, which was a whole other question she didn’t have the answers to, but he looked better rested at least, like he’d managed to shut down long enough over the last day to sleep — even if it _was_ because of the pain medication they’d shot him up with.

Felicity noted all of this with the kind of high-speed (dizzying) clarity she’d associated with computer programming, not human eyes, and decided it was the coffee — just the coffee — _not_ the fact that she’d developed superhuman senses. Also because their last interaction may have counted as a _confrontation_ …ending with her walking off in something of a _mood_.

Sure, it’d been to help him, or to find the thing that could probably — possibly — help him, but she had a feeling the relationship Code of Conduct gave out more brownie points for staying put.

Felicity shifted a little closer, setting her discarded shoes down on the floor, crossing then uncrossing her arms while Oliver watched, looking just about as awkward — if that was possible. “You look better,” she said, shoving away the feeling that she sounded like a stranger he’d met at a hospital. “How’s your knee?”

Oliver had it stretched out in front of him. Someone — Tommy, probably — had strapped it with a brace, and instead of the football it had been because of the swelling, it had gone down significantly since she last saw him.

He also didn’t answer immediately, like he thought the sight of it was enough of a response to her question. Or because he thought there were more important things to discuss. “Felicity,” Oliver said, and laid his hand open on the table, like it was a truce. “I’m sorry.”

The apology startled her, partly because she’d assumed their issue wasn’t the kind that was resolved with apologies. Not that she was sure how said issue was meant to be resolved. She didn’t exactly have a lot of experience in that area — and neither did he.

But Felicity did know that she felt better, seeing Oliver rested, and she didn’t like it when they were angry with each other. So she unknotted her arms and took his outstretched hand, cautiously accepting said truce. “I shouldn’t have yelled,” she said.

“I deserved the yelling.”

“I shouldn’t have left you alone all day.”

“I was supposed to be asleep.”

“I shouldn’t have let Tommy take off your pants.”

Oliver actually chuckled at that one, and Felicity smiled. But his knee meant no sitting on or anywhere near his legs, so she settled for shifting a little closer, choosing the surface of the worktable as her chair instead.

They both looked towards Roy, and Felicity squeezed Oliver’s hand, just as surely as he leaned a little into her, his side to hers. “I don’t have kids — just thought I’d throw that out there, BTW — but I _think_ this is what it feels like, after your kid goes on a couple of all-night ragers and ends up in a hospital bed with their stomach pumped,” she said. “Except Roy’s not our kid — I mean, look at those cheekbones — and instead of hard partying, it was a stampede through your house, and instead of a hospital bed, he got used as a human blood bag.”

A pause.

“That sounded better in my head,” she muttered. “Somehow.”

Oliver didn’t smile, not that she’d been expecting anyone to. Seeing friends lying comatose on a table with tubes coming out of their arms wasn’t exactly the most reassuring sight, and thinking about who put him there was another thing entirely. Where Felicity had been feeling a deep, persistent chill at the thought of Slade Wilson, seeing Roy, and the pain on Oliver’s face, pain Slade had caused, she was starting to feel something else. Something less hidden, or defensive. Something bright and hot and dangerous.

Felicity was angry, in a way she hadn’t been before, in a way she almost hadn’t realized. Now she knew, and looking at Oliver, the man she loved and believed in and _hoped_ for, she knew that she’d do whatever she could to protect him. To make sure Slade Wilson regretted the day he’d decided to come back and stir up old ghosts.

Oliver stirred beneath her touch, like he’d been far and far away.

“What’s on your mind?” she asked, even though she knew, more or less.

“I thought I was going to die,” he said, bluntly, like it was a fact, no more, no less. “When Slade had me hanging over nothing, I thought I was going to die. I thought about you — Tommy, John, my family — and Roy.”

His gaze shifted towards the steel table a small distance away. “I failed him. I didn’t get there in time.”

“What are you talking about?” she said. “Slade would have let the machine drain him. You, Tommy, John — you all saved his life.”

Oliver twisted his neck like he disagreed. “But none of you would have gotten into this, if it I hadn’t been selfish, making that choice five years ago.” He looked at her. “And I’m sorry for disappointing you. I never told you about what happened with Slade because a part of me was ashamed. I’ve tried to make up for it, but a rule against killing, putting Starling to rights…it doesn’t change the fact that I had a chance to cure Slade and I chose to kill him. I’m sorry.”

Felicity had been listening the whole time, watching at his face, and now she blinked, because the correlation between his points of logic remained…nonexistent. “Two things. First, what happened with Slade on Lian Yu was a mistake, and short of any one of us developing time traveling superpowers, the past is the past. Like Digg said, you’ve been punished enough. Second, you say that — us getting involved — like it’s a bad thing,” she pointed out. “Maybe we wouldn’t have gotten into this… _Saving the City_ gig because of you, but that’s not the curse you seem to think it is. You pulled Roy out of a life of chasing a rush, you gave him purpose —”

Oliver made a sound like he was about to interrupt, which only made her talk faster to get her point across. Because they were at the heart of it, his crusade, right now. What it all meant, evidence that he'd tried, fought, and hadn't given up. The Arrow suit was back in its case, overlooking the sets of bows and arrows, overlooking them and Roy, and there was _so_ much that Oliver wasn’t seeing.

“You trained him to direct his anger at something good: making the Glades better. Ditto with Tommy, except he won’t be risking his life trying to make up for what Malcolm did wrong, because of _your_ training, and because you’re looking out for your best friend. You said it yourself — he saved your life today. Tommy’s fine, Oliver. And a big part of that is because of you.”

Oliver pressed his lips together, like he still didn’t believe her. Fine, Felicity hadn’t expected him to, and that was one of the things she knew and loved about him, as much as it made her want to grab him by the front of his shirt and shake him until he took her word for it.

“You never trained me,” she said, softly. “And I never knew the old Oliver Queen. Or the one on Lian Yu, the one who put an arrow through Slade’s eye. But guess what? I met the Oliver Queen who walked into my office with a laptop full of bullets. I met the Oliver who smiled at me — some IT girl in a cubicle — like I mattered, the one who trusted me enough to save his life after he’d been shot.”

She ran her knuckles across the back of his neck, up the side of his jaw, tracing the familiar edges and softness, places she’d kissed and whispered _I love you_ …watching Oliver’s eyes close at her touch, the way he welcomed it, trusted it… “The one I fell in love with. _That_ Oliver Queen helped me realize I could help Starling City — more than I thought someone like me could ever do — and without him, I probably would’ve stayed in my IT job, minding my own business. I never would have helped stop Malcolm Merlyn, or the Count, or Isabel the Unholy Horror Rochev. And I wouldn’t be CEO of the company I started out in…without you.”

Oliver lifted his head and looked her in the eye, as though he was wondering silently if she was serious — if she _could_ be serious — saying the words he never would have believed of himself and meaning it, but the question faded, not asked and still answered.

_Yes_.

“Who we were, that’s important,” she continued. “But not as important as the choices we make, the ones that make us who we are _now_. This second, and every second going forward. After everything that’s happened, for all the crazy and unexplainable, and the sacrifice, I think it _at least_ proves that you’re a hell of a lot different than the person you were when you first met Slade. And by that, I mean you’re better.”

Felicity inhaled deeply for the next part. “I also know that you think being close to us makes you selfish, but it doesn’t. You’ve changed people’s lives for the better, and you’ve been doing it longer than you even realize. That doesn’t make you dangerous. It makes you a _hero_ , and you are going to save Roy. Because that’s what heroes do, and it’s a light inside of you, and whatever Slade tries next, he cannot — and _will not_ — change that. Do you understand?”

_Hero_. The word felt solid, somehow. Like it had weight. Like it had changed everything, the same way Oliver had changed all of them. The way he was changing because of it. For the better, always for the better.

“Temporary,” he said, finally. “You’re still temporary CEO.”

Felicity’s smile grew, outstripping Oliver’s, but it was enough. “Hey,” she said, because she had a funny feeling that Diggle and Sara would be returning any time now. “I hear Geneva’s nice this time of year,” she said, ignoring the questioning look on his face. “Or Bali. People still go to Bali, right? You could take your mom, and your sister, and I’d fly there weekends to see you…maybe the Arrow deserves a six-month vacation?”

Oliver might have smiled, if she’d been teasing, if a part of her wasn’t wishing there was another way. But she wasn’t, there wasn’t, and he knew it. “No,” he said, simply. “Whatever it takes, I’m done letting other people pay for my mistakes.”

“Even if —”

“Even if you think it’s not my fault,” he finished, knowing what she’d been about to interrupt with. “I’m still the only person who can stop Slade, and I’m not leaving you, John, Tommy or Sara to face him. I’m not running, Felicity.”

They looked at each other, and Felicity bent, gently touching her lips to his. If Oliver was surprised at the affection, at the way her hands clung to his face and her mouth pressed against his own, he didn’t show it. There was relief in the way he pressed back, like it was a badly needed breath of air, like she _was_ that breath — to him, at least.

The feeling was one-hundred-percent mutual.

“That’s my Oliver,” she whispered to him.

Oliver’s bum knee and an unconscious Roy being a stone’s throw away meant that a repeat of the previous night’s acrobatics was on the unlikely side, and they were still sitting together when Diggle and Sara rattled down the Foundry staircase.

Felicity shot upright. “Did you get it?”

Sara hefted a black reinforced case. “Got it.”

“What about the tracking beacon inside the —”

Diggle waved her off. “Deactivated it with the wireless bug you used last time,” he said. “We got it.”

“Got what?”

Felicity only belatedly remembered Oliver, who looked wary. “What is that?” he asked, eyeing the case.

“A reason for board members to vote me out as CEO — if they ever find out,” Felicity said. “Good thing everyone around here can keep a secret, because there’s about to be another big whopper.”

Oliver’s eyebrows snapped together. “ _What?_ ”

* * *

“So…you robbed Kord Industries,” Oliver summarized.

Felicity was working on her tablet, set on top of the black case while she hacked her way into the encrypted safeguards on the locking mechanism. “Technically, the prototype was on loan from us. So I _borrowed_ it from Kord Industries, who was borrowing it from Queen Consolidated.”

“I grew up with Tommy Merlyn for a best friend, which is why I know _borrowed_ usually means it’s something I’ll never see again,” Oliver said, unimpressed.

“Technically,” Sara added, “I did the actual borrowing. And Digg drove the getaway van.”

“And _even more_ technically, I’m pretty sure that since Queen Consolidated still owns the prototype, Felicity actually just stole from you,” Diggle said. “But hey, that can’t be the worst thing a girlfriend’s ever done to Oliver Queen, right?”

“Thank you everyone, for that extremely unhelpful tangent,” Felicity said, as the locks sprang open with a computerized _snap_ and she pushed the lid back.

After everything she’d read and the volume of hope she’d pinned on it, she’d nearly expected some kind of glow, like it was the Holy Grail of modern biotechnology. But no, because outside of novels and comic books, unexplained luminescence was usually linked to problematic chemical secretions or cancer-encouraging radiation.

Anyway. The insides were comprised mostly of a shock-proof lining to avoid damage to the prototype in transit, and in the middle of it sat a small clear case, accompanied by the implant tool that had specs scary enough to give her nightmares.

Kudos to Oliver for not jumping back twelve feet and dropping the phrase _restraining order_. He only shifted it closer to the light. “What _is_ that?” he asked.

Felicity mashed her hands together out of nerves as she tried to condense the dense files she’d read into something more manageable. “One of QC’s medical research prototypes,” she said. “It’s an intramuscular electrical nerve stimulator. On paper, it’s designed for army veterans and accident victims suffering chronic pain. Apart from sending electrical signals that block pain centers in the brain, it works as a computerized bio-stimulant that sends a continuous modulated electrochemical output capable of — theoretically — accelerating healing at an exponential rate. We’ve delayed pushing it forward because, well — part of it was the Demon Queen CEO not thinking people on disability pensions were a good cause — but the other part of it is because the power cells we’ve come up with…they last a week, week and a half at best, depending on how high the frequency’s adjusted to. Nowhere near enough to help the healing on a long-term basis.”

“But it can help my knee _now_ ,” Oliver said, taking the chip from the lining.

“ _In theory_ ,” she stressed. “It’s a prototype, and if you want to get it anywhere inside you — _wow_ , that came out wrong — it’s going to hurt. Like maybe as much as your knee hurts now, and once it goes in, the clock starts running.”

Sara was looking at the implant tool, turning it over in her hands. The needle gleamed wickedly sharp, a steampunk nightmare that made Felicity — with her total and unabashed fear of pointy objects — want to ralph, just a little. “You can’t take the implant out and charge it up again?”

“It’ll have to be surgically removed,” Felicity said. “Which means Oliver conked out on surgical anesthesia and a doctor with no qualms against experimental surgery — neither of which are good things for a vigilante alter ego hoping to avoid being outed.”

“So we’ll be moving up the timetable,” Diggle translated. “No long game. We find Slade and we stop him before that power cell goes dead, or it’s back to square one with Oliver’s leg in a brace.”

Oliver nodded, unnervingly calm in the face of less-than-cheerful news. He weighed it in his hand, and Felicity knew what he was going to say. “I don’t see a lot of choices,” he said bluntly.

There was a painful (pun _so_ not intended) pause.

“Neither do I,” she said.

Oliver still looked preoccupied with something else. “There’s something I haven’t told you,” he added, palming the case. “I’ve been thinking about something Slade said to me —”

“Oh boy,” Diggle muttered.

“It’s not that,” Oliver said quickly, as though he could sense the DEFCON-4 alarms going off inside their heads. “He knew that Roy came to the mansion, that me and Tommy fought him. Diggle, you’ve had the perimeter of the house covered for months, and even if he hacked the surveillance, our security cameras are all on the outside, not the inside. There’s no way he could have known what happened with Roy. We didn’t even know that Roy was back in town until he broke in. Slade wasn’t there, but he found out anyway. How?”

They all exchanged glances, from Diggle to Sara, to Felicity, and Oliver again. Felicity shook her head, because the implications were just too _gah_ to consider, next to the very big what-if they had to deal with first, so they all looked down at the chip again. “I don’t know,” she said honestly. “But I have a feeling that finding out starts with you getting back on your feet again.”

* * *

Everyone was staring at Oliver’s leg. Tommy, sitting on the floor with his arms folded, raised his hand. “I know I’m the last person to deny Felicity a chance to see you in your boxers, but what are the chances that it goes _horribly_ wrong? Like _Frankenstein_ wrong.”

Oliver didn’t have the answer, so they all looked to the person who did. Felicity was twisting a clear vial into something she’d used a string of scientific words to describe, the only one of which that stood out was _injector_. The chip inside the glass was smaller than a fingernail, cylindrical and dark blue, the surface gleaming with minute wiring he couldn’t possibly decipher, but if Oliver had understood Felicity correctly, it held more processing capacity than anything in the Foundry, and it was going to make the difference in his fight with Slade.

Not _if_. It was going to, and Oliver had every belief that it would.

“Thirty percent,” she said. “Implantation failure, I mean. Systemic malfunction? Good and low, but battery failure’s guaranteed after 250 hours, which is 10.4 days, which means —”

“—game over,” Diggle finished, heavily. “Oliver, are you sure?”

Oliver knew that it was concern, and the concern was well-intentioned, but they didn’t have the time — or the choices — to turn down something like this, and he didn’t see the point of debating something he’d already decided was worth the risk, and a risk he was more than prepared to take.

Besides, it could hardly make his knee any worse than it already was.

“You keep asking me that, but I don’t see how we have a choice. I need to be able to fight Slade, and I can’t very well do that if I’m stuck in bed with an ice pack,” he said.

“It’s not addressing the issue,” Tommy pointed out. “Which is that Slade can snap your other knee too, _then_ we’ll have another problem. We should be focusing on the cure, not…I don’t know…the same kind of crazy science that led to the Mirakuru in the first place.”

“I worked with Ivo for almost a year on his projects,” Sara said matter-of-factly. “Felicity’s not him. I trust her — so do you, Ollie — and all of us need to finish this fight with Slade.”

Despite being told that she was trusted by all of them, Felicity still looked worried. “It’s a risk, Oliver.”

“Then let me take it myself,” he said, taking the injector from Felicity. “Tell me where to put it.”

Tommy brushed him aside. “Nice try,” he said. “I call best friend duty to hold you down, and Digg has the steady hands.”

Diggle had the injector now, and Felicity grimaced at the sight of the extremely sharp and incredibly close needle, consulting the data on her tablet instead.

“Here,” she said, circling a small zone with her fingertip (Oliver winced at the pain it set off). “It has to go all the way in.”

Diggle nodded. “You ready?” he asked, and Oliver sensed that the question was meant for the room as much as him.

Tommy and Sara had Oliver by either shoulder, and Felicity grasped his open hand. “We’re right here,” she said.

Oliver nodded. “Do it,” he said, and they all watched as the needle vanished into the taut skin of his injured knee.

Oliver gritted his teeth, but didn’t say a word — even though it felt like a strip of red hot steel sinking through skin and muscle. He stared sightlessly at his leg until Diggle stopped the needle, and shifted his thumb to the injector button.

The chip made no sound, not that Oliver would have caught it anyway, because as soon as it shot in, he hunched over hard with a short rasp of breath. If his knee had felt like it was on fire before, now it felt like it was overheating, molten, throbbing in time to his racing pulse.

“Okay,” Felicity said, releasing Oliver’s blanched hand from her own and picking up her tablet. “Time to see if we got it right.”

She was typing for a good two minutes, alternating between checking an enhanced diagram of his knee and what looked like the operating program for the chip. “Placement’s ideal, and systems look good,” she said. “Ready?”

Oliver nodded again, and she swiped quickly on the controls.

Instead of the dramatic sweep of relief he might have expected, all he felt was a small tick of warmth — not from his bones or muscles — but the chip itself, activating at Felicity’s command. It was new, and exceedingly strange, but far from the alarming sensation of having lava beneath his skin.

It felt softer, somehow.

Better.

Without being told to, Oliver slid towards the edge of the bed, gingerly holding his right foot above the floor before it made contact. He breathed out when it did, and everyone tensed, but Oliver got up, pushing off with the strength of both arms, limping with his weight on his good leg to the table across the aisle.

Then he straightened up.

“Does it hurt?” Felicity said breathlessly.

Oliver nodded slowly, because it did. “But it’s better,” he said, having trouble believing it himself. “I can’t explain it, but it’s better.”

Everyone gave a collective sigh of relief. Even Tommy, who’d turned a delicate shade of gray during the operation. “Hey, I guess you’re the bionic man now,” he said, weakly. “Should I mark my calendar for your robo-lens transplant too?”

Oliver picked up one of the nearby flechettes, turning it over in his hand. “I don’t need either of those to hit you.”

Felicity gestured vaguely to the both of them to make death threats later, her attention still focused on the readings coming from her tablet. “So I’ll have to keep running tests and diagnostics on the power levels and monitor the electrical pulse intensity,” she said, sounding both relieved and incredibly worried all at once. “I mean, it’s supposed to be calibrated specifically to each subject, so it might take a few hours, maybe a day —”

Oliver moved impulsively towards her, trusting her technology to help get him there, and Felicity never finished her sentence, because he was hugging her. Her glasses were slightly lopsided and her hair was sticking up from a full night of no sleep, but all he could see was how she’d helped him — saved him — again. By being herself, by being completely, startlingly brilliant.

“Felicity,” Oliver said. “Thank you.”

There was a pause, and she didn’t say anything, shutting her eyes like it was a private moment for them. “Don’t thank me yet,” she answered, finally. “We’ve still got work to do.”

* * *

Oliver exhaled, feeling the breath leave his lungs and throat in a smooth, controlled release. There was sweat on his chest and back; he could feel drops of it sliding downwards to his neck, the sides of his face, then towards the ground — ten, fifteen feet away. He pushed his torso forwards, once, twice, curling towards his abdomen before uncurling again, holding his arms straight and immobile at his sides.

The muscles in his back and torso were aching — at a low, consistent frequency — but Oliver didn’t care. It was exertion, meant to calm him and to hone his focus, at the same time to distract — like meditation.

Maybe it was to remind himself that he could, after —

Oliver forced the thoughts from his head. Slade catching his punch and twisting him towards the ground. The tearing sensation in his knee, and the pain that came after, Slade lifting him over nothing, another taunt of how outmatched the both of them were.

His sneering voice, the contempt and the threat.

_I’ll snap her neck myself_.

“Ollie, what the _hell_ are you doing?”

Oliver opened his eyes, and saw Tommy standing on the ground beneath the steel bars he was using, looking indignant.

“Training,” he answered, repeating the motion.

“You’re _hurt_ ,” Tommy said, like it was obvious.

“Thanks to Felicity, I’m not,” Oliver said, twisting at the waist as though he was avoiding invisible blows, his elbows drawn up, fists in front of his chest. “But I’m off my game.”

Tommy had one hand over his face. “How is hanging upside down doing _sit-ups_ — how is that _off_ your game?” he said. “What about your knee?”

Before, just mentioning his knee injury would have been enough to trigger another twinge, not to mention the fact that they’d be having the conversation with the both of them on the ground, but now, Oliver slid his legs from the harnesses and gripped the steel bars, letting himself hang.

“Slade knows that he injured me,” he said. “That’s why he’s been quiet. A hunter doesn’t run after injured prey — it waits for the animal to run itself down, then it goes in for the kill.”

“Sure, maybe he’s lying low because he’s got something extra-evil cooking for you.” Tommy had chosen to sit on a worktable, leaning back to speak to Oliver. “And by you, I mean us. Or maybe — and I like this one better — maybe he’s got bigger fish to fry than the Arrow.”

“No,” Oliver said. “All of this is about getting back at me for what happened on the island. He made himself an army of Mirakuru soldiers just like him, but he’s taking his time because he thinks I’m weak, and that I won’t be able to fight back.”

“Right,” Tommy said. “And doing your best bat impression is a giant karmic…finger? You gotta help me out here.”

Oliver let go, and he dropped with a light thud, straightening up with unexpected ease. “Easy,” he said. “I intend to make him regret that assumption.”

Tommy took one look at his face, still frowning. “I’m trying to think if I’ve ever seen you like this.”

“Like what?”

But Oliver didn’t wait to hear the answer; he was at the training dummies now, squaring his shoulders as he faced the protruding wooden limbs. His first hit raised a small breath of dust when it landed, and Oliver focused on controlling his breathing, timing his blows to a rhythm.

Tommy braced the dummy from the other side, forcing Oliver to make eye contact. “The reason why you got hurt in the first place was because you rushed in to face Slade alone,” he said. “Felicity gave you a _Get Out of Jail_ card with that computer thingamajig in your knee, but now I’m starting to think it wasn’t a good thing.”

“Because I won’t be an easy target when Slade tries to kill me?” Oliver said.

“No, because I’m worried the lesson hasn’t sunk in,” Tommy answered. “You can’t do this alone, and you’re not immortal. You’ve survived a lot of things — things that put you as close to the mark as I’ve seen — but you’re not.”

Oliver threw a final punch that made the dummy skid back an inch or two, forcing Tommy to stop it from tipping. He shrugged. “Why do you think I keep training?” he said.

Tommy made a noise under his breath that sounded like a combination of curse words and less than flattering names for Oliver, but he reached into his pocket and brought out a grubby square of paper, folded a few times over and covered with his unintelligible handwriting. “Since you’re free, can you run interference with your mom’s campaign manager? Seriously, I volunteer the club for a campaign rally and he’s all over me like fleas — no, worse — cra—”

“Don’t,” Oliver interrupted, before Tommy could compare the campaign manager to genital lice, an image he unequivocally did not need — on every level. “And I can’t. I have work to do.”

Tommy looked around, as though he was expecting to see a heap of sparring equipment behind him. “What? Your mother’s running her campaign, Thea’s doing club stuff and ignoring the former, and I’m trying to segue into a rant about what’s stressing me out. What could you _possibly_ have to do now that’s more important?”

Oliver circled around the table where Roy was still unresponsive, with only a slight limp that betrayed the fact that he was still healing, reaching for the clothes he’d left on the back of the chair. “I have to head out for a bit,” he said. “Can you watch Roy?”

Tommy pointed at the bag of takeout he’d left on the table. “But I brought enough for two. What am I supposed to do with the extra?”

“Eat it.”

“Charming, but I’m watching my figure. Not all of us have super-vigilante metabolisms, you know.” Tommy frowned, looking at the clock. “Where are you off to, anyway? You’re not CEO anymore.”

Oliver shrugged his arms into his shirt. “I have work to do.”

* * *

Felicity looked under the trailing sheet for any sign of her phone, which she’d dropped, at an indeterminate location, during a somewhat indeterminate point of time. “I have to be back at the office in forty-five minutes,” she said, as the rest of the bedcovers shifted and she felt Oliver’s hands on her waist.

“Which gives us thirty before you have to go,” he said against her neck, and she muffled a laugh into the pillow as he shifted lower, tickling her _very_ untanned skin with his facial scruff.

“Why do I get the feeling that you’re speaking from experience here?” she asked, squinting out the thirty-something floor view while Oliver carried on. “And here I was, thinking you offered to meet me at a downtown hotel room out of the goodness of your heart.”

Oliver was somewhere near the base of her spine now. “Can’t it be both?” he asked.

Felicity aimed a slap at his bare shoulder and rolled over, a sign of her determination to stay on point. As much as staying on point was still an option, given how she’d meant to meet him for lunch and a quick check on how the bio-stimulant was working with his knee.

That, along with their clothes (arguably their dignities too), had ended up on a tasteful navy carpet in a very nice hotel suite. “You’re supposed to be resting, letting your body do its thing,” she said, pulling the covers up to her throat. “Not…fooling around in some hotel room with your girlfriend.”

Oliver’s hand was still resting on her stomach, even though the rest of him looked like it was paying attention to what she was saying. Or at least thinking about the legitimate reasons for them meeting up. “My leg hasn’t hurt for a while,” he said. “I managed my usual training this morning. So whatever the prototype’s doing, it’s doing it _incredibly_ well.”

Trying not to appear too pleased with herself, Felicity slid her tablet from the completely glass nightstand and brought up the operating program for the bio-stimulant chip, not that she was disinclined to take Oliver’s word for it. Inserting experimental biotechnology prototypes into one’s significant others seemed like something she needed to take extra care with, especially since one of them was _de facto_ irreplaceable to her.

Hint: it wasn’t the prototype.

“Biomedical engineering isn’t really my forte, but everything looks good here,” she said, absently chafing her significantly less scarred knee against Oliver’s bandaged one without really thinking. “Your body’s not having an allergic reaction to the material, antibody levels look good…it’s the perfect trial run. Keep this up, and you might be able to get that knee back into those leather pants pretty soon.”

Oliver was reading the tablet screen over her shoulder, his breath warm against her ear. “Yeah?” he said, sounding completely, one hundred percent trusting. And not worried at all. “Science isn’t really my forte, but that’s good, right?”

Felicity bumped the side of her head into his chin, making him pull back, laughing. “You’re teasing me,” she said, depositing the tablet where she’d gotten it. “Just so you know, mister, I hold your current mobility in my two hands. You really shouldn’t antagonize me, because my finger could slip, totally and completely by accide— _gah_ —!”

* * *

 

" _Gah!_ "

Oliver rolled Felicity on top of him, and they were both laughing as she squirmed in half-hearted protest, his arms around her waist, her hair falling messily in both their faces while the midday sunlight poured in through the windows — completely and irrationally happy with themselves.

It felt almost like tempting fate, something risky, to smile with her and laugh. Like he was daring fate to try something else, daring bad luck to try again. But it didn’t feel like arrogance to be like that with Felicity — not really — it felt like being himself. It felt…normal.

Felicity made a sound between a groan and a self-deprecating laugh, coming back up for air. “I’m _so_ going to fall asleep in my afternoon conference call,” she whispered. “And I can’t tell QC’s Tokyo subsidiary that it’s because of my boyfriend.”

Oliver shuffled through his recollection for his less-than-stellar personal track record with their Director — like how he’d missed and rescheduled three review meetings in a row because of his nocturnal activities as the Arrow. “I think you’re a big improvement over the last guy,” he said honestly. “I have no idea how he lasted that long.”

She pulled gently on his ear. “A _very_ capable Girl Wednesday, that’s how,” she murmured.

Oliver smiled. “Exactly.”

Under the white sunlight, their hands made shadows against the headboard and the sheets, and Oliver was looking at their fingers, resting quietly together on the mattress, wondering how he ought to phrase what he was thinking out loud.

Felicity exhaled, slowly. She’d shifted to his side, her head on his chest, her eyes closed like she was dozing. “I know it’s only been a couple of nights, but I miss sleeping with you,” she muttered.

There was a pause, and Oliver didn’t laugh when her forehead wrinkled. “ _Sleeping next to you_ ,” she corrected.

“Not just _next to_ ,” he teased, and she pretended to bite him in retaliation, though she ended up nuzzling him instead.

“You know what I mean,” she said. “Roy’s out cold in the Foundry, which means no fooling around because _weird_ , my place is technically a no-go because super villains have the address, and I don’t see myself sleeping next to or with you while your mother’s down the hall.”

“After all this is over, we can go back to your house,” Oliver said, playing with their interlaced fingers. “Or —”

Felicity raised her head slightly. “Or?”

“We could think about getting a place of our own,” he said, his pulse speeding up a little at the words. “Maybe.”

“You think we’re ready for that?” Felicity sounded interested, like she was genuinely asking the question. “I mean…sometimes I wonder if we moved a little too fast from the get-go. We just started dating a couple months back, we’ve only kinda figured out the emotional and family baggage issue — plus you never really got to use the dresser drawer at my house, and I’m still living out of my suitcase in the Foundry. I literally have _no_ idea what’s normal — for us.”

The translation being, something always managed to get in the way of life. Of them being two normal people who loved each other, who knew each other’s blind spots and scars and were more than willing to learn them as they went along. Other couples talked about careers and futures and shared pet ownership — maybe, he guessed — and here they were constantly getting put on hold because of crises surfacing in ways that threatened to tear them and their lives apart.

Oliver hadn’t been expecting to have a serious talk about their relationship when he’d showed up at the hotel, but there was something pressing — and _genuine_ — about the opportunity that presented itself now.

“I don’t know what’s normal for us any more than you do, but I do know two things,” he admitted. “The first thing is that I’ve been happier these last few months than I thought I ever could be, and it’s because I have you.”

Felicity was smiling a little. “And the second thing?”

“There’s a part of me that regrets not telling you how I felt sooner. We might have been together — god knows how much earlier — if I’d just said something to you, instead of thinking it was the wrong time, that I was the wrong person. I’ve watched you walk away from me a thousand times because I was being stupid, and you’re right — maybe we’re moving too fast, and maybe it’s my fault. But maybe it’s that part of me still trying to make up for all the time I wasted when I should have been with you. So I don’t want to let you go,” he finished. “As…as long as you’re still in, I mean.”

Felicity was still smiling at him, her dimples in her cheeks, still tracing an invisible line over his heartbeat. Something about it made him feel incredibly brave and at the same time shy, breathless, waiting to hear her answer.

“All this to ask me to move in with you?” she said, finally.

“I’ve never asked someone before,” he admitted. “Now I know why.”

“Something along the lines of…the right time?” she teased, gently.

Oliver leaned down to kiss her. “More like the right person.”

She curled her arms behind his neck, her lips wide in a smile as bright as the sunlight around them. “Just so you know, my answer’s _yes_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haaaaa. I know, there's a certain suspension of disbelief that Oliver's knee could be in working order. But the poor guy has got STUFF to do.  
> Also, the 2x20 hotel room scene with Sara/Oliver really bugged me, so if you're wondering why the chapter took a fluff detour... :)  
> There's one last part of 2x20 (AKA the episode where Moira dies), and given the content I thought I'd end with the fluff chapter this time.


	37. Rally (Seeing Red, Part IV)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a long chapter this time. And uh, sorry.  
> :)

“I don’t see how it matters whether I’m wearing a red tie or a blue one,” Tommy grumbled, looping it around his neck like it was a noose. “It’s not like some impressionable voter’s gonna look at my neck and decide _hey, that guy’s wearing red — let’s vote Blood_. Let’s be real, they decide on who’s hotter and catchy campaign slogans.”

Sara looked like a bartender in a First Class airline lounge in the blazer and blue top the campaign may or may not have dress-coded her into, but she also looked like she was only half-listening to Tommy’s rant while he redid his tie. The small, curved knife flashed as she sliced lime into wedges, mingling with the sharp scent of the mint she’d been chopping before that.

Given the last few times he’d tried, Tommy was wary of waving a hand in front of or anywhere near Sara’s face. So he rolled a lime past the chopping board, banking on her reflexes to snap her out of the funk. It did. If a fly had made the mistake of buzzing around her head, she’d have snatched that tiny bastard out of the air. “ _Tommy_ ,” she said.

“Sorry, but as much as I enjoy your ninja moves —” He gestured at the crew and various members of the campaign setting up for Moira’s rally on the main floor “— not the time or place. I do however see that you look distracted, which is why I’m offering up my ears. For listening, I mean. They’re staying attached to me, in case that wasn’t already clear.”

Sara — thankfully — ignored the last part, and shrugged, the knife flashing as it bit through the fruit, juice gleaming on the scratched cutting board beneath her hands. “You sure you want to know?”

“When has my answer to that question _ever_ been anything but a yes?”

Sara still didn’t respond immediately, doing a pretty decent impression of concentrating on the task at hand (bartending), instead of what was clearly bothering her. “I don’t talk a lot about what I did in the League,” she began.

“No, that’s actually one of the things you’re pretty cagey about,” Tommy said. “Even for you.”

Sara didn’t dispute the commentary, her eyes far, far away. “I don’t know why, but lately I’ve been thinking about a story I heard while I was there,” she said. “A legend.”

Tommy waited. “About…?” he prompted.

“Ra’s al Ghul’s been the head of the League of Assassins since anyone can remember,” Sara said, her tone suddenly businesslike. “Assassins don’t exactly have the longest lifespan, but some of them who were raised in Nanda Parbat say that Ra’s hasn’t aged a day since they first saw him, almost as if…he’s immortal.”

Tommy listened, wondering inappropriately if said Nanda Parbatians were jumping to conclusions, and that Ra’s was in the habit of doing what rich Californian trophy wives did every year or so — which was the routine visit to their favorite plastic surgeon. Probably not. “I’m guessing no one’s ever asked Ra’s al Ghul.”

“No,” Sara said, a small, wry smile playing around her mouth. “But they whisper. And the stories are always about water — no,” she corrected herself, as though it was a mistranslation from something she’d heard in another language, either Arabic or something more ancient. “They’re about a pit. A pit that can do the impossible.”

“So…a supernatural hot spring,” Tommy summarized. “You’re saying it’s the reason why this Ra’s al Ghul hasn’t shriveled up from old age.”

“So they say. They also say it’s why he can’t be killed, because only he knows how to control the pit, and no one except for the Head of the Demon — the leader of the League of Assassins — has the right to use it.”

Tommy poked at Sara’s freckled arm. “Starting to worry about wrinkles?” he said. “Is that why you’re thinking about hot tub folk tales?”

Sara caught his hand, but she wasn’t smiling. “If the pit can stop a man from dying,” she said, in a different voice. “Can’t it bring back the dead?”

Suddenly, Tommy understood, and it hit him like a lightning strike. “ _Sara_ ,” he said. “You can’t be serious.”

She’d put down the knife, but her gaze was still on the gleaming blade, the look on her face caught between fascination and revulsion. “What if I am?” she asked. “What if it’s a way for us to get Laurel back?”

Again, Tommy swept a look around the club, making sure no one was within earshot, because the conversation — already in risky territory — had taken a sharp turn towards _supremely_ sketchy. “Sara, you’re talking about bringing back someone who died. Physically, died. No brain activity. Decomp. I may have dropped out of college, but even I know that’s impossible.”

Unfazed, Sara turned back to face him, her arms folded. “We both know that word means something very different for people like us,” she answered. “Look at the world we live in. How many times have you seen the impossible happen in front of your eyes? Why can’t that be Laurel?”

Tommy was shaking his head, his hands pressed together in front of his face. His thoughts were racing, not just because of Sara, but because of the crazy — irrational — _hope_ at the back of his mind, now elbowing its way to the forefront, that tiny voice telling him that maybe, _maybe_ she wasn’t wrong. That maybe it was possible.

How many times had he thought to himself that he’d give anything to see Laurel again?

Lost for speech, Tommy looked instinctively towards the photos — the wall of memories — that dominated the back of the bar, photos of smiling friends and family who’d been lost in the quake, loved and remembered. He’d looked less and less at her photo these days, but he still found her picture, a habit he couldn’t seem to shake. Laurel’s smile was still there, her head tilted to the side as she beamed at the camera, shy, but real. All of it, for the things he’d thought were perfect about her — even when she disputed the perfection of said things — the laughter, the awful cooking, the arms around shoulders and freezing nighttime walks he’d dragged her on, just to get her out of the office…

She was still _real_ to him, and with that came the things he knew she’d say if she was standing in front of him right now, hearing what he’d just heard.

_A pond full of magical hot water? Tommy Merlyn, I love a spa weekend as much as the next girl, but you know there’s no such thing._

_Grief isn’t easy, and it isn’t kind, but we both know you learn the best lessons by not taking the easy way out._

“She’s moved on, Sara,” Tommy said, and it hurt just about as much as he thought it would, admitting the truth. Which was to say, like a red-hot punch to the gut. “Wherever she is — it’s not — it’s not _here_ , and bringing her back, it wouldn’t be fair. It’s _not_ fair.”

“How can you say that?” Sara asked, breathily. “What’s _not_ fair is her dying because of Malcolm. What’s _not_ fair is her being crushed by CNRI, a place she fought for so that she could help the Glades, the people who needed help. What’s _not_ fair is me standing here in front of you when I should have been the one who died that night.”

“Sara, can you hear yourself?” Tommy returned. “You’re fixating. You’re the one who told me you never got to make things right with Laurel — _that’s_ what this is. You’ve been feeling guilty about Roy, and now you’re so caught up with wishing you and Laurel got the chance to make things right that you’re not thinking about the consequences. Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I could see my mom again, but she’s gone, Sara. Just like Laurel. Bringing her back won’t change this struggle inside of you — that’s something you have to fight on your own. What you’re talking about, that’s taking the easy way out.”

There was a long, painful silence.

“And Laurel wouldn’t want this for you,” Tommy finished. “Never.”

Sara’s fingertips pressed against the knife edge, until he could see the cuts welling red in her skin. She shook her head, slowly. “Then that’s where you and I disagree,” she said. “Because the way I see it — it’s a soul for a soul. I _owe_ Laurel, for all the things I did to her, to mom and dad. And I’m not afraid to make things right.”

Tommy stood his ground. “Don’t do this, Sara.”

“We don’t even know if I can,” she said, but Tommy knew she’d still do everything in her power to try.

“Just promise me something,” he said. “Promise you’ll say goodbye.”

Sara looked from the hairline cuts in her fingertips to Tommy. “So you can try and change my mind?”

“No, because you’re someone important to me,” he said firmly. “And if you’re not going to fight for your soul — I guess that’s where I come in.”

It was a risky move, trying to hug a trained assassin after a disagreement, but Sara let him do it anyway. With a deep, shuddering sigh that ached of being tired, worn down to the bone by something that was — and had to be — killing her, just a little, every single day.

Tommy let his chin rest on top of Sara’s head, wishing there was something more he could say. It wasn’t a truce, not even close, but he had a strange, inexplicable feeling that — if Laurel been standing in his shoes — she might have said the same thing.

* * *

“Roy’s vitals are looking better,” Felicity said, checking the beeping machines flanking the recovery bed and their sleeping Abercrombie-ish model of a friend. “Just the stubborn problem of him not waking up.”

Diggle checked the hanging bag of saline with a practiced eye. “Give him time. It’s a miracle he’s even still breathing at all.”

“I don’t know, maybe he smells all the politics going on twenty feet above him and he’s staying in protective hibernation until they leave,” she said, leaning slightly into Diggle’s shoulder. “S’what I would do.”

Diggle chuckled, but Felicity caught a glancing kiss to the side of her head. “I heard that,” Oliver said, very much changed into his suit and tie, and very much wearing his respectable _Candidate’s Son_ face.

Felicity left Diggle by the table and wandered over to Oliver, who was going through their stockpile of revamped sedative arrows, AKA the ones containing — in mystical terms — Tibetan pit viper venom and tonic of benzodiazepine.

“Expecting trouble?” she said.

“Can’t be too careful,” Oliver answered, completely serious as per usual. “Sorry about this — I know campaign rallies aren’t really your area.”

“Are you kidding? Booze at a nightclub?” she said. “Music so loud that none of her fancy campaign people can hear my verbal screw-ups? _In_.”

Oliver kissed her, laughing a little, and having him close was how Felicity noticed his phone was vibrating pretty much once every two seconds. Which was…an interesting addition to their private time, but also a stress-inducing reminder of how many things they had on their collective plates.

She tilted her face away from Oliver’s, glancing down at his suit jacket. “Please tell me that’s not bad news.”

“It’s my mother’s campaign manager,” he said, brushing it off. “Tommy already warned me the rally has him more worried than usual.”

“Did _not_ think that was possible,” she muttered. “So — about that thing you asked me. You know, the other day. In the hotel room. When we were…”

Oliver seemed to have completely forgotten about the venom arrows, what with him putting his arms around her waist, neatly pressed suit notwithstanding. “I remember,” he said, smiling in a way that meant she didn’t need to finish her sentence. _Thank god_.

Felicity pretended to be smoothing down his tie. ”So it doesn't bother you that I keep the nightstand light on while I'm reading, even if you're on the other side of the bed trying to sleep?” she asked, because the thought (one of many) _had_ occurred to her.

"I've slept through typhoons in part of a broken airplane. I don't think your reading habits are going to bother me that much,” he said matter-of-factly.

“What about my cooking?”

“Again, can’t get any worse than the island.”

“What about my rule that you always have to be shirtless inside the house?”

“I —” Oliver paused mid-sentence when he realized she was teasing, and Felicity tipped her head to one side, waiting for his answer. “That we can negotiate —”

“—later,” she finished for him, and tugged on the end of his tie so they could pick up where they’d left off.

In a _completely_ respectable way, seeing as Diggle and a too-unconscious-to-escape Roy were both nearby. Still, the nerves activated by the prospect of having to go upstairs and face the press felt a lot less troubling, especially after Oliver and (a lot of) kissing.

”We’re really doing this, aren't we? I mean, really thinking about _maybe_ doing this," she said, waving her hands at the correction.

Oliver caught one of said hands and pressed a kiss into it. “Exactly.”

Diggle had been giving them a discreet berth, but his phone had started buzzing too. “Come on you two,” he said. “Time to make an appearance upstairs.”

Oliver made a vaguely disgruntled sound after Felicity wriggled her way free, gathering up her bag and coat. “Are you sure you shouldn’t limp a little?” she said, eyeing his mostly-operational knee. “I mean, what if they get suspicious? Your mom was there when the doctor talked to you at the hospital.”

Oliver settled the coat on her shoulders. “Everyone has better things to worry about than whether I’m limping from a knee injury or not,” he said.

Diggle snorted. “I think you’re overestimating the tabloid readership around here.”

They were walking up the stairs when Felicity paused on the steps, looking back. Not to be dramatic, but because she could have _sworn_ she’d seen something move, back in the Foundry. Somewhere near Roy and the computers. But that couldn’t be. Roy was still out cold and the computers — along with everything else — were operating as per usual.

Diggle and Oliver both stopped behind her. “Everything okay?” the latter asked, taking in the look on her face.

Felicity frowned, wondering if she’d seen something flicker on the screen. “Yeah,” she said. “Everything’s fine.”

* * *

Oliver lifted his hand to wave at the cameras, wearing the appropriate smile wattage for a son who knew his mother was close to becoming Mayor. Felicity hung back a little, her hand tightening around his because of nerves, but she still kept a fixed smile on her face while they made their way inside the club, as if they hadn’t already been there the whole time.

The flashing lights and shouted questions were lost through the first black curtain, and Oliver nodded at the security guards keeping an eye on the next one, letting Felicity walk ahead of him.

Verdant was more or less unrecognizable, decked all over with red, white and blue, with Moira’s campaign art on the banners hanging from the upper floors alongside streamers and what looked like a net of balloons waiting to be released on cue — but in a non- _kids party_ kind of way.

The candidate herself was nowhere to be seen, but judging from the dozens of conversations going on, drinks and laughter, the rally was going just fine.

“ _Wow_ ,” she said, completely without irony. “Your mother really knows how to throw a party.”

“Oh no,” Oliver muttered, sighting the figure moving through the crowd like a more irritable Moses parting a slightly uncooperative Red Sea. “Campaign manager.”

“Copy that,” Felicity said. “I’ll go see if I can track down Tommy. Find me at the bar? Unless Mr Scary Campaign Man kidnaps you and makes you give a heartfelt speech on stage supporting your mother.”

Oliver groaned, and she dropped a quick kiss on his cheek. “See you in a bit.”

“See you in a bit,” he said unwillingly, moving away to intercept the man.

Felicity managed to get through the crowd because of Diggle’s much more intimidating physical size, but Tommy was on the other end of the bar serving up someone’s drinks, and she was contemplating the logistics of getting from east to west when a very small someone ducked underneath the gleaming partition and emerged on the other side.

“What can I get you?” Thea asked, with just enough of an edge to make it abundantly clear that she wasn’t enjoying herself at the rally, and given the choice, she’d have been holed up in the office upstairs — though Felicity had a feeling the private areas would have been commandeered for campaign use.

“It’s okay,” she said hastily. “I’ll just wait for Tommy or Sara to —”

“Felicity, it’s fine,” Thea said. “I might as well make sure one of the few people I’m speaking to at this shindig get a nice drink. What’ll it be?”

“Uh…a mojito, I guess?” Felicity turned to Diggle. “And a seltzer water for Mr Diggle, who’s too responsible to drink on the job.”

Thea raised an eyebrow. “Really? ‘Cuz if I was body-guarding for the Queens, I’d be drinking all the time just to get through my shift,” she said, adding ice and mint leaves to a glass. “Not that I’m accusing you of being unprofessional, Mr Diggle. Of all my brother’s bodyguards, you’ve lasted the longest. What’s your secret?”

“I tell good jokes,” Diggle deadpanned. “Mr Queen gets the punchline if he doesn’t shake me off.”

“Solid strategy.” Thea slid his seltzer over to him. “So are you still his bodyguard if he’s taking a break from being CEO, or are you on Felicity’s detail now?”

“Bit of both,” Diggle said. “Thank you for the drink, Miss Queen, but if you’ll excuse me — I think I should check on something in the backroom.”

Which was code for _Roy watch duty_ , but Thea didn’t know that. Felicity waved as Diggle disappeared into the crowd, leaving her alone with Oliver’s sister.

“So,” Thea served up Felicity’s mojito, complete with a little pink paper umbrella nestled in the ice (aw). “Getting used to bright and shiny events like this?”

“Never,” Felicity admitted, playing with her drink. “I always think they’re trying to take someone else’s picture so I end up ducking out of the way.”

Thea dried her hands on a rag, looking sympathetic. “Part and parcel of being a Queen,” she said darkly. “We have a hard time doing _small and private_.”

The resentment in her voice went into a glare at the upstairs office, which confirmed Felicity’s initial guess that the candidate had been set up in a temporary dressing room, making Thea’s preferred hideout off-limits.

“Can I say something?” Felicity said. “And feel free to ignore me, because it’s really not my business.”

Thea waited, which she interpreted as a yes.

“I know a little something about difficult family,” Felicity said. “And it’s not fun, it really isn’t. But at the end of the day — they’re always going to be there, and if you can’t cut them out of your life completely, maybe you should tell them what they can do to help you make your peace with it.”

“The request _go to hell_ springs to mind,” Thea said. “But I don’t think that’s a possibility right now.”

“No, it isn’t,” Felicity said. “But turning a new page is. I’ve seen Moira do that with me, and I used to think I was going to avoid her until eternity and beyond.”

In spite of herself, Thea looked a little curious. “What made you change your mind?”

“Oliver,” Felicity said simply. “He never asked me to — I don’t think he even wanted me anywhere near your mother — but Moira showed me what she could do with a second chance, and it was…worth it. The first step is taking that leap of faith.”

Thea didn’t say anything, but Felicity was more than okay with that, having said her fair share. She tried her drink, and raised her eyebrows. “ _Wow_ , you and Oliver are good at drinks.”

“Thanks, Felicity,” Thea said, and she knew it wasn’t in response to the compliment. “I’ll think about it.”

* * *

Oliver knocked. “Mom?” he said, trying the office door. It was unlocked, and he entered the darkened office mid-conversation, one of those counterparts being Tommy.

“Oh, thank god,” he said. “Backup.”

Moira looked around at Oliver’s entrance, and paused, visibly surprised to see him without a crutch. “Oliver,” she said. “Your knee — I thought —”

“The meds are working better than I expected,” he answered. “But I didn’t come here to talk about the accident, because your campaign manager just told me that you’re planning on making a concession speech tonight.”

Moira didn’t relax until Oliver had seated himself on top of the desk, but she shuffled the cards lying on the temporary dressing table, with a look that made it plain she wasn’t opening the subject to discussion. “I am,” she said. “Clearly, my advisers disagree, because they sent the both of you to try and talk me out of it.”

“Moira, you’re _winning_ ,” Tommy said. “That slime ball Sebastian Blood’s been bleeding voters since you joined the race — excuse the pun. Why would you let him win now? He’s going to run Starling to the ground with his crackpot activism.”

“Candidate Blood has a very pronounced vision for Starling City, and if his speeches are to be believed, he has a plan to usher in a new age for our city,” Moira said flatly. “I, on the other hand, would merely be prolonging the old guard.”

“Mom, his plans won’t work,” Oliver said. “You know it, I know it. Starling just doesn’t have the resources, and we’ll have even less when people like you decide to move elsewhere because of policies specifically targeting them. Blood’s good at making people angry, but he won’t unite them the way you could. Starling _needs_ unity.”

“Starling will survive without me,” Moira said, just as firmly. “As I told you at the hospital, we both know that the way to make things right with Thea has nothing to do with my continuing to campaign for mayor. She hates me, and she’s made an extremely valid point. I’ve based my platform on family, on being a mother. How can I assume the position in good conscience when my own daughter can’t stand to be in the same room as me?”

“Thea’s angry,” Oliver agreed. “And she has every reason to be, but I don’t think dropping out of the race and turning down the chance to become mayor is going to change that.”

“My lies have put her beyond all hope of forgiveness, I know,” Moira said, looking hurt. “But frankly, I don’t know where else to start, unless I do what she asks. If I keep running, I’m the liar she thinks I am, and she’s right.”

Oliver and Tommy looked at each other. “Okay,” Tommy said. “I have another suggestion, because I really don’t think it’s about you. It’s about Thea. Malcolm was — and is — the literal worst, and if Thea’s anything like me, she’s afraid that she’s more like Malcolm than you and Robert. All the lies, the manipulating, and _always_ having an agenda, even with a birthday card, even with a conversation over breakfast. That’s my dad, and that’s something I have to live with, but Thea has a chance — because she has you. You’re her mother, and whatever’s happened, you still matter more than Malcolm ever will, and if you get up on that stage and win this election, you have a chance to show her what she could be. You have a chance to show her that she can be someone _more_ than Malcolm Merlyn.”

Now Moira and Oliver were looking at Tommy, and even he was taken aback by the truth — the heartbreaking clarity of it. He knew that Tommy struggled with having Malcolm as a father, but to hear him say he was beyond hope while Thea wasn’t, that was something Oliver hadn’t expected.

“Malcolm and I were always…quite alike,” Moira said, finally.

Tommy stretched out his hand to her, and she grasped it with a faint look of relief. “No,” he said. “You’re different, and that’s exactly what Thea deserves a chance to see.”

“Neither are you, sweetheart,” she said, holding onto Tommy’s hand when he tried to pull away. “You’re nothing like your father. All the good in you…that’s Rebecca.”

“Well.” Tommy adjusted his tie, a blue one Oliver only remembered because he’d promised unequivocally never to wear it, on account of him looking better in red. Clearly, Moira was the exception to that declaration. “Glad I won _something_ in the genetic lottery.”

As always, Tommy managed to make Moira smile. The office phone rang once, sharp and startlingly out of place, and he reached over the desk, cutting off the sound by replacing the receiver. “I told them to call when they’re ready to start. Ollie, can you —?”

Oliver nodded, and Tommy grinned. “Looking forward to you kicking Sebastian Blood’s ass,” he said, giving Moira a quick kiss on the cheek. “See you two downstairs.”

Oliver clasped Tommy’s shoulder before he went, and Moira’s stare was still on the door when it swung shut, cutting off the noise from the rally downstairs, for all the nerves and expectations, choices that had to be made…

Moira walked over to the sofa under the shaded windows, which had been doubling as Thea’s bed when she stayed in the office. A bright blue blanket was still draped messily over the seat cushions, along with a small mound of discarded clothing, and Moira made a faint tutting sound under her breath as she started to fold things in the pile.

It was always the private moments when Moira was at her most maternal.

“Mom,” Oliver said, because they still needed to talk.

“I wouldn’t lie about that, you know,” she said, sounding thoughtful. “Tommy’s nothing like Malcolm.”

As someone who’d fought Malcolm and seen the ugliness there was beneath the veneer of old money and good looks, Oliver agreed. “He’s the best of the family — him and Thea,” he said. “And he’s not wrong to say that she needs to see you do something good. All of us know a little something about carrying the sins of others — ours too — but Tommy knows what it feels like to carry a bigger burden than most people.”

Moira was a silhouette against the window, but now she turned, silently, watching Oliver as he spoke.

“You should stay,” he said. “Stay, run, and win. Make Starling City better, and start to right the wrongs that got you here in the first place. It’s the right thing to do.”

Moira was so still that he wondered if she’d heard him at all. Then she mouthed, _sins of others_ , as if that was the phrase she’d latched onto, one that was important beyond the rest.

“Tommy’s not the only one who knows about the sins of the father, is he?” Moira said quietly.

The question was so unexpected that for a moment, Oliver didn’t realize its magnitude. And she’d asked it so softly, even though it was a question that could change everything.

He didn’t speak.

Moira didn’t accept his silence, not today. “Oliver, is he?” she asked.

Oliver stood, and the ease with which he did it, despite being barely able to stand on his feet just a few nights before, Moira absorbed all of it with the same, searching gaze. No, not the same. It would change, if she knew.

But it was as if she already did.

“Oliver, I know,” she said, slowly. “I know who you are.”

A memory rushed to the forefront of his mind now, of him pulling the hood from his face and seeing Tommy stare at him blankly — then with accusation. _Killer. Murderer. My best friend._ Someone he’d known for most of his life, hating him.

It had almost destroyed Oliver.

And what would Moira say?

“Mom —” The word almost choked him, because he hadn’t expected it, not for her to find out so soon, and not like this.

“You never told me, so I never asked,” she said. “But while you may have cultivated an ability to keep secrets since your return from the island, I’m afraid it never quite worked with me, not with someone who’s known you since you were born. All those injuries, all those times you’d duck out with an _awful_ excuse and the vigilante would appear, the way trouble seemed to find you against all odds…frankly, I’m surprised you haven’t been confronted with the truth more often.”

Oliver was still waiting for her to say it. The condemnation. The accusation.

“You and Tommy have always had a tendency to get involved in the same mischief,” Moira continued. “It’s strange, but it was always your way of keeping each other safe. Even so, I’m sure you can understand why I’ve found it hard to close my eyes at night, knowing that both my sons are risking their lives to keep the city safe.”

_You dragged Tommy into this. He’s following your lead_.

“No one was ever supposed to find out,” Oliver managed, and it felt like he was confessing a wrong. “I didn’t want you to know.”

“I guessed,” she said. “And I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for you. The Undertaking, the Triad, facing Malcolm on your own…I don’t know how I never told you before today, but I hope you won’t stop me from saying that I don’t think it’s possible…to be any _prouder_ of you than I already am. Oliver, I am so proud of the man you’ve become.”

Oliver hesitated, because he didn’t understand. He didn’t understand why Moira wasn’t angrier, why she wasn’t lashing out. Why she’d just…accepted him.

“I’m not who you think I am,” he said. “I — I’ve killed people, mom, and —”

“So have I,” Moira said, with steely resolve. “And to repeat your words, I carry those sins with me, every single day. But if my son can find the strength to do what he does, every night, for a city of people who will never know his name — I think I can find a fraction of that strength to continue my run for mayor. As you say, it’s the right thing to do.”

“Mom, I…” Oliver found himself at a loss for words, and Moira reached up, gently laying her long, graceful hands on his face. She smiled.

“There will be time to talk, when you’re ready for me to hear it,” she said gently. “But right now, there’s something I have to do.”

Oliver was still too stunned to say anything else, but he nodded, because he knew. “Good.”

* * *

“Excellent speech, Moira,” said a man Oliver vaguely recalled from the donor list, wringing her hand with enthusiasm. “Congratulations.”

“Thank you, Bernard,” she answered. “You’re too kind.”

“Moira, very well done!”

“Thank you, thank you so much for coming.”

“Oh, it was just wonderful —”

On it went. But eventually, the crowd of well-wishers dispersed, at least for the moment, and Oliver managed to obtain two champagne flutes, one for himself, the other for his mother.

“Thank you, sweetheart,” she said. “Your sister didn’t look pleased at all, did she?”

“It’ll take some time.” Oliver still found it exceedingly strange to just be standing there with his mother, in the middle of a campaign event, after finding out that she knew his secret. There should have been more fallout, more chaos, more…

Everything.

“Mom,” he began.

Moira’s hand slipped into the crook of his arm, and she steered him into a slow walk through the crowd, speaking quietly with her head tilted towards him, in a way that simultaneously discouraged interruption while also being exceedingly polite. Her specialty. “So Tommy knows, as does Felicity and Mr Diggle,” she said, like she’d been keeping a tally in her head. “What about Walter?”

“No,” Oliver said. “He only ever saw the Arrow.”

“Not the case with Malcolm, I presume.”

Oliver nodded, and Moira looked curious, lifting the glass to her lips. “I wonder why he never threatened to tell me. Common courtesy, from one parent to another?”

“Maybe he thought you already knew.” _So, incredibly strange_.

“And Thea? After all this talk of the truth, had you ever considered telling your sister?”

“I want to,” Oliver said. “But —”

“Are you concerned she’ll want to follow in your footsteps?” Moira asked, with an understanding look. “She always did chase you around the house when you were children. If Tommy’s any indication, it certainly seems to be something of a trend.”

“Maybe,” he admitted, to her question about being worried. Then, less easily, about the truth. “Maybe tonight.”

“Maybe,” Moira agreed, and waved at someone Oliver didn’t see. “ _There_ you are.”

Felicity had been wandering the floor with Thea, and the former looked cautiously at the latter before making her way over. “It was a really good speech, Moira. Congratulations.”

Moira beamed at Felicity, so broadly that she looked a little nonplussed. Oliver crossed over to Felicity and as he bent slightly to greet her with a kiss, she gave him a questioning glance. “Later,” he murmured in her ear.

When they both turned back, the moment was made all the more awkward by Thea maintaining a stony silence towards their mother, and Moira merely looked resigned.

“Well,” she began. “The club certainly looks wonderful. I did have my concerns about holding it at a nightclub, but Thea, you made it look so wonderful for Sebastian Blood’s campaign event. It seemed silly not to take a leaf out of his book.”

“Yeah, the over forty, filthy rich demographic is _really_ the sweet spot for Verdant,” Thea said, keeping her sarcasm dialed reasonably low — mostly for Felicity’s benefit. “They’re always up for bottle service.”

“Is it weird that it sounds like something Tommy would dream up as business plan?” Felicity wondered out loud.

“You forgot the waiters and waitresses in suspenders and top hats,” Oliver said.

Even Thea cracked something of a smile, and Moira was about to say something when a sudden gunshot shattered the party.

Oliver pushed Felicity down towards the floor, seeing his mother do the same with Thea. He lifted his head, rising from the defensive half-crouch, searching the similarly panicked crowd for the source of the attack.

A flash of red, darting almost too fast to catch.

Thea had looked up too, now following the direction of his stare. Confusion registered, replaced rapidly by disbelief. “Roy?”

Moira heard the name. “Roy Harper?” she said, and Oliver knew she was recalling in detail the destruction in her house after he’d attacked her children.

A body went flying into one of the _Queen for Mayor_ banners hung against the wall, colliding with enough force to rip the sturdy canvas in two and send a security guard through the scaffolding. Screams went up from the crowd, orders were shouted by the remaining security team, everyone was racing for the exits, and the lights were still flashing, flashing —

“Venom arrows,” Felicity breathed. Oliver nodded, and she was gone, racing through the crowd to try and get to the basement staircase.

“ _Ollie_ ,” Tommy nearly collided with him, out of breath from wading through the sea of panicked people. “He got out. Sara —”

“I know.” Oliver turned, grabbing his mother’s hand. “Mom, you have to go. I’ll take care of this, I promise. Get Thea, and —”

“ _Thea, no!_ ” Moira was looking over Oliver’s shoulder.

Instead of following the terrified crowd, Thea was pushing in the opposite direction, making her way towards the center of the floor where Roy was having a skirmish with the security detail. “He’s here because of me!” she shouted back. “Roy! _Roy!_ ”

Oliver cursed and took off after his sister, leaving Tommy to make sure Moira got out of the club. On the way there he was joined by Diggle, the two of them doing their level best to fight their way through the tide of people hurtling for the exits.

“He’ll kill her,” Diggle grunted, and Oliver saw his gun at the ready. “Oliver, I don’t know if we can stop this rampage without hurting someone.”

In lieu of a response, Oliver grabbed him by the back of his suit and they both rolled out of the way, narrowly avoiding the massive black speaker Roy had just uprooted from the floor, wires and all, and swung like a club. One of the remaining guards wasn’t so lucky, and he went flying off to the side. Roy kicked another in the leg, producing a _crack_ that made Oliver wince, and when the man landed on one knee, yelling in pain, Roy grabbed him by the shirt and tossed him easily towards the bar. He slammed into the mirrored shelves and the wall of memorial pictures, sending the whole thing towards the ground in pieces. Broken glass cascading over the floor, and more screams.

“ _Roy!_ ” Oliver shouted. “Stop it!”

The floor was mostly clear, except for a gaggle of rally attendees who’d been trapped upstairs. They were on the steps now, and Roy seemed to take their numbers — five, six — as the greater threat. He took a step towards them, his stare blank and all the more chilling for it.

“Hey!” Diggle pulled his handgun and fired a warning shot that landed harmlessly in a concrete pillar, ringing in the closed space. “Stay away from them.”

“No!” Thea almost ran towards him, but Oliver held up his hand to stop her.

“Speedy, _don’t!_ ”

The bullet hadn’t hurt Roy, but it _had_ cut close enough to get his attention, and Oliver pulled Diggle back. “Get my sister and those people out of here,” he said, reaching for the closest thing he had on hand. It was a steel pole, the kind used to cordon off areas in the club, and it weighed heavily in his hands when he picked it up. But Oliver knew it still wouldn’t be enough for someone with Mirakuru in their system. Their only hope was to stall long enough for Felicity to get the sedative.

The pain in his knee was dulled thanks to the prototype chip, but Oliver still needed to be careful. “Easy,” he said to Roy, in a low voice. “I saved your life, remember? You were in the machine. They drained you.”

Oliver was conscious of his sister watching just out of earshot, Diggle ushering the rest of the bystanders towards the door with her help. There was no sign that Roy even remembered they’d fought when he lunged at Oliver, his fists slicing dangerously through the air. Oliver sidestepped a punch and swung the steel pole at his middle.

It rattled upon impact, but Roy didn’t even blink. He grabbed the other end of the pole and used it to swing Oliver towards the side, sending him rolling across the floor. Oliver landed hard on the concrete, and he felt the first strains of protest in his knee. The chip was working overtime to suppress the pain, but if he took another hit —

“Ollie!” Thea screamed.

Diggle stepped in then — he had to — but he didn’t want to pull the trigger, and that few seconds of hesitation gave Roy the time he needed to swing his makeshift weapon, catching the side of the gun and wrenching it from Diggle’s hands.

Diggle was more formidable than Oliver in terms of pure strength, but even two of his punches landing one after the other just made Roy twist his head, as though he was waiting for more. “Come on, man,” Oliver heard Diggle say. “You can snap out of this.”

Roy punched him hard enough to send him skidding back, and proceeded to hurl him towards the staircase.

“Diggle!”

Thea was the only one left standing in Roy’s path, and she didn’t run. She looked at him like she was afraid, not because he scared her, but because she was afraid of what he was doing to himself. “Roy,” she said, her voice cracking. “Why are you doing this? This isn’t you.”

“Thea!” Oliver shouted, but Roy was already face to face with her, and getting closer.

“Where did you go?” she whispered. “Why did you run? I could have helped you. I owe you that, remember?”

A door burst open somewhere, but it wasn’t the front entrance. A second later, Tommy and Felicity were skidding into Verdant, the both of them carrying something in their hands. Syringes. The venom.

Tommy saw what was happening and cursed. “Thea, get away from him — he’s not right in the head!”

Thea ignored them, all of them. Her hands were hovering between her and Roy, above his forearms. “You saved me once,” she said to him. “It’s my turn to save you.”

Roy’s arm moved faster than any of them could have stopped, and suddenly Thea was choking, his hand around her throat as he lifted her clear of the floor, same as he had with Tommy. Oliver forced himself to his feet, but he wouldn’t make it fast enough. Tommy tried, and Roy only sent him flying back with a single smack to the chest.

“Roy,” Thea choked. She had his wrist, and she was still pleading with him, with the part of his soul Oliver wanted to believe the Mirakuru hadn’t destroyed. “Please. _Fight_.”

“Harper!” Sara’s voice was immediately recognizable, even with the voice modulator on. “Put her down.”

* * *

They were out of options. Positions had been reversed, and instead of Tommy being on the receiving end of Roy’s choke grip, this time it was Thea. Oliver’s knee was acting up again after taking a few hits, Diggle was crumpled at the base of the staircase, unconscious, and Sara was the only one who had the slightest chance of stopping Roy.

The only problem was — which way? Non-lethal, or the other option?

They’d made that choice without her once, now she was the one who had to make it herself.

Sara landed from the rafters with a soft _thump_ , and the gun in her hands was one of Diggle’s, taken from the many drawers in the Foundry. The tinted light inside the club made her wig look platinum white, her skin ice cold, and her eyes were unreadable behind the black mask.

She released the safety. “Harper,” she repeated. “You may have the Mirakuru in your system, but it won’t protect you from a headshot. Don’t make me ask again.”

“Don’t — hurt — him,” Thea pleaded. Her lips were going pale. “ _Please._ ”

Tommy couldn’t shout Sara’s name, not in front of Thea, but he felt it burn in his throat. Along with the panic. Roy could break Thea’s neck with a twist of his fingers, and if he didn’t loosen his grip, she’d suffocate anyway.

Felicity had raced over to Oliver, and he was the one holding the syringe now as she helped him to stand.

“It’s not a soul for a soul,” Tommy said, forcing her to remember their conversation from before. “I know you think you’re far gone, but you can still make a choice that defines who you are. You don’t have to hurt him.”

Sara’s eyes narrowed, and Tommy’s heart leapt into his throat when she raised her arm, pointing the gun, up, up, up — and fired.

The shot cut through the supports holding one of the heavy stage lights in place, and the attached wire whipped around and around the pole as it uncoiled, before plummeting towards the ground like a less operatic version of a severed chandelier.

The patch of ground that also included Roy.

He moved, reflexively throwing Thea back, out of the zone of danger as he moved to avoid the falling light. It crashed into the ground with a burst of blinding yellow sparks, and Sara pulled the trigger again.

Roy jerked back, blood streaming from his arm, the other thrown up to shield his eyes. Oliver was ready, darting behind him and stabbing him in the neck with the syringe. The reaction was immediate — Roy slumped and Oliver caught him, lowering him gently to the ground in the same unresponsive state he’d been in when they found him in Slade’s lair. Felicity helped Diggle sit up; the latter groaning and looking dazed, but in much better shape than the other members of the Queen security detail.

Tommy raced over to Thea, who was lying on her side, her eyes shut. He felt for her pulse, checked her breathing. “She’s okay!” he said, thanking any and all available deities for the last-minute save. “Thank god.”

Sara returned the gun to her belt, and unclenched her fists, like they’d been frozen into tension, and they all looked at each other, breathing a slow, collective sigh of relief.

_Close save._

* * *

Oliver winced as Felicity dabbed at the re-opened cut at the side of his face, originally scabbed over after his fight with Slade, now fresh and stinging. “Almost done,” she murmured, and pulled out a pack of butterfly stitches from her bag. “Pretty sure the cuts will all be closed up by the time the paramedics get to you.”

The paramedics in question had already left the club with the more seriously injured, leaving a small army of CSIs and police uniforms to puzzle out the pieces of the interrupted campaign event. Oliver was a little out of the way, done under protest, but he’d made sure to keep Thea within his sight line while Felicity checked on his injuries — the ones she could reach, anyway.

“They have more important things to worry about,” he reminded her, thinking about the security guards Roy had managed to put out of commission. “Thanks for the venom arrows.”

Felicity smoothed the fresh stitches onto his skin, and tapped him underneath the chin with a smile. “Something you get to look forward to, right? Live-in Girl Wednesday.”

In spite of how tired he was, Oliver smiled. “Something to look forward to,” he agreed, and started to get up.

“Whoa,” Felicity said, pushing him back onto the bar stool. “Not done, mister. You forgot about that knee of yours. Getting thrown around was not part of the prototype specs.”

Oliver made a disgruntled noise, watching as she pulled out her tablet and pored over the diagnostics, her forehead wrinkled in concentration. “Is there ever going to be a day when you’re not worried about me?” he asked.

“Maybe the day pigs start flying?” she answered, eyeing him over her glasses. “Because that’s the day Oliver Queen stops trying to be a nocturnal do-gooder.”

“Don’t remind me about _good_ ,” Oliver muttered, running a hand across his face. “Tonight was not one of those nights.”

“What are you talking about?” she said, setting down her computer. “We were a _team_ tonight. Sara saved Roy’s life — voluntarily — otherwise known as beating the crap out her demons. You all worked to save Thea, which you did, and on top of that, your mother stands a fantastic chance of being mayor. Sounds like a pretty good night to me.”

“She knows,” Oliver said, suddenly. Because of all the things he couldn’t make sense of, that was high on the list. “My mother. She’s known for a while — almost all along.”

Felicity went still. “About you being…”

Oliver nodded. “She said she was proud, Felicity,” he said, and saw her face break into a smile, a smile that made his heart leap all the same. “I don’t understand why, but she’s proud of me. She’s —”

Felicity was already hugging him, her arms around his neck, her face warm against his skin. “I do,” she whispered, just for him to hear. “Because you’re a hero.”

* * *

“I can’t believe it,” McKenna said, surveying the damage, including the smashed light fixture with crime scene markers around it. “Why would he decide to attack a crowded rally?”

Tommy looked like he was strongly contemplating the bottle of tequila before Oliver forced him to put it back. “I don’t have a clue,” Oliver said, in a voice with just the right amount of inoffensiveness. “But I have a feeling that’s the department’s job.”

“He was here for me,” Thea said, looking smaller than usual in the foil blanket they’d wrapped around her for shock. “Roy came here because he was looking for me.”

“Did Harper say anything?”

Thea shook her head. “And I think one of the vigilantes took him,” she said. “The woman in black. The one who’s been running around the Glades.”

McKenna gave Tommy a look at that, as though silently questioning what he knew of the Arrow’s accomplices, but she noted it down anyway. “I’ll put the word out. But you should stay away from him, Miss Queen. I don’t think he’s safe to be around right now.”

Thea seemed like she was about to disagree, but at a quelling look from Oliver, she demurred.

“I’ll walk you out,” Tommy offered, and he gave Thea’s shoulder a squeeze before he followed his girlfriend towards the exit.

“Thea, where are you staying tonight?” Felicity asked. “Oliver said you’ve been at the club, but if it’s an active crime scene —”

“— thanks, but I’ll get a hotel room or something,” Thea said, shaking her head. “Maybe this is the universe telling me to do something about the flooded basement and put in a den.”

Oliver coughed. “Come on, Speedy. Come home with me and mom — just for tonight. It’s late, you’re exhausted, and the mansion has security.”

Neither he nor Felicity mentioned the fact that Roy had gone smashing through the drawing room windows just days prior. Not that Thea saw it anyway, looking more preoccupied with worrying about Roy.

“Fine,” she said, like it didn’t make a difference to her either way. “Just for tonight.”

There was a small commotion near the entrance, and Moira walked quickly into the room like she’d just talked her way past a police perimeter, looking relieved to see them.

“Oh brother,” Thea muttered, turning the other way.

“They wouldn’t let anybody in,” Moira said, immediately going through the motions of checking Oliver’s visible scrapes, and attempting to have a look at Thea’s (she tugged her elbow clear). “Sweetheart, what happened to your neck?”

“Speedy’s agreed to stay over at the mansion tonight,” Oliver said quickly, before Thea could retort with something rude. “She can’t stay here with the police still doing their work.”

“Oh.” Moira blinked, betraying the unexpectedness of the request. “Why, of course. I should have thought of that myself. The car’s pulled up in front, if your business here’s concluded?”

The last part was a question, and Oliver nodded.

“Felicity, will you be joining us?” Moira asked. “I’m sure we can find plenty of room for you.”

“That’s very nice of you, but no thank you,” Felicity said. “I…promised to give Tommy a ride.”

Oliver felt her squeeze his hand. She was going to stay overnight to keep an eye on Roy, making sure he stayed sedated. There was always the late-night phone call, sneaking out his bedroom window and heading back to the club — and they both knew it. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he said, only partially meaning it.

She kissed him lightly on the cheek, and he caught the smallest wink. “Bet on it.”

* * *

Felicity heard voices in the Foundry when she made it back downstairs. Diggle and Sara were talking, the former cleaning up his scrapes with his usual stoicism, the latter hopefully realizing the good thing she’d done tonight.

“They’re off?” Diggle said.

Felicity nodded. “Thea went home with Oliver and Moira. Hopefully that’s a good thing.”

“Hopefully,” Sara echoed, leaving Diggle with the med kit like she assumed Felicity was the better one to keep him company. She didn’t go far, just a little past Roy’s recovery bed, this time with the added precaution of restraints so he wouldn’t go crashing any rallies again.

The thought reminded Felicity of what an _incredibly_ long day it had been, even for them. “How you feeling, soldier?” she asked, sitting beside Diggle and adjusting the ice pack to the more obvious lump at the back of his head — courtesy of Roy Middle-Name-Redacted Harper.

“Embarrassed that I let a kid half my age kick my ass,” Diggle answered. “Don’t tell anyone.”

Felicity tapped her nose. “Secret’s safe with me.”

“Hey,” Diggle said, pointing with his chin at Sara. “You should talk to her. She needs it, after tonight.”

“Copy that. _You_ get some rest,” she answered. “I’m calling in one of your paid sick days for you tomorrow. My treat.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Diggle said with a wink, and Felicity pushed off the table to join Sara.

It was impossible to tell from someone’s shoulder blades and the back of their (admittedly very pretty) head, but something about her seemed…a little less tense, somehow. Like she wasn’t expecting another fight.

Which made sense, because she’d just won a big one.

“You did a good thing,” Felicity said. “Roy’s still here because of you.”

“He almost wasn’t.” Sara, once again reminding her that she had Oliver’s self-blaming tendencies to a _T_.

“I know,” she agreed. “You could have shot him. But you didn’t. You chose another way.”

Sara’s smile didn’t last long. “Doesn’t change how many people I’ve killed,” she said, growing serious again. “Roy’s only one person.”

“Everyone has to start somewhere,” Felicity said, just realizing that Sara’s bike helmet was on a chair beside them. “Speaking of — am I missing something?”

Sara put her hand on top of the helmet, like she’d meant to shove it under the table, out of sight. “There’s something I need to do, and I’ve been pushing it back because I didn’t think I was strong enough to face it,” she said. “But I have to do it now.”

Felicity hesitated, because the undertone of that sentence seemed to imply _not here_. “You’re coming back, right?”

“That’s kind of the point,” she said. “I know the team needs my help to stop Slade, but if Roy’s any indication of what we’re facing, we need a little more help than just the five of us.”

“That sounds…very ominous,” Felicity admitted. “Can I ask? Or are you going to —” She jokingly drew a line across her throat and immediately regretted it.

Sara didn’t look mad, more like she was thinking. Staring down what was coming their way, with a glimmer in her startlingly blue eyes that looked suspiciously like hope. “It’s a risky plan, but if it works, we’ll have plenty of backup to face Slade’s soldiers. Plenty of backup to help spread your Mirakuru cure around, too.”

“You’re talking about the League of Assassins, aren’t you?” Felicity guessed. “I thought you and Nyssa were —”

“— done?” Sara said. “Were you and Oliver?”

Felicity must have still had a dubious look on her face, because Sara let it pass. “Hey,” she said. “I haven’t thanked you enough for worrying about me. For…everything. You’re one of the few people who didn’t make me feel like who I am.”

“A badass, you mean?” Felicity asked.

Sara nearly laughed. “You’re good for Ollie,” she said. “He’s happy because of you, and he hasn’t always had the best track record with that.”

“You’re good for us too, you know,” Felicity said. “I know you don’t believe me, but you are. You helped Tommy train when Oliver didn’t want to, saved his life more times than you’ll probably ever tell us. You watched Digg’s back in the field, and you _kicked_ Helena Bertinelli’s ass, saving a courthouse full of hostages — including me. Oliver owes you his life for a few close shaves too, and whatever you think you are, I promise you that all those things — they make you something else.”

Sara shook her head a little. “I’m a killer. I joined the League of Assassins and I did exactly what they taught me to do,” she said bluntly. “I’m far gone, and I don’t have what Ollie does. I don’t have a soul; I traded mine to survive after Lian Yu, and there’s nothing I can do to change that. What I’m doing now is just making the most of what I lost.”

Felicity listened, the same way she’d listen for Oliver, until Sara was done. Then she took Sara’s hand. “Tommy’s been calling you the Canary,” she said. “I always wondered why.”

That got her a gleam of recognition from Sara, but the bright look faded just as quickly. “In the League, they called me _Ta-er Al-Sahfer_ ,” she explained. “It means _the Canary_. Tommy heard it once and he wouldn’t shut up, so I let him keep doing it.” She hesitated. “Nyssa helped me choose the name.”

In a strange, inexplicable-beyond-gut-instinct way, Felicity wasn’t entirely surprised. Nyssa seemed like a hard-ass, the unapologetic homicidal princess a little too handy with ancient weapons, but so was Sara. Also abundantly clear was the fact that neither of them had gotten over each other, no matter what they said out loud, and Felicity had a feeling that post-Oliver-and-Lian Yu-Sara wasn’t the kind of person who put herself in romantic situations that asked for anything she wasn’t willing to give.

“Tommy’s stubborn by default,” Felicity agreed. “But I think he called you that for the same reason Nyssa thought it would suit you.”

Sara lifted her head. “Why?”

“Because it’s beautiful,” she said, simply. “And I can’t accept that someone far gone and _soulless_ could make other people see something good inside of her, so that she’d end up being called something as — _pure_ — as the Canary.”

Sara looked like she’d been about to say something, but Felicity wasn’t finished.

“There’s a hero inside of you, Sara,” she continued. “You do whatever you need to find her, but she’s there, and she’s done a lot of good — enough good to make a strong case that she should forgive herself too.”

Sara looked at Felicity for the longest time without speaking, and then she reached over and pulled Felicity into a hug. Gently, always gently. The kind of hug that meant feeling the other person breathe, slow and calm, reassuring them that everything was okay. “Thank you, Felicity.”

It wasn’t their first hug, but Felicity felt a little shyer all of a sudden, and the sudden pink in her face and cheeks made Sara smile. She teasingly chucked Felicity beneath the chin. “I wasn’t kidding when I said Ollie’s lucky to have you.”

“I feel like there’s a joke to be made about how you should _steal me away_ , but I’m bad with delivery, so I’m gonna quit while I’m ahead,” she said, thinking completely out loud. “So I’ll just say: safe trip.”

Felicity watched as Sara reached for her leather jacket and put her arms through the sleeves, her hair a swirl of gold against the black. She followed her all the way to the stairs, feeling like she was watching a big sister leave the house after curfew. “You could stay a little longer,” she said. “Say goodbye to Tommy too. I mean, I know you’re coming back, but he hates being left out.”

Sara had one hand on the railing, and she smiled a little. “I promised him I’d say goodbye, but not now. Not for this. He’d just worry.”

Felicity _was_ worried. “You’re sure about this?” she said. “About your plan?”

Sara met Felicity’s gaze, and there was something steadied in the blue, something close to peace. “Surer than I’ve been about anything in a long time,” she said, and then she was hurrying soundlessly up the steps, leaving Felicity in the shadow. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

* * *

The silence in the car stretched on, showing no signs of abating. Thea was staring out the window at the lights swooping past the glass, acting like she was completely alone. Moira was holding Oliver’s hand, the single gesture revealing how scared she’d been on his behalf, and how relieved she was now, all without a single word being said between them.

“So I guess you’re becoming mayor then,” Thea said, so quietly that the words were almost lost over the sound of tires gliding across the road. “Were you even serious about dropping out from the race?”

“I nearly did tonight, but Tommy and Oliver convinced me not to,” Moira said. “They told me I had more to offer — not just to the city — but to you, if I stayed.”

“That’s news to me,” Thea muttered, with a faint accusatory look at her brother as though she was blaming him. “Not sure how I feel about the both of you ganging up on me.”

“No one’s ganging up on you, Speedy,” Oliver said, sitting forward a little. “But we’re a family. Family’s about compromise, so —”

“— so from now on,” Moira continued, gently, “I think we should do things differently. Starting with the truth.”

They both looked at each other, because they both had secrets. Malcolm was alive, and Oliver was the Arrow. Moira inhaled deeply, as though she was bracing herself for the blow.

“There’s something you ought to know about Malcolm Merlyn,” she began. “He’s…”

Moira never finished. She seemed to be having trouble speaking, looking confused, disoriented, a hand to her chest. The sudden slur to her words gave Oliver pause. Something wasn’t right. Just as the thought came into his mind, he suddenly caught a new scent. Something sickly sweet.

“Speedy, don’t breathe,” he said, trying the doors. He was holding his breath now, but his vision was already swimming.

_Knockout gas_.

Oliver unbuckled his seatbelt and slammed his fist into the privacy partition separating them from the driver’s side of the car. It rattled, but there was no response. They were still moving, either because the driver was knocked out too or because he was in on the plan. Thea was struggling to open the windows, and Moira was barely stirring in the seat opposite from her.

“What’s going on?” Thea gasped, after her breath ran out. “Ollie?”

Oliver always carried a weapon with him, and his fingers had just closed around the flechette he’d meant to use for picking the lock when the car door opened, without warning.

The motion carried him partway out of the car, forcing him to grab onto the door for balance. His head was spinning from the gas, and he was already dazed when a fist cracked against the side of his head, sending him crashing to the damp asphalt. A scream — Thea. They’d stopped in the middle of an unfamiliar junction, and before he could call his sister’s name — or even begin to formulate a plan — another sharp blow at the base of his neck sent him reeling into the dark.

* * *

Oliver was dreaming again. He saw flashes of the forest, kept real and alive in his memory by a succession of nightmares. He heard someone crying, the sound of distant voices. Suddenly, a light flared in his eyes, as coldly and remotely bright as a star, blazing phosphorus white and merciless.

_This._

Shado was going to die in the clearing again, and Oliver was going to be powerless to stop it. The nightmare never changed, no matter how much he fought back. The deck was stacked against him, and all his subconscious seemed to want for him was to relive the same night, over and over again.

“Hello, kid,” said Slade.

Oliver could taste blood in his mouth. One of the punches must have split his skin. Something was crusted on the side of his face, dirt and dead leaves sticking in his hair, his neck.

His hands had looked like that once, and Shado had been the one to wash them clean. He remembered that she had been kind, someone with an unfailingly good heart, but she was dead, and somehow — it was the ones she’d left behind who had turned her memory ugly.

“You can’t save Shado,” Oliver coughed. “She always — she always dies in the nightmare.”

“Is that so?” A hand twisted into his hair, and yanked. Oliver realized his hands were tied behind his back, tight enough to cut off the feeling in his fingers, and as his vision cleared, he saw Slade’s mocking smile. “There’s only one problem, kid. _This isn’t a dream_.”

Oliver’s senses, dazed from the residual effects of the knockout gas, seemed to sharpen at Slade’s words. Someone was crying. Someone —

“Mom?” he said, soft with disbelief. “Speedy?”

Neither of them seemed to be badly hurt, or hurt at all. They were grimy from being forced through the forest, and his sister was sobbing, at nothing short of pure terror. Slade had kidnapped her once before, but now —

The truth dawned on him, all while Slade stood in the stark, white light, smirking down at Oliver and his family. None of them had been physically harmed, because Slade didn’t need to.

Not yet.

“You know what happens next, don’t you?” said Slade. A gun clicked, an unseen threat, and it was the last piece of the twisted puzzle falling into place, as final as a death sentence. “ _Choose._ ”

* * *

“Would you believe that the fight smashed through the whole stock of vodka upstairs?” Tommy said, pinching one end of a gauze bandage between his teeth while he tried to knot it around his fist.

Felicity snipped off the part that he’d been chewing with a pair of surgical scissors and started to bind up the cut in his hand. “Borrow Oliver’s. He’ll never notice — by the time we’re finished with the red wine, he’s usually down for the count.”

“No way. Pretty sure he’s just faking it so he has an excuse to drunk strip,” Tommy said, with the kind of knowledge attributable to being present and accounted for at college frat parties. “Digg, my man, what say you?”

“Pretending to be deaf to this entire topic of conversation,” Diggle answered. “Nobody’s business but theirs.”

Tommy scoffed. “Party pooper.”

Felicity patted the freshly-done bandage slightly harder than necessary, making him wince. “There we go,” she said. “And hey, about Sara —”

Tommy made a noise that suggested he already knew what she wanted to tell him.

“—don’t worry,” Felicity finished. “I know you think she’s gone to renew her contract with the Murder League, but it’s different.”

“How?” Tommy gestured at Roy with his bad hand, instantly regretting it. “She _just_ took a step forward. How is going back to the League not going to send that crashing back to Square Negative Infinity?”

“Because she has a plan,” Felicity said. “Sara knows what she’s fighting for now. All of us.”

Tommy was usually the most accepting of Felicity’s pep talks, but this time he shook his head, giving her a poke between her eyebrows. “Whatever elf or pixie you have in that genius brain of yours giving off hopeful vibes, send some fairy dust my way, please.”

Felicity had just playfully swatted his finger away when she heard her phone go off. “Oop, better not be trouble at the office.”

It wasn’t. Tommy and Diggle looked around when Felicity dropped her phone with a clatter, rushing towards her computer and pulling up the operating system for the prototype bio-stimulant. She stared at the readings, trying to understand what she was looking at.

“What’s wrong?” Tommy asked.

“Problem. The program for the microchip keeps track of the subject’s vitals, so it sends a warning when they’re spiraling out of control — which it’s doing _right now_. Something must have happened on the way home. Whatever Oliver’s doing now, it’s got his heart rate way, way up.”

She snatched up her phone and started to call, but it kept going straight to voicemail. Images were flashing through her head, flashes of all the worst-case scenarios. Oliver twisting in pain — the chip dislodging from the implant site, damaging tissue and bone in the process — or short-circuiting, sending electricity coursing through his system at a voltage enough to paralyze, or —

She was the one who’d suggested the prototype, and if it ended up hurting him —

“He’s not answering.” Felicity willed herself not to panic. “ _Frack, frack, frack_. It’s my fault. The chip must have malfunctioned, he could be going into cardiac arrest somewhere, and we have no idea where he is.”

Diggle put a hand on her shoulder, a universal gesture for _wait_. “We don’t know that yet,” he said. “Can you ping his cell?”

“No, because I’ll only get the last location before he turned it off,” she said, and froze. “Wait. _Wait_ —”

Because she’d just had an idea. “Digg, you’re a genius. I can’t get a location off his cell,” she said, typing fast. “But I may have something better. The chip in his knee keeps a continuous data feed open with the operating program. If I repurpose that signal, I could follow it remotely, and —”

“— it’s like having a GPS tracker he can’t shake,” Tommy said. “Okay, that’s brilliant. Now what?”

The screens melted away, showing them the tracking program they reserved for high-speed chases. Except now it was flitting through virtual maps of Starling City at the speed of a camera shutter, tracing the remote signal off the prototype in Oliver’s knee. Felicity dug her fingernails into her palms, so hard that she felt the skin sting in protest. _Please please please —_

A beep, and all of them jumped. Felicity studied the map, and the blinking dot that showed Oliver’s position, squarely in the middle of the screen. “That makes no sense,” she said. “They’re in the middle of nowhere.”

“Felicity, I don’t think your prototype’s the problem,” Diggle said, staring at the monitors. “I think someone grabbed Oliver and his family, and that’s what made his vitals go haywire.”

“ _Someone_?” Tommy snatched up his bow and a quiver full of arrows, which he now jabbed at the screens like an accusation. “We know who, and if Slade has them, Ollie’s in big trouble. I’m taking the bike.”

“I’ll follow with Digg in the van,” Felicity said, tossing them all earpieces. “Patching everyone into comms. Let’s move. _Now_.”

* * *

“Choose,” Slade said, his voice a perfect, razor-edged whisper.

“No.” Oliver shook his head. Slade had no right to this nightmare. He had no right to — to —

_No no no no —_

“Slade, stop this,” Oliver said. “It’s between you and me. Shado never would have wanted you to do this — _revenge_ isn’t going to bring her b—”

A gunshot exploded into the air above them, making Thea cry out sharply with fright, and Slade lowered his arm. “Don’t tell me what Shado would have wanted. _You_ made the choice that left her dead at your feet.”

“What is he talking about?” Moira said, not understanding. “Who — who is Shado?”

“Ask your son,” Slade said. “Ask him why he never told you we were on the island together. Did he want to spare you? Or was it because he’s ashamed of what he’s become? A false friend. A cold-blooded murderer. A traitor.”

Moira’s face was grimy, streaked with sweat and tears. She never cried for herself, which only made it worse, because it meant that she was genuinely, truly frightened for her children. “Oliver…”

“I’m sorry,” Oliver said, but it wasn’t enough. “Slade, stop this. Take me — kill me — just please, please let my family go. I’m begging, are you happy? I’m _begging_ you to let them live. _Please_.”

“You never begged to save Shado.” Coldly. Again Slade cast a look towards the dark forest, as though there was someone standing in the trees. “Did he?”

A chill ran up Oliver’s spine and he swept a gaze around the clearing, not just to check if they were alone, but to see if there was anything he could use to get them out of this situation. How long had they been unconscious? Had anyone noticed they were missing and raised the alarm? Felicity must have — no, she’d have gone to the mansion first — what about his phone?

The lights were coming from an idling car, the engine humming. The wind was rising, lowering visibility because of the debris it swept around in its wake. Slade was armed with a gun — Oliver could see the sword on his back—

Not fast enough.

Slade leveled the gun with the back of Moira’s head. “Choose,” he said, and Oliver knew he’d run out of time. “Choose one, or both will die.”

“Mom!” Thea screamed. All traces of anger at their mother had evaporated, now there was only the high, clear note of terror, terror at the thought of watching Moira die in front of her eyes. “No, no —”

Not his mother. Not his sister.

“You psychopath!” Oliver snarled, his anger exploding out of him and echoing through the empty trees, sending dark birds winging into the night. “I won’t choose! _Let — them — go!_ ”

He’d struggled to his feet at the words, but his hands were still bound tight behind his back, and Slade only had to kick him once — a gesture brimming with contempt — to bring him back to his knees.

Pain in his knee. Pain in his head. Pain in his chest. When Oliver’s vision cleared again, Slade had the gun trained on Thea now. Moira nearly fell forward, struggling towards her daughter. Her arms were tied too but she was shaking her head frantically, the words catching in her throat. “No, please — not Thea — not my baby —”

The gun was against Thea’s forehead. “Ollie!”

“ _CHOOSE!_ ”

“ _NO!_ ” Oliver roared, his mind going completely blank except for the one truth — that he wanted to rip Slade to pieces with his bare hands. “ _NO!_ ”

Their voices rang out against the dark, spiraled away from them by the rush of cold wind. Slade looked impassive now, playing the judge and executioner in his twisted game. “Playing the coward won’t save you,” he whispered, with the same bite of steel. “Someone you love must die, and their blood will be on your hands — not mine.”

Oliver’s chest was heaving. He felt the same way he’d felt when the kidnappers had taken Tommy, when the Count had grazed the three needles against Felicity’s throat…when that nameless darkness inside of him reared, roaring at the light until he gave into it.

“That’s right,” Slade said, and Oliver realized he knew, because of course he did. “ _This_ is who you are, kid. Who the island _made_ you to be. You’d kill me now if you had the chance, wouldn’t you?”

Oliver never looked away from Slade. “You know I would,” he said, in a low voice that simmered with anger, with the amorphous darkness inside of him. “So untie me, and let’s finish this between us.”

Slade chuckled, the sound low in his throat, like he’d been sorely tempted. “No, Oliver. No. That will come in its own time,” he said, but he let the gun rest against Oliver’s temple anyway, pressing enough to ensure there’d a mark left in his skin. “But it _is_ a pity…a pity you never fought that hard for Shado.”

“So punish me for it,” Oliver said, goading him. Feeding Slade the words he wanted to hear. “I let her die. Sara survived — Shado didn’t. It was my fault. _My_ choice. No one else.”

_Just…promise me — whatever happens — you’ll always come back._

_You’ve changed people’s lives for the better, and you’ve been doing it longer than you even realize._

_Because you’re a hero._

Felicity’s words, her voice. But Oliver couldn’t think of her now, couldn’t think about what he’d promised her and what he’d wished he could have lived to do, to see through to the end. That she was something to live for and it was a betrayal to try — to even think about — a way where he wouldn’t survive. Where he wouldn’t _live_.

There was a gun to the side of Oliver’s head and Slade’s finger was on the trigger, and Oliver willed him to end it. If it meant his mother and sister would be safe. He was the sacrifice. He deserved it.

Dying like his father, like Robert, to ensure the people who mattered most to him would survive.

Full circle. Ending where the slow, excruciating process of losing himself on the island, becoming the Hood, then the Arrow…had all began. With his father.

_Like dad._

Oliver was ready. Ready to face it all.

Except —

“Stop,” Moira said, suddenly. So quietly that the wind nearly drowned her out. “Mr Wilson, please stop this.”

Oliver froze, and out the corner of his eye he saw that Thea had too. Without looking at her son and daughter, Moira stood, straightening her shoulders like she was about to walk out onto a stage and address a cheering crowd, or a courtroom full of prying eyes and rising anger. Her hair was plastered to her face and there was grime down the front of her clothes, but she stood as though it was another chance to fight as Moira Dearden Queen, as though there was nothing to be afraid of —

Because the only thing Moira had ever feared was losing her children.

Suddenly, Oliver understood what she was about to do.

“ _Mom_ ,” he said, and she swayed, trying to keep her balance. “Please.”

Moira looked Slade in the eye, as regal as he was cold. “One of us has to die tonight, so I am proposing an exchange,” she said. “My life…for both of my children. Are those acceptable terms to you, Mr Wilson?”

Slade cocked his head slightly. “Oliver once told me how his father died, and I confess, I’ve never been able to forget it.” He tapped the barrel of the gun to the side of his head, miming the act of shooting himself. “How strange that his mother should meet the same end. With a bullet through her skull.”

Thea made a strangled noise between a sob and a whimper, while Oliver struggled against the ropes binding him tight, seething with rage. Slade knew. Slade could have killed him like Robert, but he didn’t want to. Because he knew it wouldn’t be the option that hurt the most. “You son of a bitch,” he snarled. “I’m going to kill you, I swear — I’m going to —”

Slade only laughed at the threat, but Moira stared him down, her expression unchanged, even though he’d just told her that she was about to die like her husband. Her quiet strength made Slade grow quiet too, in his dangerously contemplative way.

“You are a rare woman, Moira,” he said, sounding almost surprised. “I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who can face her death without shedding a single tear.”

Thea wailed again at the word _death_ , and Oliver heard himself shout, curses and threats that Slade would have no reason to fear, because he was as good as helpless. But Oliver wasn’t going to lose one of his parents, not again — not in front of Thea —

“If it ensures that both my children will survive tonight,” Moira continued, as though she couldn’t hear her son and daughter pleading for her life. “I think it’s a price worth paying. Don’t you, Mr Wilson?”

Again, she addressed him without fear. Without fear for herself. A small defiance that meant the world, and her last —

“No!” Oliver fought to reach her, to shield Thea, to stop — all of this —

“Oliver, Thea,” Moira said, as Slade’s gun touched the center of her chest. It was the only instance that she would ever beg, and it was so they would listen. “I love you both, so, so much. And I’m sorry, for everything I put you through. Watching the two of you grow up, to become the people you are — it was my pride and joy, and my world was brighter for it. Oliver, Thea, I love you, sweetheart, I love you —”

“ _Mom!_ ” Thea was screaming. “Ollie, do something, _please!_ ”

“He can’t do anything,” Slade said, without taking his gaze from Moira. “He can only watch as the people he loves — the people who matter most to him — die for his mistakes.”

“ _Mom!_ ”

Moira closed her eyes, accepting her fate, owning her sacrifice. Only the shot didn’t come. Oliver’s eyes darted towards Slade, searching him for signs as to why he’d stopped. He was lowering the gun, looking almost thoughtful, but Oliver saw his hand inch towards the sword along his back.

He was going to make it sudden, and bloody.

“ _SLADE!_ ”

The blade flashed, and so did something else. An arrow sparked off steel, sending the sword flying into the leaves, sliding to a stop just a few feet away from Oliver. A hooded figure was racing out of the trees, and for a second, the forest, the hood, the archer…they combined themselves into a name, a person that wasn’t possible.

Slade was watching the shape too, as if in recognition of an old ghost, and Oliver briefly wondered if he was seeing things, if Shado really had come to stop the man they’d both known on the island.

_No_. It couldn't be.

And it wasn’t.

The second arrow sank into the hand coiled around the gun, and it fell soundlessly at Slade’s side as he let it go, eyeing the green-tipped arrow protruding from his scarred skin. “No,” he said, almost to himself. “You’re not her.”

“Get the hell away from them,” Tommy said, emerging from the shadows. “Or this arrow’s going in your eye.”

“Tommy?” Thea croaked, watching her brother in pure disbelief.

A part of Oliver was at a loss for words too. Not because Tommy had just outed himself to Thea, but because there was something about seeing him in a hood — black as the shadows bleeding from the trees — pointing his bow at an enemy with a look of pure, protective fierceness. There was something _steadied_ about him this time, something that wasn’t reckless, or uncertain.

If they got out of the situation alive, Oliver would have to tell him that this — this exact moment — was when he’d become sure, more than ever, that Tommy Merlyn was nothing like his father. Malcolm would never have chosen to save someone else’s life. Not his family.

But first they would have to survive.

Oliver didn’t wait for a signal, he didn’t wait to process the spark of hope burning suddenly bright inside his chest. They were fighting back, and he wasn’t alone. He felt for the sword in the grass and shoved the ropes binding his wrists along the blade. It was clumsy work with his arms tied behind his back, and Oliver felt a cut open along the inside of his forearm, but he didn’t care.

Slade tugged the arrow out of his hand and bent the shaft in two with a _snap_. “Mr Merlyn,” he said, sounding savagely pleased. “You certainly have a knack for arriving at the most inopportune moments.”

“Kind of my specialty,” Tommy said. “Now back up, you one-eyed psycho. I’ve been practicing with targets that have your face on them.”

The ropes sprang apart on Oliver’s third tug, and he snatched Slade’s sword off the ground. Light flashed off the steel as he raised it high and Slade whirled, just in time to avoid the downward swipe that should have taken off one of his hands. Moira staggered back, and Oliver put himself between her and Slade. He hated the sword, the sickening, cruel weapon that was a mirror image of its owner, but he knew he’d lose some of that hatred once it managed to draw Slade’s blood.

“I warned you to keep it between us,” Oliver said dangerously. “Let’s finish this, Slade. You and me.”

Something in Oliver must have changed, because Slade’s black gaze sharpened. “That’s more like it, kid.”

The gun was still at Slade’s feet, but as soon as he moved, his fingers closing around the grip, Tommy forced him to intercept one of the venom arrows. Slade snapped it in half just inches from his chest, and Oliver swung the sword at his throat. Slade arched back to avoid it, but the tip of the blade caught fabric, tearing into the fine silk collar of his shirt, and there was a hairline scratch above Slade’s jugular as he backed away.

“Gun!” Tommy shouted.

Shots forced them to scatter; Oliver dived for his mother and sister. Tommy fired arrow after arrow to stop Slade from concentrating his aim, while Oliver shielded Moira and Thea from the gunfire that raised puffs of dead leaves and soil where they landed. One of them cracked the headlights, cutting off half of the blinding light, and Moira’s hand — or it felt like Moira’s hand — tightened and she made a sound, a breathy sound of panic.

“ _Stay down_ ,” Oliver said to them. He picked up a deflected arrow off the ground. It wasn’t a venom arrow; it was as simple as the ones he’d first used as the Hood. But Oliver knew he could make it count.

Slade’s gun had exhausted its ammunition, but he was still dangerous without a weapon. Tommy was using the bow hand-to-hand now, fighting Slade as best he could. He wasn’t fast enough, even with the advantage of surprise, and Slade sent Tommy staggering back from a sharp blow, his lip split and bleeding.

“SLADE!” Oliver yelled, and the both of them looked around.

Tommy’s eyes went to the arrow in Oliver’s fist and he understood. He swerved out of Slade’s next punch and tossed his bow towards Oliver, who returned it with Slade’s sword. The weapons crossed each other mid-air, and a second later, the both of them had caught their targets and were gearing up for a second fight.

“I can’t believe that actually worked,” Tommy said breathlessly, and moved.

He stabbed at Slade with the sword, forcing his attention, and Oliver fired the single arrow in his bow. Slade should have caught it, but he was distracted, and just as he disarmed Tommy with a contemptuous swipe of his arm, reclaiming his sword — Oliver’s arrow sliced across his cheek, spattering his collar with blood.

Oliver launched himself at Slade. He was out of arrows, and he’d just revealed his secret to his sister, but he didn’t care. Slade had crossed a final line, crossed beyond any hope that he could be reasoned with, that there was still the friend he and Shado had both trusted, a brother Oliver had loved. A part of him had known it from the start, but now it hit him like the final betrayal, and he was fighting to kill.

Oliver slammed his fist into Slade’s jaw and rammed the flat of his hand into his throat. It was enough to make Slade lose his breath, even for just seconds, and Oliver buried another punch in Slade’s gut, forcing an expelled gasp between his teeth. Slade was fast, already recovering from the surprise, but Oliver was angry. The sword flashed as it came down, missing Oliver’s throat by a hairsbreadth, but he caught Slade’s arm at the elbow and twisted without remorse — wrist, forearm — until he felt something tear.

Slade was _laughing_.

Oliver felt himself snarl — with rage and frustration — and he grabbed Slade, throwing all his strength into hurling him bodily across the grass.

Slade landed hard, and there was blood on his chin from Oliver’s first punch. Oliver didn’t give him the time to recover from that either; he was on top of Slade, his fists clenched around Slade’s collar, slamming his skull into the hard earth, over — and over —

“Ollie!” Tommy shouted, but Oliver didn’t hear it. Not this time.

_Then —_

“Ollie!”

It was Thea’s voice that got through his armor, and the raw _fear_ in it sent a shard of ice into Oliver’s core. All thoughts of vengeance, of bright, incandescent anger — they all drained in an instant, at the instinctive knowledge that something wasn’t right, and he looked back.

Slade had seen something behind them, back where Moira and Thea were, and he smiled. “Looks like you did choose, after all,” he said.

Oliver caught a flicker of steel in his peripheral vision and he moved, a little too late. Slade’s sword bit into his flesh, as sudden and messy as the jaws of a striking animal, leaving a deep slash that forced him to stumble back. Oliver yelled in pain, blood blooming between his fingers from the gash in his upper arm.

Tommy was at his side in a second, but Oliver pushed him away, looking for Slade. He wasn’t on the ground anymore, and Oliver saw a figure whip out of sight through the trees. There was still time to get back on his feet and chase Slade down, but he trusted Oliver not to follow, because it would mean leaving his family behind.

Oliver hissed between his teeth as Tommy helped him back up, the fresh cut in his arm burning like someone was holding a blowtorch to the torn skin. They didn’t say anything, because nothing needed to be said, not yet. They raced back, tearing across the clearing towards the lights. Blood stained the leaves beneath their feet, drops at first, then smears, clusters becoming denser, thicker, until finally —

The wind swept the strong tang of rust towards Oliver, and he dropped to his knees in front of his mother and sister, a sharp pain somewhere in his ribs, his chest, burrowing deep. A stray bullet had left them with only one headlight to see by, but there was still enough illumination to tell that there were dark stains all over Thea and Moira’s clothes, hands and hair, and they were so close together that he couldn’t tell which — _who_ —

“It’s mom,” Thea gasped. She had blood down her front, and she was shaking from the shock. “One of the bullets — it must have —”

Tommy swore, and ripped off his jacket. “Moira, look at me,” he said, wadding up the material and pressing it hard against the wound. Oliver took Moira’s weight from Thea, keeping her propped up against his own torso while Tommy tried to stop the bleeding. As they shifted, he caught a glimpse of Moira’s side, glistening with blood, a terrifying dark stain spreading like spilled ink.

Oliver’s head shot up and Tommy hesitated, taking in the look on his best friend’s face. A second later — just a second — he was back, using a voice meant to soothe. “Hey, stay with us, okay? You’re okay. Just breathe. Help’s on the way. Just breathe.”

Moira’s stare was glassy and slipping in and out of focus, but she nodded. Thea was kneeling in front of her, joining Tommy in pushing down on the jacket to keep pressure on the wound. She was almost frantic with fear, but she was forcing herself to stay calm, and neither of them — Tommy or Oliver — wanted to be the ones to fall apart now. There were things all of them needed to say to each other, in answer to their shared worlds that had been uprooted in a single night. Death always threw lies into sharp relief, and the lies were ringing in Oliver’s ears now.

Not yet. There was time. There _would_ be time. He refused to believe it might be otherwise.

Seconds passed; Oliver could feel Moira’s heartbeat through her chest, every heave of her lungs as they fought to keep breathing.

What if she didn’t…?

“Mom.” His denial gave way to the impact of the realization, and he groped for her hand clumsily in the dry grass and dead leaves, finding it slick with blood too, sickly warm even though her skin was cold. “I’m sorry — I’m so sorry. I never meant…I didn’t want…”

Moira shook her head. She left a bright trail of blood on Thea’s cheek when she touched it, and her fingers were trembling, her rings encrusted with dark red. “I wish — I wish I’d told you all of it,” she said, with difficulty. “I should have…”

“Mom, I’m sorry,” Thea croaked. “I was angry — I didn’t mean what I said. I didn’t mean any of it.”

Moira nodded, fumbling for her daughter’s hand. “I know, sweetheart. Oh, Thea…”

Tears were rolling silently down Thea’s face, splashing onto their hands, more salt in a sea of blood. Moira tilted her head back just a little to see Oliver’s face, and the smile in her eyes cut through him like a knife. “Your father would be so proud of you,” she said to Oliver. “So… _proud_.”

To Tommy, whose face had drained of all color. “I’m not a very good mother,” she said. “But I always…thought of you…as mine.”

“Hey, you’re family to me too,” he answered fiercely, and his eyes were bright with tears. “Hang in there, okay? You’ll make it. You’ll —”

Moira smiled, a ghost of it. “Seeing the both of you fight…side by side…was quite something,” she said, smiling even wider still. “I —”

Voices. Shouting in the trees. Running. Help was on the way.

“Oliver!”

“Oliver!’

“We’re here!” he shouted back, hearing the sound echo through the woods. The story had already been written a thousand times in his nightmares, but this — _this_ was going to be the one time that things ended differently. “We’re here!”

Lights, slicing through the dark. Oliver felt his heart leap again, and he turned back to Moira, still in his arms, giddy with relief. “Mom — _mom?_ ”

Moira’s eyes were closed. Her lips were still parted as though she was about to speak, as though she hadn’t meant to leave her sentence unfinished (not _last_ , it couldn’t be _last_ ). Oliver pressed his fingers to her pulse, his whole body tensing in wordless fear, waiting to see if he could still feel a heartbeat.

_One. Two._

Barely.

She was slipping away.

“ _No, no, no —_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> End of episode. Yep, that's a cliffhanger. And yes, I do apologize.  
> Happy weekend! :)


	38. Consequences (City of Blood, Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, first of all, HA sorry about that cliffhanger, and all the responses were very much appreciated. Sorry I've been dead silent, but that's partially because I was finishing up my finals and partially because I would've spoiled something by frantically apologizing.  
> Also, I see some freaking out about the possibility of Laurel coming back, and seriously, DON'T WORRY. It's just my asshole brain pretending there's a "season 3" to this, and teasing out storylines for the characters. For a lot of reasons, it makes sense to me that Sara would think about bringing her sister back. But anyways, there's probably no "season 3", so. (*Thumbs up*)  
> Last thing: I apologize for what's about to happen. Again.

“Mr Queen, please —” There were strangers all around him, their hands on his arms, at his back. Pulling.

Oliver pushed, pushing his way out from the tangle of plastic tubes and gauze bandages and unfamiliar faces. They didn’t know. They didn’t _understand_. “I need to see my mother,” he said, and repeated it, louder, because no one seemed to hear him. “I need to see my mother. Please, I need to see my mother.”

A doctor shone a flashlight into his eyes; Oliver twisted away from the glare, but the nurses grabbed his shoulders, stopping him from getting any further than the side of the bed. “Mr Queen, you’ve had a bad shock,” said the man. “You were admitted for a knee injury and a mild concussion less than a week ago, can you tell me if —”

“Moira Queen,” Oliver said, raising his voice. “She’s Moira Queen — which room is she in? Please, I need to see if she’s okay.”

“I understand, Mr Queen, but she’s in surgery, and you’ve been injured. _You have to stay still_.”

Oliver didn’t _have_ to do anything except see his mother, and the absurdity of them thinking he’d just sit there while Moira was somewhere in the hospital, fighting for her life —

“Mr Queen —”

A needle scraped at his skin and Oliver lost it. A tray table went flying into a wall of shelves, and there was a flurry of panic inside the room when Oliver shoved his way clear of the hospital staff around him, staggering towards the door. His shirt was partly unbuttoned, his tie gone, jacket and shirt both stiff with blood that was and wasn’t his. “Get off of me,” he snarled, when one of them tried to stop him. “I need to see my mother, _where is she_?”

Nothing of what they said seemed to be answers, so he pushed out of the room, and ran straight into Diggle. “Hey, hey —” Diggle had him by his good arm, careful of the gauze the paramedics had tied around the gash on the way to the hospital.

Oliver looked around, his head turning from left to right. He’d been separated from Moira as soon as the ambulance reached the hospital. Emergency room doors — she’d been on a stretcher — her eyes closed and unmoving beneath the oxygen mask — they’d wheeled her to the operating room — where?

“Easy.” Diggle’s hands were on either side of Oliver’s head, and he was bending slightly to talk to him. “Oliver, you have to get your arm looked at. I promise, I’ll let you know if anything changes.”

That voice, he remembered it after the Undertaking, when Diggle had found him sitting alone in the dark Foundry. It was concern, grief seen and understood, and he didn’t want any of it. Oliver felt the ground lurch beneath his feet again, and he shook his head. “John, where did they take her?” he asked, refusing to give into the feeling that it was too late. “Where’s my mother?”

“Oliver, she’s alive. They’re operating on her now, that’s all I know. _Oliver!_ ”

Not good enough. Oliver shoved, shoved Diggle clear. He’d been careless, careless of his strength, and Diggle slammed into the bulletin board, dislodging a flurry of colored notices that spilled across the floor now, littering the ground like dead leaves. Pain flashed into his skull from his throbbing arm, and Oliver turned, starting to walk.

There was a sign just ahead. _EMERGENCY ROOM._ The words blurred and Oliver grabbed the wall to steady himself; he could hear Diggle behind him, but he didn’t care. His mother was in danger, his mother could die, and he couldn’t let that happen. He had to be with her, he had to be with his sister, with Tommy —

Doors on either side of him now, he could see through the glass. Lights, shouting. There were bodies on tables, doctors in the same scrubs and same masks. Panic began to creep up on him again, because he couldn’t recognize which one was his mother, until —

He saw a flash of dark hair through one of the doors, and he pushed his way inside. Thea was in the corner, her hands over her mouth, watching the doctors work. Tommy was beside her, and they both turned at the sight of him. Stunned. Blank.

Oliver was rooted where he stood; he couldn’t have moved any further, not even if he wanted to stand with the rest of his family. He swayed again, either from blood loss or pure exhaustion. _No, stay awake_. The lights overhead were a blinding white, and Moira was almost obscured by the mass of wires and tubes, but all Oliver could see was red, blood. On the doctor’s gloves. Across the front of their scrubs. Stains on the floor. Something hard and painful rose to Oliver’s throat, and suddenly, without warning, the heart monitor sucked all the sound out of the room.

It shrilled, the sound of a heart ceasing to beat, the sound of someone dying. His mother, dying.

Thea backed into Tommy, her shoulders shaking, and he held her — either to stop her from rushing to Moira’s side or to keep them both on their feet — but all he could do was stare past her towards the operating table, frozen in shock.

Oliver was about to fall.

“Oliver.” Someone else was in front of him now, and even though he wasn’t seeing — he just couldn’t — he felt an instinct to give in because of the voice, and he did.

A faint but familiar scent. The way the person fit against his body, the side of their head soft against his cheek. It was Felicity. Felicity was in his arms, and she had him in hers, and he was holding onto her while the doctors fought to bring his mother back.

“I don’t understand,” he said numbly. “I don’t understand what’s happening.”

Felicity’s arms only tightened around him, and he felt her hand at the back of his neck, like they were bracing for impact. All around him was the flat, high scream. He saw the doctors and nurses move in dizzyingly close detail. Shouting for things, words as short and brisk as code. A needle into the IV. Pumping her chest. The whirring charge before the shocks. _Once. Twice_. Stop. Why were they stopping?

Oliver felt tears on his face. “Mom?”

Nothing. He felt a rushing emptiness inside of him, as if something important was slipping away. As though he was losing a part of himself too.

“Mom?” he repeated, his voice cracking.

Then —

A beep. Then another. Slow, but steady. The room seemed to expel a single, held breath. “She’s back,” said one of the doctors.

Oliver’s words seemed to have failed him, and all he could do was watch the jagged line on the heart monitor’s black screen, the line that meant — that _promised_ — he hadn’t lost his only parent left in the world.

He finally exhaled, the air escaping him in a single, shuddering rush. The world was still spinning, but there was hope. There was still hope.

* * *

Silence. Tommy felt like his whole body had forgotten how nerves and skin worked, like there was something permanently numbing running inside his veins instead of blood, like he might not ever get warm again, and that there was a growing, aching pit inside of him that gave continuous voice to the thought — the dark, godawful thought — that _you should have done more_.

_You should have trained harder._

_Better._

_Stopped Slade before he started shooting._

_You should have gotten that gun out of his hand._

Then maybe Moira wouldn’t be hurt.

They — Oliver, him, Thea — were all standing in the hospital corridor, having been kicked out of the operating room. Waiting for the doctors — doctor — to come tell them what was wrong, what was good, and what they could do to make it better. But the doctor who’d speak to them wasn’t one of the surgeons who’d worked on Moira. There was something about complications (they wouldn’t say more), something about an expert they needed to call in from Coast City.

That sounded fantastic. As far as he saw it, the more time they’d clocked in med schools and fancy hospitals, the better. Then they’d have the best chance of fixing her.

Thea still had some of Moira’s blood on her face, which made him think that he probably did too. But it was the hospital equivalent of a long-movie situation; none of them wanted to be the ones to miss anything.

Just in case.

Thea looked the same way she had when the news broke that the Queen’s Gambit had been lost at sea, struggling not to break, the same way something fragile and beautiful would sit on the edge of a fancy table, hoping that the smallest gust of wind, or the smallest tremor of the surface beneath didn’t send it careening towards the ground. Smashing into pieces was something all the Queens had experience with, but Tommy didn’t want it to be another one of those times.

Not again.

Oliver was a completely different story. Oliver looked…like he’d never seen him look before. Hollow. Like something important had vanished, like what was left was only and would ever only go through the motions of being _Oliver_ , but the thing that made him alive, irreplaceable, unforgettable — and Tommy’s best friend, Thea’s big brother, Moira’s son — _gone_.

“Hey,” Tommy said, because telling Oliver _it’s okay_ wouldn’t have a hope in hell of bringing him back. “It’s not your fault.”

Oliver’s head was leaning slightly against the wall, and he didn’t answer. The cut on his arm still needed to be looked at, and out of all of them, he probably had the most blood, soaked almost to the skin with it. It was on his shirt from holding Moira in his arms, on his face and neck from fighting Slade and getting hurt in the process. He looked like he’d just been through a war, and everything war came with. PTSD. Grief. Guilt. Things Tommy could only scrape the surface of when it came to understanding.

Oliver didn’t answer.

Thea without expression looked like Moira when she was hiding her thoughts, and she suddenly became present now. Not quite from a spark, not really. But from something important enough that pulled her back from the edge.

“You had a bow,” she said, looking straight ahead, so he wasn’t sure if she meant him or Oliver. “You fought Slade Wilson. He said that he was on the island with you, Ollie. And just now…the both of you — you did all those things.”

She still seemed to be deciding what to say, like it was a half-formed thought trying to fight its way through to coherence. Somehow, Tommy sensed that she was piecing it out. Him, or Oliver. Which one?

It only really made sense one way. Oliver had been stuck on Lian Yu for five years, presumed dead. After he’d returned to Starling City, not quite the same person, the Hood had appeared. Even the _thought_ was obvious.

Thea took a deep, deep breath, and Oliver was the first one to take the full force of her gaze. A gaze that bore a painful resemblance — now — to Moira’s. “You told me that you didn’t know how to fight,” she said. “You told me that the vigilante was some nut job in a hood, a Robin Hood wannabe. I asked you about your scars, I asked you why you kept disappearing. You gave me a _hozen_ — it even looks like an arrowhead — and all this time, I bought it.”

Tommy had been there when she’d confronted Moira with the truth about Malcolm. Accusation had been infused into each word, each of them a weapon to make sense of the betrayal, of the lies she’d been told.

There was something different in her voice now. It was just…stating the facts. The bare facts. Thea wasn’t about to hurt Oliver, but Tommy wasn’t sure he knew that. Not after he’d seen the extent of her anger against their mother.

Human instinct when already injured was to shrink away, to protect from more hurt. Oliver had been hurt all his life, but tonight of all nights, maybe this one would go too far. Maybe this was one more risk he couldn’t take with himself, not anymore.

“Thea,” Tommy said quietly. “Maybe we should talk about this later.”

Thea touched Tommy’s forearm to show that she’d heard, but she didn’t look away from Oliver. “Ollie?” she said, and it sounded like she’d meant _please_.

Oliver moved, but it wasn’t him being back. Not really. He inhaled too, returning Thea’s gaze with a flat, colorless look. The kind of look from someone that couldn’t take another reason to fall apart.

“I lied,” he said simply.

Then he walked away. In his bloodstained clothes, his bloodstained skin, slow, like every step hurt, to stand alone at the end of the hall.

* * *

Felicity shivered. Even while toting a cardboard carrier of awful hospital cafeteria coffee, the chill in the corridors was immune to combative attempts to the contrary. The rooms were a little better, but the outside areas of human transit were basically sanitized beyond all bacteria and featured AC vents blasting ice at everyone passing beneath them.

Hospitals were generally the one place where one’s business stayed one’s business. Doctors and nurses and lab techs were all too busy getting to where they were going, too overworked and underpaid and just wrapped up with the people in their hands to really _care_ if something less than life-threatening was happening in the hallways. They left people alone.

Still, the chairs closest to the window were drawing some attention. Name recognition aside, Felicity was pretty sure the reason why they were drawing stares didn't have anything to with fame, but because they were all covered in various bloodstains, forest debris, and wore similar looks of dazed shock. Diggle had volunteered to stand guard near the wing doors, to keep out the paparazzi or anyone from the press who’d found out that Moira Queen was in the hospital after being critically wounded by an unnamed gunman’s bullet.

_Correction_. A one-eyed Bottom of the Human Barrel who deserved his own psychological classification for what he’d tried to do to the Queen family tonight.

Felicity stopped in front of Thea first. “Brought some coffee,” she said, sliding one of the cups out of the cardboard holder for her. “It’s terrible, but at least it’s hot.”

Thea’s face muscles spasmed — like she’d tried to smile but couldn’t remember how. She’d cleaned off the blood on her face, but Felicity would never forget the way it looked when she’d first reached the clearing where Slade had taken his hostages. Thea had been crying, tears streaming blindly down her face, streaks of bright blood on her cheek that looked like they’d been left there by Moira’s hand.

The memory made Felicity want to hug her, let her cry, shout, and do whatever the hell she wanted because nineteen was _not_ supposed to look like this. It was supposed to be college dorm rooms and crappy part-time jobs, having crushes on cute guys and rushing last-minute reports to college professors. Not sitting in a frigid hospital hallway in the dead of night, clothes covered in blood, waiting to hear the doctor deliver the news about Moira’s condition post-surgery.

Thea took the cup. “Thanks, Felicity,” she said, and her fingers were ice-cold when they brushed by accident.

Tommy was next to her, and it looked like he’d been asleep with his eyes open when Felicity nudged him gently in the arm. “Coffee,” she said, if he hadn’t already guessed. “And a hug, if you want it.”

She set the carrier down and Tommy sagged into the aforementioned hug, exhaustion, adrenaline aftermath, fear — all of it making him shake like an alcoholic quitting cold turkey. Tears, too. Felicity rubbed his back the same way her mom liked to do (deliberately not thinking about Donna Smoak’s actual reaction, if given the chance to hug someone as attractive as Tommy Merlyn), neither of them in any kind of hurry to pull away. “It’s going be okay,” she said. “You did really great tonight.”

“Doesn’t feel like it, Felicity,” he said into her shoulder. “Doesn’t feel anywhere damn close to it.”

She couldn’t say anything to that, because what could she say that he’d believe?

“What can I do?” she asked. “Anyone you need me to call? Anything you want to eat?”

Tommy shook his head. “Talk to him,” he said, and Felicity didn’t need more specifics on the _he_. “Make sure he gets stitches for his arm. And…”

He didn’t seem to have the words to finish the rest, so she nodded. “On it,” she said. “You just rest, okay?”

“Thanks, Felicity.”

She left the coffee cups by his chair, and after a moment’s hesitation, bent to kiss his cheek. Tommy smiled briefly, and she walked on.

The lights were dimmer this side of the hospital. The windows let in as much as the dulled-down ceiling fluorescents, the city at night giving everything a strange, distant glow. A little bit of amber, a little bit of blue, and it was in the shaded low light that she found Oliver, sitting alone against the window, staring straight ahead without moving a single muscle.

Felicity didn’t quicken her pace. If Oliver was paying attention, she wanted not to startle him, not to make him feel as though there was any reason to rush, to panic. She walked all the way down the corridor, until she was closer to the _Operating Wing_ sign than she’d been when she started, and she sat down.

The window ledge was a little more snug in terms of seating, but it didn’t matter, not even a little bit. “Hi,” she said.

Oliver shifted, slightly, but he didn’t speak. Not at first, anyway.

Felicity felt one of his hands, resting on his legs and still crusted with dried blood. Down to the creases, down to every crevice. Blood was on his hands, and he hadn’t cleaned it off. “You’re cold,” she said. “And you need to have your arm looked at. You’ll still be in the hospital — you’ll still be close by when the doctor comes out t—”

“— the doctor already came out,” he said abruptly. Hoarse from hours of not speaking. “A little while ago. I spoke to him. Thea and Tommy don’t know.”

“Okay,” Felicity said, shifting her hand so that she was holding it now. Oliver was talking, not shutting down. “What did he say?”

“He said that they managed to get the bullet out, but it…did a lot of damage. That’s why we can’t see her yet, because they want to monitor her condition in case she needs another surgery.” He hesitated, like he’d left something out. “One of the reasons.”

“That’s just observation, right?” Felicity said. “That’s really good, Oliver. It means they just want to make sure she’s stable.”

Oliver shook his head, so vehemently that Felicity stopped. “That’s not all of it,” he said, and there was something else in his voice. The raw edges she’d felt back in the operating room. Him struggling not to break apart.

She held his hand until he was ready to speak again, and he took a deep breath for it, the bad news. The _but_ at the end of the sentence. The reason why he looked like he was about to break down. “The bullet hit her spinal cord,” he said, and Felicity shut her eyes, resting her forehead against his arm, a patch of window between them as her brain filled in the gaps. “Between the T12 and L1 vertebrae. They won’t know how much — how much movement she has until she wakes up, but based off experience, it means she’ll have either partial or complete paralysis. If it’s partial, she’ll be able to get by with crutches, but if it’s complete paralysis, she’ll —” Oliver broke off, taking in more breaths, until she could feel him shake “—she’ll never walk again.”

Oliver covered his eyes with one hand, bent forward like rehashing the doctor’s prognosis was a bodily blow to his gut. Felicity stroked his back, his matted hair, whispering soothing sounds to him while he fought for his composure. She’d never seen him like this, never. Without the denial as his armor, the veneer that meant he could push everything beneath the surface and focus on changing the status quo in the meantime, Oliver was sitting in a hospital corridor with the realization that there was nothing he could do to reverse his mother’s injury. Not going after Slade. Not suiting up as the Arrow and taking down a few more criminals before the night was over. Nothing.

It was human, and it was the right thing to do — dealing with it, not denying it — but it also meant that Felicity’s heart broke a little watching Oliver try.

“Nothing’s for sure,” she said, softly. The backs of her knuckles came away damp from Oliver’s face. “Prognoses change all the time. Maybe they’ll get another doctor — a specialist — and he’ll say something different.”

Oliver made a ragged noise as he inhaled, like she wasn’t understanding. “That _was_ the specialist doctor,” he said. “They waited for him to examine her, and that’s what he told me. He's seen hundreds of patients, done hundreds of operations, he knows what nerve damage looks like and he _knows_ that there’s a big chance my mother’s never going to walk again. It’s my fault, Felicity. It’s my fault.”

_There._ The three words Felicity knew Oliver was going to say, but hoped she wouldn’t hear anyway. They came with anger, frustration, and instead of fighting it head-on with anger of her own, Felicity waited for it to pass, gathering her words, listening to Oliver’s heart beat inside his chest to remind her of the important, indisputable truths they couldn’t change. “She’s alive, Oliver,” she said softly. “That’s what matters. Slade was going to kill her, and she’s alive because you and Tommy saved her life.”

“But she was only there because of me,” Oliver reminded her, but she knew that it was more so _he_ wouldn’t forget, as if he could. “The reason why she’s in the hospital, why she might be in a wheelchair for the rest of her life, is because she was put in a goddamn nightmare situation, one _I_ created because I couldn’t stop Slade.”

“How are you responsible when other people do bad things?” she asked. “Tell me how that makes sense. Tell me how Slade making a choice to get revenge, to hurt an innocent family, to force you to relive the worst nightmare you could ever imagine — is in your control. That’s a choice _he_ made, a path _he_ decided to walk. Darkness. You’ve dedicated yourself to fighting for the city, to protect the people in it. You chose to do the exact opposite of anything he would ever do, and that’s choosing the light. Oliver, I know you think that I’m just saying this because I love you, because I’m your friend, but it’s really, _really_ not your fault.”

Oliver seemed to flinch when she said the word _love_ , like the word was a reminder of why Slade could cut him to the quick and worse. “I was stupid to think that I could fight him,” he said. “It’ll never stop. _He’ll_ never stop. Not until he’s made me pay for everything that happened on that island.”

Felicity went still. “What are you saying?” she asked, because that had been common knowledge from the start, but Oliver was saying it now as though he’d come to some kind of realization.

“My sister could be next,” he said. “Or Tommy. Diggle. Sara. Roy.” A pause, despite them both knowing what was next. “You. Losing any one of them — I would never forgive myself, but Felicity, if something happened to you because of Slade —”

“— we’ve been over this, Slade didn’t hurt me because I don’t matter to him,” she said. “It’s the threat that he wants, to get inside your head. It’s the same with the others. They could have died, but Slade doesn’t want them to. He wants _you_ , and we’re fighting at your side to make sure he sees justice, to make sure he never gets away with it.”

“Felicity.” Oliver had turned, and he was looking at her with a quizzical, half-hearted smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Can you honestly tell me you believe that after what he did to my mother?”

Felicity reached up to touch his cheek. “Oliver, just a few days ago you could barely stand on that leg of yours. Look at you now. You went head on with Slade and you hurt him for real. That’s not just amazing, that’s a miracle. And that came from a piece of technology your family’s company designed,” she said. “If there’s a solution to this problem, to helping your mother walk again, I promise — Queen Consolidated is going to do everything it can to find that solution. Your legacy _is_ the impossible, and I’m going to make sure you see just how much it can do. That’s my promise. Now I want you to promise me something.”

He waited, and she smiled at him, soft and sad. “Don’t say what you were about to say until I help you get cleaned up, okay?”

Oliver didn’t look surprised that she’d guessed, which meant that she’d guessed right. Ignoring the sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that was going lower every second, Felicity took his hand. “Come on,” she said. “Follow me.”

* * *

Oliver pulled the suture through his skin, breathing slowly and evenly despite the pain. The sink was running, the door shut tight and locked. His bloodstained suit and jacket were in a bag, and he was wearing a change of clothes Diggle had brought. Except for the sweater, long-sleeved, meant for after until he finished suturing his cut up.

Felicity was checking each pull of the needle without a sign of her usual distaste for sharp objects, making sure that he closed up the skin to her standards. She’d borrowed antiseptic and rags and somehow had sterile packs of sutures in her bag to begin with, and she was now cleaning off the blood and grime from his face and skin, using wet rags she wrung out in the sink between each use.

The water swirled with dark flakes that looked like iron, dissolving into the water and turning it brown before vanishing into the drain. Felicity was using warm water, and it trickled down his bare back, down his scars and the tattoo of the dragon Slade had burned into his skin as punishment for Shado. The first of many.

Oliver’s throat tightened again, the corners of his eyes stinging at the memory of crying. At almost losing his mother. At what was waiting for her when she woke up. At the damned cruelty of it all. At what he’d decided he had to do next.

Felicity’s fingers scraped gently through his damp hair, looking for bits of leaf and dirt she might have missed. Oliver resisted the urge to kiss her hands, to kiss her wrists, to thank her for every single kindness she had ever shown him, and to ask her not to hate him.

Because that was for later, just as he’d promised.

His face was clean, and his arms too. Which left his chest and hands. Oliver tied off the last suture and she smoothed a sterile bandage over the top without him needing to ask. He was sitting down, and she knelt in front of his legs, starting to clean the dried blood off his chest.

The small space had begun to feel damp, damp from the steam rising off the sink, fogging the mirror. Felicity’s glasses were starting to cloud up too, but she continued to dab at the stubborn patches until they came away. The Bratva tattoo gradually emerged, and Oliver carefully braced her by the arm so she didn’t lose her balance if she pressed harder. Felicity used her free hand as an anchor, fingers and thumb splayed out against his abdomen while she cleaned the last traces of blood off his scarred skin.

The last thing were his hands. He’d disinfected them before starting to suture, but there was still blood in his palms, worked into the folds of his skin, the creases in his knuckles, the beds of his fingernails. It was as true a representation of who he was, one that Slade would have relished, because it was Oliver as someone whose hands could never truly be clean. Someone who would always — _always_ — have blood on his hands.

Oliver stared at the water as it rushed past his wrists, frothing white. He didn’t move, he just watched, something as immovable stopping him from doing anything except stare at the blood that refused to leave his skin.

Felicity’s arms were suddenly pressed against his side. She reached around him, standing closer to the wall so they’d both have room around the tiny sink. She reached for the soap, rubbed it between her small hands until they were white, and she pulled his clear of the water and began to scrub. Soft, but firm. Her thumbs traced the life lines in his palm as she dislodged the more stubborn stains, scooping handful after handful of water to help. Oliver’s fingers curled automatically when she tickled the center of his palm by accident, flicking water onto them both.

Smiles jumped to their mouths, inadvertent, unintended. Felicity looked away first, concentrated on her task, leaving Oliver to remember that it was the second time a woman he cared for — deeply — had washed his bloodstained hands clean.

Shado was a memory, one that he would never forget, a kindness he didn’t deserve at one of the worst times in his life.

In more ways than one, Felicity was the same. Except _more_. More in a way that was very, very nearly worse, if it wasn’t also so unbelievably, unimaginably good. Felicity made him happy, it was that simple. It was a reckless feeling, as weightless as it was powerful. She was light, and hope, and faith, and with her it was possible to be — and still become — someone he’d been all along, just a better, more _whole_ version of himself. He loved her, with everything he was capable of feeling, with all of his scars and his brokenness, and there was no one he trusted more with his weaknesses, with the fragile part of him that was the purest essence of who Oliver Queen still was.

_But._

Some things were dangerous for how brightly they burned, and what if the next person to die, or get hurt, in some irreparable, irreversible way…was her?

Oliver had already lost so much of what he couldn’t lose, and every day, every disaster, it carved out more of what he’d assumed was the bottom line, the point of no return. His father. One of his closest childhood friends. His mother and her ability to walk. His sister, now that she knew the extent of the lies he’d told her.

Losing Felicity, permanently, that would be the breaking point. That would be breaking him beyond repair, and Oliver could live with the alternative, even if it wasn’t much of an alternative at all. Not for him, anyway.

But it would be for her.

The water slowed, eventually to a stop. Felicity weighed Oliver’s hands in hers, his longer fingers draped over her shorter, more slender ones. The comparison was striking; unscarred and uncallused versus his own. Training and necessity had made his hands into weapons; they might have been through some kind of war, and in some ways, they had.

But Felicity didn’t seem to see it that way.

“There,” she said, quietly. “Better.”

It was her way of saying _done_ and they both knew it. Yet neither of them moved apart. The steam was sticking to their skin now, their exposed arms, warm faces. Oliver was looking at the silvered lenses on Felicity’s glasses when he felt a sudden impulse rise to the front of his thoughts, pressing against his self-restraint. An impulse was how they’d first realized what it felt like to kiss each other. An impulse was how they’d given into feelings they’d both suppressed.

_Just_ was a dangerous word.

But Oliver reached up, disengaging his hands from hers, and slid the glasses from her nose, off her face. Felicity looked a little surprised, and he felt the intake of breath against his lips when he just kissed her. She backed into the wall, her arms around his neck. He was damp, and the water droplets on his skin soaked into her clothes, but neither of them cared, not at that moment, maybe not ever.

Their mouths crashed together again, faster, more urgent and — maybe? was he imagining it? — angrier than he’d meant it to be. It surged with vitality, two people alive, connected by something too difficult for either of them to break, in a war zone where neither of them could truly be safe, not ever.

Felicity made a noise against his mouth, and he pulled back, thinking she was short on air. But she fumbled for the door, the lock, flung the door open with a blast of cool air, and slipped outside, leaving him standing alone.

* * *

Felicity knocked the back of her head against the wall. There were dark splotches of water down her front, and she was still sweating from standing in the humid, closed space for so long. Heat and feelings and _damp_ never really seemed like the best good-timing combination.

Their first kiss had been in the alley, in the middle of a freezing drizzle.

Now Oliver was about to tell her something that might change things in a way that couldn’t be put back together, and somehow she’d managed to get soaked again.

Sometimes irony really needed to take a day off.

The bathroom door opened and closed. “Hi,” Oliver said. Among other things, he was fully dressed now, gray sweater and jeans, scrubbed clean of blood, and held out her glasses. “You forgot these.”

Somehow she had a feeling he’d meant to say something else, but reconsidered, for obvious reasons. _Hey babe, you left this behind in your rush to get the hell out of a locked room with me in case we did something we’d both end up regretting_ — that didn’t sound so good.

This way was better.

“Thanks,” she said, careful not to brush her fingers against his when she took them.

Oliver had his jacket with him (they’d brought him one alongside a change of clothes), but instead of putting it on, he draped it around her shoulders instead, his hand on her back. Like they had a destination, and he was the one doing the steering.

Felicity noticed that he seemed to be looking at everywhere except for her, which meant that when he eventually did, it would be five times worse, the equivalent of getting a punch to the gut, all because of the honesty in his eyes.

The corridor was quiet except for them. Turning the corner and going just a little further would put them back in the waiting area, with Thea and Tommy and everything else, so Oliver stopped, in front of the wide panel of windows and a dark city of lights.

“You know what I’m going to say,” he said, looking through the glass instead of at her.

Felicity pulled the folds of his jacket around herself. The damp patches on her clothes felt icy on her skin, but it wasn’t the only reason why. “I think I do,” she said. “You’re going to do the self-sacrificing hero thing and tell me that we should break up.”

Oliver made a soft noise, not quite in disagreement, but not entirely agreeing either. “I think we should…take a step back,” he said. “With my mother’s condition the way it is, and things with my sister…my focus should be on my family, and stopping Slade. Which…doesn’t leave a lot of room to make good on the things I promised you, so I understand if you feel like you’d be better off if we broke things off for good.”

Felicity concentrated on breathing through her nose, the smell of the leather from Oliver’s jacket, the soap they’d used to wash his hands clean, the quiet coldness of the hospital wing and the half-darkness beyond the glass. “So many things in that sentence,” she murmured. “But since we’re on the topic of promises, you told me just the other day that you weren’t letting me go. I’d ask _why now_ , but…I don’t think that’s a question either of us needs an answer to.”

Oliver’s face was half in shadow, half in amber and shades of cool blue. Strangely, it just made his eyes look darker, and they were on her now.

It did end up hurting, about as much as she’d expected it to — which didn’t make it any better.

“Did you mean it?” she asked, quietly.

He moved his head, a fraction of a nod, like he couldn’t afford to give anything more than that. “But what I want shouldn’t matter when it puts the people I love in danger. If tonight’s shown me anything, it’s that I’ve been selfish. Careless. And a lot of other things I can’t even _begin_ to describe. I could have faced my mother with the truth, told her everything, and maybe she could have left town with Thea, gone somewhere…”

“To hide,” Felicity said flatly. “Because that’s who Moira Queen is. She’s someone who hides at the first sign of trouble. Not someone who scared the living hell out of Malcolm Merlyn, and the people who tried to hurt your family.”

“Regardless,” Oliver said, holding up his hand, painstakingly careful not to let it touch her. “I’m sorry, so sorry, for making you believe there could be more. That I was ready, that it was the right thing to do. You’ve been nothing but — _happiness_ — to me, these last few months, and I’ll never forget it. I never deserved you, but when we were together you made me feel…redeemable. I don’t think I’d have my soul, whatever’s left of it, if I hadn’t walked into your office that day. So thank you, Felicity.”

Felicity pressed her lips together, nodding a little, not because she accepted it — not even a little bit — but because hearing what being together had meant to him, in simple, heartbreakingly Oliver-esque honesty, she felt like she might cry. She didn’t want to cry. Not in front of him.

She cleared her throat, but her voice was still a little husky when she finally spoke. “Even if I agreed with what you’re asking, what changes if we ‘step back’? Does it erase what Slade remembers about you and me? Does it help me develop shield powers to stop a sword? What does doing what you’re doing now accomplish except hurting the both of us?”

Oliver gave a soft, ragged gasp of breath at the word _hurt_ , and she waited. Waited to hear what he could say. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I do know I won’t be able to live with myself if something happens to you, and if we’re together — knowing that I brought you into this — I don’t think I’ll survive it.”

“But Slade didn’t —”

Oliver jerked his head in frustration, like there was something she still wasn’t getting. “That’s what Slade _does_ , Felicity,” he interrupted, an edge in his voice now. “He was at the mansion and didn’t touch my mother or my sister, but he would have killed one of them tonight. He approached you at the gala and he didn’t hurt you, but that’s how he works. It’s a strategy. False security, and then he just —”

Oliver broke off, fighting some kind of internal battle with himself. “I’d be naive to think that he won’t be coming after you next,” he finished, in a dull, flat voice.

Felicity could have said any number of things in response to Oliver calling her — them — _naive_ , but what was the point? They’d been here so many times before, and Oliver wasn’t going to see anyone else’s side of it with his tunnel vision focused on how badly he could hurt the people around him. The same conflict, the same fight. Felicity wasn’t sure which side _could_ win, and if it ever would, but what she could see was defeat. How _beaten_ Oliver looked, because of Slade, because —

Because of them. Because he’d made the so-called mistake of being human. Felicity didn’t remember if she’d ever seen Oliver look the way he did now, but it cut her somewhere, deep and private and painful, watching him struggle.

The one thing that might make a difference was stopping Slade, once and for all.

Even if that meant taking a break from being with each other. Moira had paid a painfully high price for Slade’s psychopathic quest for revenge, and in the scheme of things, if stepping back from Felicity meant that Oliver would have some peace of mind, the concentration and focus he’d need to go up against Slade…

Besides, Felicity was angry too. Their face-to-face meeting at the gala had preceded a few things, things that would have made said meeting very, very different. Roy deteriorating into a psychotic rage monster because of the Mirakuru Slade had put in his system. Slade kidnapping Thea. Helping Isabel with her corporate coup on the Queen family legacy. Nearly destroying Oliver’s knee.

Now this. Oliver’s mother, facing irreversible consequences because Slade had wanted to damage her son beyond repair.

So no, Slade hadn’t really seen Felicity when she was angry. When there was genuinely something _to_ be angry about. There was a part of her — one that felt almost Moira-like in inner steel — that wanted him to experience it firsthand.

But first things first.

Felicity slid Oliver’s jacket from her shoulders, folding it over her arm before she returned it to him. “I can’t change your mind,” she said. “I think you’re the one person I’ve met who’s as stubborn as I am when it comes to listening to your conscience, and that’s one of the reasons why I love you.”

Oliver’s eyes flickered very quickly up to her face at the word _love_ , still present tense. Still there. A fire, burning low, but still burning nonetheless. Felicity couldn’t smile — it was the last thing she felt like doing — and instead of being soft and sepia and the way romantic goodbyes were meant to work, she felt the steel settling in her bones, in her heart, her core.

Whatever that looked like to Oliver, Felicity was ready for the fight.

“Do you remember what I said to you — the first night we were ever together?” she asked.

A part of her expected him to hesitate, to shrug and make a guess, but that had never been Oliver. He’d always remembered, with acute detail, every moment of their lives together, big or small, even when they hadn’t been anywhere close to being a couple.

So of course he remembered, and it looked like it was killing him to say it. “You asked me to promise that I’d always come back,” he said.

Felicity nodded. “I know we might end up breaking a lot of promises after today, but that’s the one I really want you to keep. Okay?”

Surprise registered; her reaction wasn’t part of the plan. Even more so was the suggestion that she was going to be just as responsible as he was for breaking promises, because Oliver was nothing if not fiercely protective of the people he cared about — even if it was a courtesy he didn’t seem willing to extend to himself.

All of this seemed to be giving him trouble in articulating the question, _what are you going to do?_ And honestly, Felicity had no idea. So she decided on the next best thing. The kinder option, and exactly the one they needed right now.

“I’ll see you, Oliver,” she said, pausing briefly with her hand on his arm. Light. Friendly. Then the step in the opposite direction. Away.

Except they weren’t done.

Oliver caught her by the arm, “Felicity —” he said as she was turning back, and suddenly his mouth was on hers and his jacket was on the floor because his hands were on her face, and every sense, every synapse shrieked that they shouldn't have been walking away from each other.

But they were.

Felicity kept her eyes closed, knowing Oliver was still cupping her face like it was something immeasurably precious to him, this kiss. This _last_. Then she felt his breath on her lips, and the soft weight of his forehead resting on hers.

She’d assumed the last thing she’d ever do for Oliver Queen was to wash his hands clean of blood, real or imagined, but as it turned out, the last thing he wanted to do was capture a moment of brightness — of his soul, of their happiness — like it’d be the thing to guide him through the night, a long, dark night neither of them could be certain of ending.

_I love you_ , she thought, and she knew that he was thinking it too.

But neither of them said a word, and Felicity felt a drop of something wet on her cheek, tasted salt on her lips when she stepped back, slowly, but with finality. She opened her eyes only after she turned, breathing in deep as she fixed her gaze on the end of the corridor and started to walk.

* * *

Oliver lost track of how long he’d been standing in the same hallway, alone. Wondering if he’d done the right thing and whether it was the only way, wrestling with the darker thoughts that now had new prey to feed on — the very real memories of what he and his family had just gone through a few hours before.

He didn’t hear anyone coming until he heard his name. “Ollie,” Thea said, and trailed off when she got closer and saw how still he was.

She bent to pick up the jacket, lying in a heap on the ground because he’d forgotten it was even there. She brushed it off before handing it back to him, and he forced himself to smile, even though it came off as a grimace.

Thea seemed remarkably devoid of anger, not anything like he’d expected after seeing her with Moira. “You okay?” she asked. “Did something happen?”

Oliver knew she meant besides Moira, already massive in terms of what they could handle, and he didn’t want to pretend like what he was experiencing even came close to that. “That’s not important,” he said. “Did the doctor stop by?”

“Yeah,” Thea seemed to recall why she’d come to find him. “He’s the expert guy from Coast City — he apologized for not letting us see her earlier, but he was trying to make sure he had the right diagnosis. He said we’ll be in to see her pretty soon, so I came to get you. Didn’t want you to miss anything.”

Oliver nodded. He’d already spoken to the doctor about Moira’s condition, but what he’d heard had been subject to a caveat. The last few hours were a test, to see if the nerves could recover, even just a little, before he gave them the news. Oliver had asked him not to tell the others yet, just in case.

Maybe it wouldn’t be as bad as they thought. Maybe.

“Thanks for coming to get me,” Oliver said, and smiled, a little more successfully this time.

It faded at the look on Thea’s face. “Before we see mom,” she said. “I wanted to talk to you. About what happened…tonight. With the — with you being who you are.”

“I’m the Arrow,” Oliver said quietly. “I’ve been the Arrow this whole time. The Hood before that, the vigilante, whatever they called me. I was him. I lied to you.”

Thea’s face twisted at the word _lie_. “Leaving aside the fact that I wouldn’t believe a single word you just said — if I hadn’t just watched you catch a bow out of mid-air and nearly take Slade Wilson out with an arrow, I thought we promised to do things differently after the Malcolm bombshell, I thought we were going to be a different family, you and me.”

Oliver was exhausted, and drained, and he hadn’t meant for all this to happen tonight. Especially not having a conversation with his sister about his identity. So the words rushed out of him, free of denial, excuses, or anything he might have used to salvage something for himself.

“I know, Speedy, and please know that I was going to tell you tonight. When I spoke to mom because she was thinking about dropping out of the race, she told me that she’d known I was the Arrow since last year. This whole time, I thought I was keeping the truth from you and mom to protect you both, but I realized that I was _scared_ , and that’s the worst excuse for lying to my little sister. So I’m sorry. I’m sorry for hurting you. I’m sorry for hurting mom. I’m —”

Thea moved unexpectedly, and without warning Oliver found himself being hugged, his sister’s arms around him, tight, instead of words lashing at him and her storming away. Thea was hugging him, and he had no idea why until she pulled back.

“I love you, Ollie,” she said hoarsely. “You’re my big brother, and you always will be. But how could you think that telling me you were the Arrow — someone who saves people without asking for anything back — would hurt me? Why did you let me get mad at you?”

Oliver shook his head, at something of a loss for words. “It’s…it’s not an easy life, Speedy. The people I love, they tend to get hurt once they see who I really am, and if the price was never having you know about _that_ side of me, I thought it was worth paying.”

“Tommy knows — Tommy’s even shooting arrows too — and Felicity?” Thea asked. “Did you tell her?”

“She’s known for a long time,” he said. “The night mom shot me —”

“—mom _shot_ you?”

“The Arrow,” Oliver reminded her. “The night I got shot, I brought her to meet John Diggle. He’s part of the team too.”

Thea was processing, still too used to seeing the Arrow and her brother as two different people. “Oh my god.” She put her hands over her mouth. “Roy. At Christmas, he said the Arrow _saved_ his life. That was you, and now — where is he?”

“We took him somewhere safe,” Oliver said. “I’ll show you, but you can’t talk to him right now. He’s sedated until we find a way to reverse a drug in his system. Something called the Mirakuru. It’s why Slade Wilson is almost invincible, but the side effects…they make the host subject unstable. Roy got exposed to it because Slade’s been trying to mass-produce men like him, and our only hope to get back the Roy Harper you care about — it’s only a possibility, Speedy. I can’t lie to you about that.”

Thea nodded. “As long as Roy’s alive, right?” she said. “Of course I want to see him, but I just have so many questions right now, and mom —”

“I know.” This time Oliver was the one to hug her. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head for good measure, feeling some of the tension release itself, even though there was still miles, and miles to go. “But thank you for not hating me. That’s all I ever wanted, besides keeping you and mom safe. I’m sorry I failed you.”

Oliver’s voice cracked again and he sighed, a tired, frustrated sigh that all he seemed capable of doing tonight was break. But the truth was that he wasn’t even close to the end of all the apologies he still had to make, not even a little.

“Ollie, you didn’t shoot her,” Thea said, her hands in tight fists against his sleeves. “You weren’t the one who put a gun to our heads. And mom’s strong. She’ll be back up in no time — planning parties — maybe not being the mayor, but…you know her.”

Somewhere at the back of his mind, Oliver thought that Thea bore a striking resemblance to their mother at that very moment. A strength that could slip by without notice, but never wavered, always surfacing at times of greatest need.

Oliver should have told Thea ages ago, to have her as a pillar of strength like she was now. Fully and completely aware of it all.

“Yeah,” he said. “But Speedy, things are going to change with mom.” _Sometimes things are broken beyond repair_.

Thea frowned at him. “I know they will, but —”

“Hey,” Tommy said. He was at the end of the hall, waving to get their attention. He looked nervous but anticipatory, and Oliver knew what was coming. How it would all change. “We can go in and see her.”

* * *

In the end, there was still more waiting to be done. Except this time it was a different kind, after the Coast City specialist had spoken to all of them. With a final diagnosis.

Nerve damage and partial paralysis from the waist down, enough to ensure that a wheelchair would be part of Moira’s life forever.

Moira was still sleeping. She was off the surgical anesthesia, but the pain medication — he knew from experience — tended to make it hard to stay awake. The surgeries and drugs had left her looking drained and tired, a tinge of gray to her skin. The silver in her blonde hair looked more noticeable than usual, and Oliver noticed more lines in her face, wondering if some of those were his fault too.

Oliver wasn’t asleep, but the last he’d checked, Tommy was dozing in the chair across the room, and Thea had been quiet for so long that he assumed she’d fallen asleep too.

There was a quiet rustle, and he looked over. Thea had the small plastic bag used to hold Moira’s personal effects, including her jewelry. The rings were crusted with blood, but Thea was looking at the diamond ring, the one Robert had given their mother when they’d gotten engaged.

Oliver reached over and took her hand. “I don’t know what dad would say.”

Thea sniffed, wiping a hand across her face. Puffy from crying, but all of them were. “He’d probably tell you not to think it’s your fault,” she said huskily. “But I’m starting to get a feeling that you’re the kind who always does.”

Oliver didn’t deny it. “I try to learn from my mistakes.”

“That’s certainly gratifying to hear,” Moira said.

They all shot upright, even Tommy, startled awake by the sound of her voice. It was raspy from disuse and exhaustion, but Moira’s pale lips moved to make a small smile. “All three of you look vaguely familiar,” she said. “Would you happen to be my children?”

“Mom.” Thea was across the room in a heartbeat, throwing herself on Moira with less care than she maybe should have used, given the circumstances. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“That’s quite alright.” Moira was clearly too frail from her surgeries to do more than let Thea hug her, but her face looked happier, warmer than Oliver had seen in weeks, having her youngest child so close. “Thank you for being here when I woke up, sweetheart.”

Thea eventually sat up, leaving the both of them looking more teary-eyed than before. But she continued to perch protectively at the side of Moira’s bed, an arm around her shoulders. “Tommy, Oliver.” Moira was beaming, stretching her hands out towards them, and they moved forward.

“You look _great_ ,” Tommy said, giving her a kiss on the cheek. “Somewhere there’s a huge breakfast of chocolate chip pancakes with your name on it. I’ll bring you some in the morning.”

Moira patted his face fondly and turned towards Oliver last. “Oliver, what’s the matter with your face?”

“Aside from being attached to his body, you mean,” Thea said traitorously.

The others laughed, but only Moira and Oliver stayed solemn, looking at each other. “I’m sorry,” he said, and Moira swallowed, looking down the bed at her legs.

They were completely still beneath the blankets, and Oliver saw the sadness in Moira’s face, at the incontrovertible proof of her condition. “Dr Lambert already spoke to me before my second surgery,” she said, in a carefully controlled voice, the same way parents spoke when they were trying to cushion the blow of bad news. “He told me the chances of repairing the damage, and I see he wasn’t being careful when he told me they were extraordinarily low.”

Moira reached out, gingerly, and touched her leg above her knee, resting her hand on the limb like it had already become a memory. “It seems I’ll be relying quite heavily on a wheelchair from now on. Of course, they’ve told me there’s a chance I’ll recover some mobility, with a proper physiotherapy regime and good exercise. Someday I might be able to stand with the help of crutches. But for now, I’m afraid… _this_ …is the reality. And we don’t do ourselves any favors by avoiding reality, do we?”

Thea was crying again, and she hid her face in Moira’s shoulder as she did. Tommy tried to smile, but his muscles twitched so hard that he looked pained. Oliver’s sight was prickling again. Moira’s quiet reserve was somehow making him feel even more guilty, that she couldn’t even react with all the emotions she deserved to feel — to expel — for fear of hurting his feelings.

“Please don’t cry,” she said to them. “Please don’t —”

Moira faltered, a hand over her mouth as the tears gathered in her eyes. Oliver sat down on the side of Moira’s bed, and she leaned into her son as she cried too. It was a deep, wordless sadness in response to loss, that much he knew. Enough to make someone as prideful and poised as Moira Queen break down in tears in front of her family.

But Oliver couldn’t have pretended to know any more than that, not when Moira was the only person who could say for sure. He was just immeasurably, indisputably sorry, for the pain he was causing her, the pain she’d have to live with for the rest of her life.

She didn’t deserve any of it. “I’m sorry,” he said, and kept saying, until he started to lose track. “I’m so sorry.”

It seemed like a long time before Moira regained her composure, drying her eyes with a determined smile. “I’m all right,” she said, stroking Thea’s hair, clutching at Tommy’s shoulder. “Thank you, thank you for being so sweet.”

“Can we get you anything?” Tommy asked. “Terrible coffee?”

Moira chuckled wetly. “Oh, there’s plenty of time for that. I’m afraid I’ll have to start relying on all of you much earlier than I’d planned. I’m sorry for that.”

“Don’t apologize,” Thea said fiercely. “We’re all family. You’re supposed to rely on family.”

Moira stroked her cheek. “All the same, thank you.”

Oliver had been silent through the exchange, something that didn’t pass unnoticed by Moira, even in her exhausted condition. “Oliver,” she said, and he took her hand without needing to be asked. She looked firm and decisive, despite the tears.

“Given the choice between death and being alive,” she said, “I think I know which side I’d rather fall on. Besides, I still have arms to hug my children with — and I was getting too old to chase them anyway.”

Moira’s sense of humor had always come at strange times, and none of them really laughed at the last part, though Thea made an attempt at a weak smile. Moira was still looking at Oliver. “Say something, sweetheart. Please. Something that isn’t an apology, because I _do not_ blame you for any of it. I meant what I said to you earlier tonight. I am so proud of the man my son has become, and I am so grateful for the chance to see you continue to make me proud. The thought of pushing the blame on your shoulders never occurred to me, and it never will.”

Oliver had no plans to stop apologizing in the near future, but he wasn’t about to disobey a wish of Moira’s, not now. So he took a deep breath. “The person who did this to you —”

“—Slade Wilson,” Thea said, watching Oliver, just as Moira was too.

Oliver looked to Tommy, because he was as involved in this as Oliver was, as much as he hated the idea. They would be in the fight together, shoulder to shoulder — best friends in life. He nodded in response to Oliver’s wordless look.

Oliver faced Moira again. “One way or another, Slade Wilson’s going to pay for what he did,” he said. “I swear.”

There was a weight to what he was doing, even if Moira didn’t know the extent of it. The last time he’d promised something of this magnitude, it’d been to Robert, who’d died to save his life. _Survive_ , he’d said, and Oliver had.

Except this time, the promise he was making was simpler still. _Fight_.

Oliver would. With everything he had. 

Moira’s gaze grew steely as if she'd sensed it, the gravity of Oliver's promise, and she nodded. “Good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- So that's what I've decided to go with. I didn't kill Moira off, but there's still consequences, so hopefully that's struck some kind of balance.  
> \- Surprise! Oliver did something dumb. I legitimately had no plans to do a hospital corridor scene for him and Felicity, but I just couldn't pass it up. Like I said, asshole brain.  
> \- Going to HVFF London next week, so there might be a gap between this and the next chapter :)


	39. The Calm (City of Blood, Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I know I said I wasn't going to post anything this week, but after seeing the S5 finale, I had to do something. WHAT WAS THAT ENDING. AIEJTWNGWIOJWTW << actual transcript of my reaction.  
> Other than that, the episode was all kinds of perfect (the KISS, the fight scenes, just GAHHHHHH).

“Coming, coming,” Felicity knotted her bathrobe over her pajama pants and t-shirt, hotel slippers padding over the dim carpet as she hurried to the front door, where someone was currently knocking.

Jeez, somebody was keen for her signature and tip. Felicity had a dollar bill in her palm and was still rooting around for change in her pajamas when she grabbed the doorknob. “I only have a dollar, but if you swing by later I’ll —” she broke off mid-sentence. “You’re not room service,” she said sheepishly.

Diggle raised his eyebrows in a way that said _no duh_ , plastic bag full of improbable Chinese takeout containers. Improbable because it was seven-thirty on a weekday morning, and Felicity assumed most people didn’t really do chow mein for breakfast.

“Can I come in?” he said.

Felicity shuffled aside, still a little weirded out as to how Diggle had known exactly when and where she was hiding out. Her house was out for obvious reasons, not being as security proof as a secret underground basement lair. And since she and Oliver were on a break and everything — Foundry was _beyond_ question, at least without other people acting as situational buffers. “I thought you’d be at the hospital. Or the Foundry. Speaking of — how’d you find me? Am I being stalked?”

Diggle was busy unpacking the food in front of the couch. “If you’re planning on making sure no one finds you, never check in with your real name, and don’t hire a bodyguard who used to be Special Forces.”

“Technically, I didn’t hire you.” Felicity flopped onto the couch cushions and crossed her legs, picking up a container at random. “Thanks for breakfast th…”

She trailed off mid-sentence, looking at the food. Fried veggie dumplings. The other container had crunchy fried noodles. Spring rolls. Everything in every single one of those containers had been deep fried, her go-to sad food, a fact she vividly remembered telling Diggle because he couldn’t believe that her reactions to relationship troubles didn’t involve some kind of alcohol, at least.

Clearly he didn’t need to know about what she’d done to the hotel minibar.

“Digg,” she said, looking at him over the deep fried feast. “I’m fine.”

“I know,” he answered, opening up a pair of chopsticks and digging into the noodles. “But what kind of friend would I be if I didn’t make sure, right?”

Felicity bit into the crispy wonton shell. Amazing, as expected. “How’d you know?” she asked. “About me and Oliver…taking a break.”

“Break?” he said, raised eyebrows again. Clearly he’d assumed the worst, though based on what, she wasn’t sure. (Had Oliver said something? What was relationship hiatus Oliver even like?) “I figured something like this would happen once Slade started upping the retaliation. I just hoped Oliver wouldn’t be dumb enough to listen.”

“He’s not dumb,” Felicity said, poking at her food. Diggle shot her a look. “Fine, not entirely dumb. You know what he’s like. What happened to his mom was the breaking point — if I wasn’t going to be able to change his mind, might as well use the time to get a game plan in place. Stop this…sword-swinging _psycho_ , once and for all.”

“And then what happens?” Diggle asked. “You get back together? Or business as usual? All that dancing around nearly made Tommy bust his appendix.”

Humorous imagery aside, Felicity didn’t want to answer, because her and Oliver getting back together was a premise predicated on the both of them surviving what happened next, and that felt a _lot_ like tempting fate, something she didn’t want to do now. Especially not now, with so many things hanging in a delicate balance. “Did you get some sleep?” she asked, not so subtly changing the subject.

“Shut my eyes for a couple of hours. You?”

“Had a staring contest with the ceiling,” Felicity said. “It won.”

Diggle wiped his mouth with a napkin and scrunched it up into his fist, clearly choosing his words. “Look, Felicity. You and Oliver were perfectly functioning human beings before you ever got together. Well, you were. He was a work in progress. You’ll both be fine, even if things don’t work out. _But_ …”

“Oh, you’re so great at adding a _but_ ,” Felicity said, mock-seriously.

“But,” Diggle continued, pushing her foot away from where it was deliberately nudging his back. “The both of you apart won’t be as happy as you could be together, and that’s a damn shame. I’m still a soldier, and when I think about war, I think about something that gets me through the hard times, like right now. There has to be something on the other end of the tunnel, otherwise you tend to lose sight of what makes you who you are. That’s never a good thing.”

Felicity stared at the ground, thinking back to the kiss in the hospital corridor. The one that felt every bit like it was meant to be the last. A bright memory of a better time, to cling onto in the darkness. Diggle wasn’t wrong — when was he ever?

“I worry, sometimes,” she admitted. “I mean, it’s Oliver — he’s the cookie cutter pattern of someone to worry about. But that’s not the same as losing faith in him, and I haven’t. I believe in Oliver, and I believe that he’s trying to make choices he can live with. I can’t stop him from doing that, not if us being together is what’s hurting him.”

“You know that’s not hurting him — it never did,” Diggle reminded her.

“Still,” she said, reminding him back. Herself too.

“Choices he can live with,” Diggle said, looking out the hotel window. The sky was a blazing, azure blue, and Felicity wondered if the universe was taunting them with how bright and sunny it was. But Diggle didn’t seem fazed, not really.

“Let’s say I have faith that when all this is over, Oliver’s gonna make a choice he can’t live without,” he said, and smiled at Felicity. “Any guesses as to what that is?”

Felicity nudged him with her foot again, because all the smiling was infectious. “Thank you for checking up on me,” she said. “We’re all lucky to have you.”

Diggle accepted the thanks as he always did, in his quiet, understanding way. “You know, I’ve been thinking. Slade’s plans have been about hitting Oliver where it hurts, and that’s not just his family. A part of the plan is getting his friends to turn on him, like Roy did. To lose hope in what he could be,” he said, and made a noise that was nearly amused. “Slade had no idea what he was getting into with us, did he?”

Felicity reached out and took another container, tapping it against Diggle’s like a toast. “No, he didn’t,” she agreed. “So, game plan. Let’s talk.”

* * *

“Can you digest cardboard?” Thea wondered aloud as they walked. She had a giant stuffed tiger under one arm, the kind of lurid orange that drew stares from the more conservative hospital staff they passed. “Is it like tree bark, and it just _passes_ , eventually? Or does it sit in your stomach and just absorb all the gunk until you die?”

Oliver wasn’t the most naturally squeamish person, but even he had to admit that Thea was being a little less mannered than usual. Even if they _were_ walking through a hospital, where blood and gore was the norm. “Speedy, why are you asking me if I can digest tree bark and cardboard?” he asked.

Thea shrugged, glancing at Leroy the Tiger (she’d named him at the gift shop) like he was part of the conversation too. “I just realized I never asked you stuff about the island, not much of it, anyway. Like how you survived — like _actually_ survived. Shelter, fires, and _arrows_. I can’t believe I just said arrows.”

Oliver had to agree with her disbelief. It was still incredibly strange to hear the rest of his family talk about that side of his life. To think about the fact that they both knew the truth, that it had all happened just over the span of two days.

Felicity would have joked about it. She wouldn’t have been surprised at all, to hear of them accepting him for who he was. Hearing the best about Oliver never surprised Felicity — it was one of the more startling things about her.

Oliver felt a distant pang at the thought of Felicity. He hadn’t seen her since she left the hospital, not since Moira was the focus of his attention — just like he’d told her when they’d…

Not ended, not really. Paused. On suspended time.

“Hello?” Thea waved a hand in his face. “Earth to Ollie?”

“Sorry. And I wouldn’t have given you a straight answer anyway,” he admitted. “I didn’t want you to know that the island was where it started.”

“Turning you into a superhero,” Thea said a little too loudly, causing Oliver to shoot her a look. “They should write that into a comic book.”

She cracked a smile at the look on Oliver’s face. “I’m just teasing you. Let me tease you, okay? It’s part of me feeling bad about giving you all that hell when you were actually running around, saving the city. It’s my coping mechanism for re-evaluating my view of you as an unreliable, slightly dopey, but very _sweet_ older brother,” she said, bumping her shoulder into his good one.

Oliver put his arm around her, and by extension, Leroy the ridiculous waste of felt cloth. “That tiger’s obese,” he said.

“ _Shut up._ ”

“Oliver,” said a voice, and his expression changed so suddenly in recognition that Thea’s forehead immediately creased in worry, sensing his tightened grip around her shoulders.

“Ollie?” she whispered. “What’s wrong?”

Oliver shook his head slightly, looking over his shoulder to ascertain whether it really was Isabel Rochev who’d approached them. It was. She stood in the hospital corridor, bearing a bouquet of flowers, and despite her expression of pitch-perfect concern, he knew from the gleam in her eye that she was still toying with them.

The sight of her face made the darkness inside of him pulse with murderous rage. Even more so since there wasn’t a scratch on her, and he knew for a fact that their fight had to have caused some injury. Yet she looked pristine — and maybe it was makeup to hide the scrapes, but Oliver’s gut instincts told him it wasn’t that. Something was different. Dangerous.

Would Slade have enhanced her with the Mirakuru?

“I’ll meet you back at the room, Speedy.” Forcing himself to sound lighthearted, that it was all okay. He gave her a small push. “Go. I’ll catch up.”

Oliver hadn’t gotten to the part about Isabel working as Slade’s accomplice, but Thea knew enough now that she’d managed to sense danger just off his reaction. There was trust between them again, and he hoped it meant she knew he would tell her everything — if she left him to deal with Isabel first.

Except she didn’t go. She stood her ground, and slipped her hand into the crook of Oliver’s elbow.

“Miss Rochev,” she said, sounding more Moira-like than ever. Glacial courtesy, with the smallest hint of condescension, a tone reserved exclusively for people she didn’t trust or like. “Are you visiting someone?”

“I brought these for your mother, actually.” Oliver tensed slightly as Isabel took a step closer, but she went no further than necessary, making it look like they were mere acquaintances having a conversation. It was broad daylight, and even she had to keep her cover. “I heard she was…injured.”

Even if they didn’t already know she was a snake, neither of them bought that. Moira’s campaign office had been on a forty-eight-hour media lockdown, and the press release hadn’t even been drafted yet. They were still waiting to hear back from the electoral committee about the by-laws, and even then — only friends and family like Walter Steele and Quentin Lance knew that Moira had been injured. Clearly, Slade was satisfied with the damage he’d done, and he’d sent Isabel along to check on the aftermath. Another strategy, another way to help doubt and guilt worm its way further into Oliver’s psyche.

But for someone who’d just been brought into the fold, Thea had less trouble holding her composure than Oliver had expected, even though he could feel her fingers digging slightly into his sleeve.

“That’s kind,” Oliver said. “I know you and my mother haven’t exactly been on the best of terms. I’m glad to see you’re trying to mend fences — after what happened with your attempt to take over as CEO.”

Thea smiled at the slight narrowing of Isabel’s eyes. “Mom’s resting,” she added. “But we’ll take those — if you’ve got somewhere else to be. Work? Oh, right. Not anymore.”

Isabel studied Thea with the gaze of someone appraising a potential challenger, and Oliver knew it mattered to Thea more than anything that Isabel — and by extension Slade — never knew how much they’d managed to hurt her.

Hurt, not broken. Thea was a Queen, and a Merlyn. It was a formidable combination, and she showed that now, staring down Isabel with the cool calm of Moira’s daughter.

“That’s very sweet, Thea,” Isabel said, turning the paper-wrapped bouquet towards them so they could see the flowers she’d brought.

Roses and lilies, the blooms white and opaque as frost, heavy with the distinct scent — one that reminded him of funerals and solemn wakes. She’d brought Moira flowers for her grave. Oliver made no move to touch them, and after a pause, Isabel left them on the window ledge with that same, slow smile.

“Give my best to your mother,” Isabel said, and she walked away, leaving the heavy scent of funeral flowers swirling in her wake.

As soon as she was out of sight, Thea snatched up the bouquet and stuffed it into the nearest trash can, sending up puffs of flower-scented air as she did. “Speedy —” Oliver began, but she cut him off.

“Slade sent her to mess with you,” Thea declared, looking livid, her arm squeezing Leroy so tightly that the stitches looked like they might burst. “Mom doesn’t need to know, okay? She’s supposed to be recovering, and this — Slade’s already hurt her enough.”

Oliver nodded. “You shouldn’t have stayed,” he said. “Isabel’s dangerous. Slade trained her. I know what happened to mom makes you angry — I’m angry too — but we have to be smart. I promised you and mom that I’d take Slade down, but I can’t do that if I’m worried about you taking stupid risks. You have to stay safe, okay? Promise me.”

“Fine,” she said, grudgingly. “I promise. But _me_ taking stupid risks? Are you kidding? You and Tommy jump off rooftops and play Robin Hood. If that’s not a double standard, I don’t know what is.”

“Speedy, you _hated_ gym class,” Oliver reminded her. They were walking again, leaving behind the cloying scent of funeral flowers. “You used to make mom write you notes to get out it.”

“Yeah, but I’m the one with the wall full of archery trophies,” Thea said. “Can’t believe Tommy got picked for partner in crime over me.”

“Tommy has his own reasons,” Oliver said. “I told you that Malcolm came after him.”

Thea made a face at the mention of Malcolm. “Yeah, my biological dad came back to life after supposedly dying in the Undertaking — which he caused, by the way — and my half-brother sent a league made up of trained assassins after him,” she recited. “And here I thought the Queen family called dibs on drama.”

“You’re both,” Oliver said, kissing the top of her head. “You’re a Queen and a Merlyn, and I don’t ever want you to forget that. It’s who you are.”

“More than the daughter of a psychopathic liar?” she said flatly.

“Speedy, that’s never been you. Out of mom, dad, and me — you were the kindest, the one with the purest heart, the one who always saw the best in us, even when we weren’t always honest with you. Your last name doesn’t change who you are, but the Merlyn name can mean a lot more with someone like you to make it better.”

Thea put her arm around him too as they walked, leaning on Oliver with a small smile that meant she liked what she’d heard. “Hey, maybe I’ll take up _magic_ ,” she said. “How’s that for living up to the family name?”

Oliver laughed as they turned into their mother’s hospital room, but he stopped as soon as he did. Felicity straightened up from beside Moira’s nightstand, trailing off mid-sentence like she’d been talking to his mother. There was a bunch of bright gold and orange daisies sitting in a clear vase of water, a vase she’d clearly been arranging when he walked in. Diggle was right behind her, and he nodded to Oliver. “Mr Queen.”

“Digg,” Oliver said. “Hey.”

The last part was directed partly at Felicity too, whose arm gave a kind of twitch that might have been a wave. “I thought I’d come by to visit before work,” she said, mostly to Moira, who still looked a little drawn, but pleased with her present. “I would’ve brought breakfast, but Tommy said he had that covered.”

Moira gestured vaguely at the tray table pushed to the side. “More than I could handle, I’m afraid,” she said. “But thank you for visiting, Felicity. And for the flowers, they’re lovely.”

Oliver still didn’t move from the door, and Thea had to slide past him on her way in. She was looking at him and Felicity like they were acting weird — which they were — but he pretended not to notice. “Thank you,” he added. “They’re really nice. The flowers, I mean.”

Now Moira was looking at them strangely too.

Felicity pointed at the flowers like they were a response to his _thank you_. “I read a study that said there was a positive correlation between brightly colored flowers and, um, physical health — emotional wellbeing, life satisfaction, that kind of thing — so I went for the brightest flowers they had at the florist. She thought they were for someone’s birthday party.”

Everything, from the sun-colored daisies, the nervous patter in her voice, down to the fact that she’d researched a _study_ before deciding what kind of flowers to bring…it was purely Felicity, and it nearly killed him to remember that they’d decided to keep their distance from each other. Even if it was only temporarily.

Oliver hoped his smile wasn’t as stiff as hers, but somehow he had a feeling they were both a little out of sorts. “Um, thank you.”

Thea winced at something. “Yeah, it’s really a party in here,” she muttered, nudging the stuffed tiger.

“Anyway.” Felicity smiled at Moira, the same bright smile that reminded him of the sunlight coming through the windows. “I should go. But I’m glad you’re recovering, and if there’s anything you need —”

Moira patted her hand. “I will. Drive safely, Mr Diggle.”

“We will, Mrs Queen.” Diggle and Felicity were leaving now, and Oliver realized he was still blocking the door.

“I’ll be right back,” he said to his family, and followed them out to the hall.

There was security personnel posted at the doors of the private wing, and Oliver caught up with Diggle and Felicity before they got through. “Hey,” he said, physically restraining himself from catching Felicity by the arm. “Is everything okay?”

“Absolutely,” Felicity said, a little too quickly. “Tommy’s hitting the police precinct to look into leads on Slade, and Digg and I might have our own to chase. Don’t worry, we’re working on something.”

“That’s not what he meant, Felicity,” Diggle said, taking a step back. “I’ll give you two a minute.”

Oliver intercepted a slight shake of Diggle’s head before he turned away, and he knew at least one person thought he’d done something incredibly stupid. Never mind Tommy, who he still hadn’t told. Somehow the same constraints never seemed to apply to Diggle, who knew everything anyway.

“What’s up?” Felicity said.

There was something nervy about her, wired, like how she got sometimes when she’d had too much coffee in one go, or when she was latched onto a possibility — either work-related or otherwise — that she wasn’t about to shake off. The results were usually brilliance personified, but on occasion dangerous, and he was worried.

Oliver had no idea what to make of it — or if he could even _say_ something about it. They’d taken a break from each other as a couple, but that didn’t mean they weren’t still friends, a role that included observation and healthy concern.

The fact that he’d even had to justify himself, even mentally, felt as ridiculous to Oliver as it was a waste of time. Felicity was clearly using the space to focus on the ongoing fight against Slade, and he needed to catch up.

So he got to the point. “Isabel was just here,” he said in a low voice. “We ran into her before she managed to get to my mother.”

“Oh my god.” Felicity was all concern now, and he thought her arm moved as though she wanted to touch his shoulder. But a second later it was back at her side. “You said _we_. Thea?”

Oliver nodded. “There’s something different about Isabel. She must have gotten hurt in the fight, but today it was like none of that ever happened.”

Felicity raised her eyebrows. “Mirakuru? You think Slade —”

“— I don’t know if he’d take that risk,” Oliver said. “He couldn’t have been sure she’d survive the transition.”

“But if she did —” Felicity made a noise that encapsulated _bad_. “Okay, I’ll keep an eye out for cray-cray ex-CEOs at the office. Thanks for the warning.”

“No problem.” The doors opened, and Oliver caught a glimpse of his mother’s campaign manager. There was someone else with him, someone drawing attention from the reporters who’d resisted hospital security’s attempts to expel them from the premises. They knew Slade Wilson had been named by Moira as the man who’d attacked her, and the sensationalism of Thea’s kidnapping only made the reporters more hungry for the full story. The flashing lights made Oliver frown, and he stepped a little further towards the side, shifting the conversation to a more private location. “And you — you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, without hesitation. “You? How’s your mom — really?”

Oliver didn’t know how to get into it, not all the conversations with the psychologists and the physiotherapists and the specialist doctors — Thea was even talking about a few from cities he couldn’t even pronounce. “She’s my mother,” he said, and saw her lips quirk in sympathetic understanding. “But she’s dropping out of the election. The race ends tomorrow, and if she wins, she can’t really be mayor from a hospital room.”

The irony of it went unsaid. Moira had nearly withdrawn from the mayoral race, chosen to stay in after he’d convinced her to, and now — she didn’t really have a choice.

“Have you checked with the electoral committee?” Felicity asked. “Maybe they can appoint an interim mayor until your mom’s ready for office.”

Oliver nodded. “Even if they let her do that, I’m not sure she wants to.”

Felicity inclined her head. “Of course — I’m sorry. If she wants to focus on herself and her family, that’s still really good.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, it is.”

“You never answered me,” she said, carefully. “I asked how you are — and I know that’s one of your least favorite questions, but usually you not answering means that you’re…not.”

Oliver chafed at the fresh bandage on his arm, hidden underneath his sleeve. “I usually make the exception for you,” he said, before he managed to stop himself. “Sorry. I meant —”

Felicity blinked, hard. “No, I know what you meant. And, um, about that. Your knee, not the _making exceptions_ thing, because —” She gave her head a small shake. “Anyway, I’ve been using programs to monitor the bio-stimulant prototype, you know, troubleshooting, making sure it’s working right. But given our, um, situation, if you felt more comfortable with handling it yourself — you could tell me. And I’ll do that. Hand it over, I mean.”

“Oh.” Oliver briefly recalled the interface on Felicity’s tablet, responsible for controlling the sheer volume of numbers and code required to maintain the piece of biotechnology currently inside his leg, and hesitated at the thought of transferring it over to anyone except for her. Even himself. She might have been the only person he knew smart enough to understand it, but it was more than that.

She was still _Felicity_. Whatever they were, he still trusted her. Without question, without fail. Thinking about it — letting himself think about it — was like another small hurt. Maybe if he accumulated enough of them, it’d eventually stop stinging.

“Would you mind if you held onto it?” he said, hesitating a little. “I know it’s a lot to ask, but I —”

Felicity waved her hand. “No, of course not — I totally get it. It’s a computer, and you don’t exactly have the best track record with computers, and unless you learned to code in the last twelve hours…forget what I said. Don’t worry about it. Just thought I’d ask…you know.”

“Thank you,” he said, meaning it. “Really, I wouldn’t be standing here without you, Felicity.”

“You never have to thank me,” she said, and her smile looked like a small hurt too.

A silence fell, and in that moment, they both looked like they felt. Out of place, and wistful. But they didn’t say the obvious — there was a reason. Always a reason.

“I’m gonna go,” Felicity said, finally. “I think I have a lead on how Slade knew Roy was at the mansion. I’ll keep you updated.”

“Same here,” he answered.

The feeling of inexplicable closeness — the wordless connection — held for only a second longer, and Felicity was walking back towards Diggle. Oliver waved to them before they pushed back out into the sea of flashing cameras.

In their place, his mother’s campaign manager and someone else unexpected.

“Oliver,” said Sebastian Blood, extending his hand. He looked solemn in dark gray, more sincere and regretful than Oliver had come to expect from politicians. “I’m sorry to hear about your mother.”

“Sebastian,” Oliver said, a little taken aback at seeing him. “Is this about the campaign?”

“It is,” said Mr Francis. “I’m afraid the electoral committee got back to us, and their interpretation of the by-laws are as expected. Moira can’t take office while she’s still rehabilitating, and we —”

Oliver nodded. The news was a blow softened by the obvious, but there was something else. The longer they stood in the corridor, the more he noticed it.

Roses. Lilies. The heavy scent of funeral flowers. The same flowers Isabel had brought.

Oliver stared at Sebastian Blood like he was seeing him for the first time.

It couldn’t be. Sebastian had been a steady friend, with the kind of backbone when it came to his values and ideals that Oliver had to admire, even when they fell short of pragmatic. He was uncompromising in his vision to save Starling City and make it a better place.

Slade wanted to destroy Starling if it meant destroying something else that Oliver loved. That was fundamentally incompatible with Sebastian’s goal, and Oliver couldn’t imagine a world where Sebastian would accept anything less.

“Oliver?” Sebastian said, looking concerned. “Are you all right?”

Oliver nodded. “Fine,” he said, sounding surprisingly like himself. “Shall we?”

* * *

A gut feeling, and a scent. That was all Oliver had to go on, to back up his suspicion that Sebastian Blood wasn’t who he seemed. More specifically, that he was working with a dangerous psychopath to try and bring down his enemy out of nothing more than revenge.

That didn’t seem like Sebastian at all.

Then again, nothing in Oliver’s world really was as it seemed.

“It may sound insincere coming from me, someone benefiting from your tragedy, but I am genuinely sorry to hear that you won’t be assuming your rightful position in the mayor’s office,” Sebastian said. “If all the polls are right, you would have been elected as Starling’s mayor, and I believe in the power of a people’s democracy — whatever political differences you and I have had over the course of this election.”

Moira smiled, looking wry. “I went into this race with the expectation of facing a dangerous idealist,” she said. “It appears your ideals may have influenced me in the end, Sebastian, because I think I believe you.”

Sebastian smiled back. “I would love to speak to you about any opportunities in the mayor’s office that may arise in the future,” he said. “After your recovery, of course.”

“That’s very kind, and I’ll certainly consider,” Moira said, smoothing the blanket over her motionless legs. “I wish you the best of luck, Sebastian.”

“And you the best of health.” Sebastian grasped her hand in a firm shake. “Maybe one day you’ll run against me for the re-election.”

Moira laughed quietly. “Oh, don’t tempt me.”

Sebastian returned her smile, and stood from his chair. “Thank you all for letting me visit,” he said. “My thoughts and prayers are with you.”

“Sebastian,” Oliver said, getting to his feet too. “May I walk you out?”

“Of course,” Sebastian answered, gesturing to the door.

They exited into the hallway, quiet in comparison to the press phalanx outside. Oliver was still thinking, wrestling with his instincts and the doubt, tempered by the dangerous anger he felt at the thought of Slade Wilson and anyone associated with him.

Slade made promises. He manipulated. He’d promised Isabel revenge on the Queen family, a motive none of them had managed to detect until it was almost too late. Facades and slow-moving traps — that had always been Slade’s strategy, and Oliver had been lulled into a sense of false security one too many times.

Sebastian had been losing the mayoral race. Thea’s kidnapping might have helped him, if Moira had only dropped out of the race because of it. She hadn’t, and on the same night when she’d been meant to make the announcement that she was withdrawing her candidacy — a brutal attack that had put her out of the running for good.

“I know that conversation mustn’t have been easy,” Sebastian said. “If you don’t mind me asking, what are the chances she’ll recover?”

Oliver inclined his head. Keeping the information to himself didn’t matter, not when Slade seemed to have spies wherever he looked. He’d find out about Moira’s condition soon enough. “The doctors always say there’s a chance of recovery, but I think we’re all coming to terms with the fact that it might be permanent.”

Sebastian sighed. “Only a coward would attack your family like that,” he said. “Harming an innocent woman? That’s despicable. I know it might sound like an empty promise, but once I’m mayor, I’ll set up a task force to find this Slade Wilson, I swear. He _will_ see justice done.”

_Once I’m mayor._

If anything could have dispelled Oliver’s residual doubts about the trustworthiness of Sebastian Blood, his certainty — his acceptance — of the kind of news that should have taken him by surprise, it was as good as a thread tying him to Slade.

“Will he?” Oliver wondered aloud. They were alone in the corridor, out of sight of security. “Or will he expect you to drop your plans to prosecute him? After all, he _did_ make you mayor.”

Sebastian paused, looking confused. “I’m not sure we’re talking about the same person here, Oliver,” he said, with a small laugh.

Oliver didn’t smile. “Slade Wilson,” he said, and saw Sebastian’s eyes tighten. “You made a bargain with the devil, Sebastian. And whatever you think he’s promised you, know that the price is always going to be more than you’re willing to pay.”

“I haven’t bargained for anything,” Sebastian said, and it was an admirable attempt to maintain his nonchalance. But there was a new undercurrent, one of uncertainty. Sebastian didn’t know Slade the same way Oliver did, and he didn’t have Isabel’s self-assured ruthlessness, the kind that meant she didn’t care who she worked with, as long as she got what she wanted.

Sebastian was different. He had ideals — as passionate and unrealistic as they were — and someone like him would always work hard to convince himself that the ends justified the means.

But if Slade’s end was the destruction of Starling City, Sebastian’s carefully fabricated notions wouldn’t hold for long.

“Slade has a sword over your head,” Oliver said. “The second you step inside that office — you’re his. He’ll never let you do what you want, and I only feel sorry for you.”

It worked, forcing Sebastian on the defensive. “Feel sorry for yourself, Mr Queen,” he said. “I’m going to save Starling City from itself, and I’ll be doing it as its Mayor. I’ve got everything I wanted. Why should anyone pity me for that?”

Oliver shook his head. “Because Slade’s using you,” he said. “You’re a weapon of convenience to him now, but as soon as you outlive your usefulness — let’s just say he’s not the kind of man who leaves loose ends.”

Sebastian smirked. “And how would you know that?”

So Slade hadn’t told him who Oliver really was. But he’d told Isabel. Which meant that in terms of true partnership, Isabel was the only one who could claim that right. Not Sebastian, and his lack of information on the Arrow’s true identity just proved it.

Which left the question of what his work had been for Slade. Sebastian’s only goal had ever been saving Starling —

— _from itself._

Oliver narrowed his eyes, because he’d never forget the face — the voice — that had claimed the very same purpose, saving a city from its own demons. Hidden underneath the grotesque skull mask of a fanatic who’d called himself Brother Blood.

 _Blood_. Oliver didn’t understand how he could have missed it before.

“You don’t remember meeting me,” he said, coolly. “In all fairness, I was under a hood.”

“A hood —” Sebastian stopped, his face frozen in delayed recognition. “Of course. The whole time.”

A silence fell, and Sebastian shook his head. An unpleasant smile had worked its way onto his face, equal parts disbelief and wonder. “The Arrow.”

Oliver stood his ground. “Brother Blood,” he answered, like they were meeting each other for the very first time.

The atmosphere — already cold — dropped several notches lower to glacial. Oliver was the first to break the tense silence, and he did it with a warning. “Now that we’ve established we know each other’s true identities, you should believe me when I say that Slade’s just using you,” he said. “He doesn’t care whether Starling City rises or falls. He only cares about getting revenge on me and my family, whatever the cost. You know he has an army of Mirakuru soldiers, and that they’ll level Starling City once he unleashes them for his plan.”

“No.” Sebastian straightened his shoulders, a gesture as defiant as it was defensive. “He won’t level Starling. He’ll send them after you, and they’ll cause enough damage in the process to make sure that the citizens of the city will be _ready_ for a new world order. Fear and chaos breed obedience, an understanding that they’ll be safer together, under someone with the power to shelter them from harm. After the Mirakuru, they’ll be ready for me to lead them into a new day.”

Oliver shook his head slowly. “That day will never come if Slade gets what he wants,” he said. “So think _very_ carefully about what you’re really fighting for, Sebastian. Because if you were serious about saving Starling, you wouldn’t be standing by his side.”

“I’d say the same to you,” Sebastian answered, a cold bite to his words. “Because if you were serious about protecting what you love — you’d have given him what he wanted a long time ago. Then maybe your mother wouldn’t be facing the rest of her days as a cripple.”

Oliver took a step closer to Sebastian, and watched him move back as though that simple action was tantamount to issuing a threat. “Think very carefully about what you do next, Mr Queen,” said Sebastian, but there was a flicker of apprehension in his eyes. “You wouldn’t want to assault the future mayor of Starling City, would you?”

Oliver smiled, a small, cold smile that Moira might have been proud of. “No,” he agreed. “But that’s all right. I have a feeling he won’t be around for very long.”

Sebastian still managed a smirk, though he’d paled visibly at Oliver’s veiled threat. “Take care of yourself, Oliver. There’s a new day coming. Who knows what it’ll bring?”

Oliver watched him walk out into the sea of flashing cameras, thoughts racing inside his head. Now he knew. Getting Sebastian Blood into the mayoral office was part of Slade’s plan. Experimenting with the Mirakuru, stealing equipment like the centrifuge and the bio-transfuser, the attempted takeover of Queen Consolidated…they’d interfered with aspects of the plan, either by accident or by design, but the pieces had slowly accumulated anyway, moves on a chessboard in a game they hadn’t realized they were playing until too late. Another obstacle had just fallen, and Oliver had a feeling it was the last.

Sebastian called what was coming a _new day_. Darkness came before the dawn, and Oliver knew they were running out of time.

* * *

Tommy walked into the precinct with his mind in an unusual state of preoccupation. Usually it was the Top Ten Greatest Hits of the Summer just blaring around in there, along with the occasional prank, cocktail recipe and latest piece of hot gossip, but today it felt like his head had been replaced by a lead balloon.

Which didn’t make unorthodox requests any easier.

McKenna had her back turned when he walked up to her desk.

“Hey,” he said. “I don’t have coffee, but —”

She’d turned at the sound of his voice, and before he knew it, he was being hugged — something that had happened a lot over the last few days. But McKenna’s hug made everything go a little quieter, like having her close was a good way to filter out the white noise and concentrate on the things that mattered.

“I tried to call you,” she said, still holding onto him.

“I know,” he said, really glad he’d decided to shower instead of charge his electronics (not a euphemism). “Phone went dead, and hospitals are kinda weird about letting you use their wall outlets to charge.”

McKenna pulled away, and she reached up to touch his face, post-long night scruffiness and all. “How’s Moira?” she asked.

Tommy blew out his breath. “She’s a trooper. No idea what she’s been eating for breakfast all these years, but it might be iron chips because she’s got more of that than anyone I’ve seen.”

“That’s really good,” McKenna said, but she was either a good enough detective not to buy it completely, or he was just _that_ bad at putting a positive spin on things. “And you?”

“Got a magnet anywhere?” he asked, miming chomping down on it like it was a granola bar. “Because iron — get it?”

McKenna cracked a smile. “I can’t believe you know what magnets are made of.”

“You know me. Full of surprises,” he said. “So, any leads on Slade Wilson?”

That was the best thing about McKenna — she didn’t force something out of him if he wasn’t ready. She beckoned him towards one of the file stacks near her in-tray. “We opened it up to a tip hotline,” she said. “Lots of nut jobs calling in about other nut jobs, but the sergeant can talk you through that.”

Tommy looked at the clock. It was a little early for Quentin to be reporting for duty. “The sergeant’s here?”

“Where else would I be?” Quentin seemed to have materialized out of nowhere (but judging by the smell of coffee, probably the break room). He hugged Tommy too, patting his back in his gruff way. “Hey, kiddo.”

It occurred to Tommy, suddenly, that Quentin must have waited up for him, ever since he’d heard Moira was in the hospital. On the off-chance that maybe his sorta-adopted son (or the guy who pestered him about doctor’s appointments and taking multi-vitamins) would want to talk. Or a hug.

Quentin was such a _dad_ sometimes.

“Thanks, Quentin,” he said, wishing suddenly that Sara hadn’t gone off for the purposes of her secret plan. “I’m okay.”

Quentin grunted like he meant, _I know_. “You’re a brave kid, and we’ll catch the son of a bitch Slade Wilson, I promise you that,” he said, giving his shoulder a shake. “You heard from Sara? She left me a note about going somewhere for a couple of days.”

Tommy pointed at his drained phone. “No idea. Right now, I’m just here to scavenge some leads for O— uh — our mutual friend.”

 _God_ , he’d nearly said Oliver. After Moira and Thea, he was losing track of who knew, who they didn’t know actually knew, who knew they knew and who — _never mind_. As an aside, Tommy briefly wondered which category his girlfriend was in, but she currently had her nose in a file, with a mug of coffee he now snagged in order to get a shot of watered-down espresso.

Quentin was talking at them about the tip hotline, so she only narrowed her eyes a little at him, and he nudged his side against hers, making her smile. It felt like habit by now, but she put her arm around his middle, leaning into him while he rested his chin on her hair.

Tommy was glad he’d come to the precinct instead of going home to sit in his empty room, using mind tricks to force himself (futilely) not to relive the night he’d just had, slashing swords, gunfire and irreversible trauma. Because what he needed to chase away the thought of Slade was seeing the people who mattered most to him. McKenna and Quentin were right up there, and in just under ten minutes, they’d both showed him that he mattered too.

“Tommy?” McKenna must have noticed something on his face, and he blinked away the stuff (slightly embarrassing stuff) that had appeared in his eyes for no reason. “You’re okay, you know. You will be.”

McKenna had been through a lot of things, a life-changing injury for starters, one that might have ended her career as a cop — if she hadn’t chosen to fight back. If she was telling Tommy that he was going to be okay, he had no reason not to believe it.

Quentin nodded, like he got why Tommy was there, why he refused to stop moving — after Slade had hit him, all of them — with something meant to stop them dead in their tracks. He didn’t know the half of it, which made it even more important, because he knew Tommy like he knew one of his children. Like they were family. “She’s right. And hey, you count on us. If there’s a fight coming — we’re on your side. Okay, kiddo?”

He was saying _trust us_ , and Tommy did. So he nodded back. “Okay.”

* * *

Diggle lifted a low-hanging branch and reached back to help Felicity through. “This might sound like an obvious thing to ask, but is there some reason we’re not going through the front door?”

Felicity had a scratch at the back of her hand from a pesky set of thorns on a rosebush, and circumstances in her personal life had conspired to put her in more of a stomping mood than usual. “Because,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that Slade has eyes inside the house.”

As crazy as it sounded, Diggle didn’t shrug off her theory — an act of friendship she deeply appreciated. “Makes sense. Harper practically dropped off the map after he stormed out of the Foundry. Slade couldn’t have known Harper was back in town and grabbed him if he hadn’t been watching the house.”

“Or a few of the likely places,” she said. “I mean, even if Roy’s brain turned to scrambled eggs because of the Mirakuru, it was a pretty safe bet that he’d show up at either the mansion or Verdant. But as far as we know, Slade’s only been inside one of those places.”

“So by that logic, he’s spying on Verdant too.”

“Not so sure,” she said. “If an angry hoodie man started trashing a club like Verdant — and if I was a more prolific user of social media — I’d be tweeting, texting, Facebooking or _whatever-ing_ about it. The news would break that story in minutes. The mansion’s different. He must have known he had to cover his bases in case Roy decided to hit it first. Literally.”

Diggle shook his head as he ducked under the pointed arrow off a cherub garden sculpture. “Sometimes I worry what would happen if you ever turned to the dark side, Felicity.”

“Been there, done that,” she said, suppressing a shudder at her goth days.

“Do you want to talk about what happened at the hospital?”

“ _No-ope_ ,” she laughed, not because it was funny in a _ha ha_ kind of way, but because the alternative to laughing was wanting to scream.

They finally emerged out of the shrubbery, facing the imposing gray stone of the mansion. They’d come from the direction of the grounds, the same path Roy had taken when he’d busted into the drawing room. The doors had already been removed and replaced with true Moira Queen efficiency, but Diggle still had his security key as the family bodyguard (what the official arrangement was now, she wasn’t entirely sure).

“Just a sec,” Felicity said. “Once we’re inside the house, _ixnay_ on the talk about spying, okay? We don’t know how bugged the room is. I’ll pretend I’m looking for an earring I dropped in the drawing room when I went to dinner the last time.”

She reached into her pocket and pulled out a black disc, like the kind she handed out to everyone in the team in case they ever needed her to hack something offline and on the go. “This’ll pick up any wireless signal being transmitted from a bug,” she said, attaching it to the inside lining of his coat. “The sensor links to my phone, and once it goes off, I’ll let you know.”

Diggle nodded, smoothing down his lapels, no sign of the signal detector at all. “I’ll do a sweep, and if something turns up, one of us pretends there’s a rat. Or cockroach — I’m not picky.”

Felicity made a face. “Between that and a cockroach, I’ll take rat.”

“All right.” Diggle unlocked the doors. “Let’s go.”

The house felt strangely cold without any of the family in it. Not that any of the family necessarily radiated warmth (Moira certainly hadn’t, not from the get-go). Oil paintings and suits of armor didn’t tend to generate a vibe that didn’t scream _castle_ , and everyone knew castles had terrible central heating.

“So what does the earring look like?” Diggle asked casually. He’d turned right at the doors, starting his sweep counter-clockwise.

“Uh.” Felicity stood in the middle of the rug, hands in her coat pockets, looking around. It felt like some kind of skit, or at best a pretty crappy audition for a bit part. “Shiny. Red. It’s got…dangly bits. Sounds weird, I know. It’s a family heirloom.”

Diggle shook his head, probably at her inability to even fabricate a fictional piece of jewelry. “Thanks for the heads up.”

Felicity’s phone started to buzz in her pocket. That got Diggle’s attention immediately, but Felicity nixed it. Oliver was calling, not good if she was planning to keep track of a wireless signal sweep. So she sent the call to voicemail with a swipe, feeling a faint bite of satisfaction — probably out of some unresolved resentment she was keeping way, _way_ down for the more present purposes of beating the crap (metaphorically) out of Slade.

Removing her hand from her coat pocket, Felicity lifted one of the couch cushions, doing her best not to look like she was tracking Diggle’s progress through the room. He’d made it to the fireplace now. There was a painting above the mantlepiece, a forest in fall. The colors looked strangely muted in the room, fiery orange and warm browns sapped of their color in the wide, cold space.

A floorboard creaked, and Felicity jumped — not just because of the sound — but because they’d found something. “Sorry,” she said, breathlessly. “I thought heard a rat.”

Diggle stayed exactly where he was, and Felicity walked over immediately to stand with him, as people afraid of rats usually did. Bubonic plague carriers, and all that. “You’re right,” Diggle said. “I think it was.”

They were both searching, and trying not to look like they were. Between the two of them, Felicity trusted Diggle’s eyes, not just because didn’t need glasses, but because he was also one hell of a sharpshooter.

“Went that way,” Diggle said. He’d pointed straight ahead, towards one of the doors that led out to the foyer, but his other hand shifted silently to the mantlepiece, his thumb resting at a downward angle. Felicity faked a shudder, turning them around. “I hate rats,” she said, as her eyes alighted on a tiny dark speck in the molding. It looked like a trick of the light to her, but Diggle wouldn’t have made that kind of mistake.

He nodded silently, and a chill went up the length of her spine.

They were being watched. The only difference now was that they knew it, and Slade didn’t.

 _Good_.

* * *

Oliver looked down at his phone. The call had gone straight to Felicity’s voicemail. Either she was in a meeting, or she didn’t want to talk.

He hoped it was the first option, because he sincerely didn’t know what to make of the second. “Speedy?” he said, searching the Foundry for where she might have gone.

It was her first time seeing the basement, a place she’d avoided because of a long-term excuse about flooded pipework. All that aside, Oliver shouldn’t have been surprised that Thea had gone straight to Roy. She didn’t seem to have heard him call her, and she put a hand on the side of Roy’s throat, checking his pulse. Her forehead wrinkled, and she moved her hand to right over his heart.

“He’s still breathing,” Oliver said. “The Mirakuru keeps him alive, but the Tibetan pit viper venom slows his heart enough to keep him in a coma.”

“You’re literally keeping him between life and death,” Thea said, but her voice was flat, devoid of resentment. “With Tibetan pit viper venom. Yet another string of words I never thought I’d say out loud.”

“Sorry,” Oliver said.

Thea gave him a look, the gleam in her eye more reminiscent of his little sister than ever. “Don’t you ever get tired of using that word?”

Oliver shook his head. “Somehow there’s always a reason for me to break it out.”

Thea circled around Roy’s motionless body, her hand trailing off the side like she was still unwilling to let him go. She came to stand in front of the glass case, looking up at the Arrow’s hood and bow. “So this is you,” she said.

Oliver walked up to stand beside her. “This is me,” he agreed.

“Today at the hospital, with you and Felicity — is everything okay there?” she asked.

Oliver could feel her gaze. Curious. Knowing. “We…decided to take a break,” he said, releasing it like a sigh.

“ _We_?” Thea said. “Whose idea was it? Because we all know that’s what counts.”

“I suggested it,” he admitted. “What happened to mom…it’s just…it’s too much for a relationship to handle right now. It didn’t seem fair to you and mom, or Felicity, so…”

“You did the dumb cliché hero thing,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “God, Ollie. You were always terrible at relationships before you went green, but now you’re actively screwing things up for yourself.”

For a moment, Thea sounded so much like Tommy that Oliver was tempted to smile. But the thought of the choices he’d made regarding Felicity and the unresolved questions they raised about their future — it forced his expression into something more appropriate for a funeral.

“Speedy, the life that I lead is…complicated, okay? And I really don’t want to hash out my relationship troubles when we have more important things to worry about than my love life.”

Thea looked over her shoulder at Roy. “Did you ever give him relationship advice?” she asked, like it was a question that had only just occurred to her.

Given her tone, Oliver decided it was probably best not to answer. “Sebastian Blood is working with Slade,” he said, crossing over to Felicity’s workstation. Given his history with crashing computers, he knew better than to try using any of the complex programming without her around, so all he did was log into the system to bring up their case file on Brother Blood. “I need to find some way to use him.”

“What about hospitals?” Thea asked, looking viscerally repulsed by the police sketch of the skull mask. “You shot Slade with an arrow. He must have gone somewhere to get himself patched up.”

Thea was a quick thinker, and if it had been anyone _not_ enhanced beyond all reason with a serum, her suggestion would have been a good lead. But Slade wasn’t.

“No,” Oliver said firmly. “He’s ex-ASIS. He’s trained to be a ghost. The Mirakuru makes him invincible anyway — he’d have healed by now.”

“Okay, so associates.” Thea spun one of the chairs from side to side while she thought. “He wouldn’t have to be careful about contacting Isabel. She’s not CEO of Queen Consolidated anymore. But a public servant — he’ll have to be careful about getting in touch with Sebastian Blood. No paper trail — so no phones — no computers. How do you track someone who doesn’t want to be found?”

Oliver looked at the monitors. “Facial recognition,” he said. “But Felicity’s not picking up, and even if she did, we’ve been running facial recognition on Slade for months. If they’re working with him, they’ll be too careful to get caught on camera. And we’re running out of time. Sebastian gets sworn in as mayor in a few days, and once that happens —”

“—bad,” Thea said. “So what does that leave us with?”

 _No one_ , Oliver thought to himself. “Not someone I trust,” he said, because the idea had been lurking at the back of his mind since Slade had first resurfaced, but he’d done his level best to avoid ever having to invoke his last option.

Thea looked wary at his reaction. “But if they can track Slade down, they’re your only choice. Why don’t you trust them?”

Oliver’s hand was flat against the table, but he experienced a reflexive impulse to clench his fingers into fists, at the mere thought of who he was about to ask. “Because I wasn’t on Lian Yu all the five years I was away,” he said. “But when I wasn’t, _she_ made damn sure that I was still in hell.”

* * *

“Oliver, I swear I’ve said this before,” Diggle said, “but you’re gonna get the three of us killed.”

Felicity suppressed a shiver. As far as places to have a group debate went, a freezing rooftop overlooking a security perimeter maybe wasn’t the _best_ choice of location. Then again, compared to the reason they were even on the rooftop, the location held up just fine.

“Breaking into ARGUS?” Diggle continued, in response to Oliver’s stoicism. “If the Arrow wasn’t already on their radar, this is going to make you — _us_ — more than persons of interest. We’ll be enemies, and you don’t want ARGUS as an enemy.”

“I don’t disagree — provisionally,” Felicity said, holding up her hand in response to Oliver’s look (as if she hadn’t called him out even while they’d been dating). “But someone needs to catch me up here. I thought ARGUS were the good guys. Doesn’t your girlfriend work for them?”

“You know that saying about a few bad apples?” Diggle said darkly, replacing the magazines in his guns with non-lethal sleep darts. “With ARGUS and Lyla, that saying’s reversed.”

“Oh.” Felicity clutched the tablet tighter to her chest. “So, a few good apples — Lyla being one of them — and lots of rotten, wormy…Granny Smiths. Just out of curiosity, _which_ one are we about to spring a workplace surprise on?”

Oliver pulled the Arrow hood up over his head. “Do you really want to know?” he said.

Felicity made a face at her tablet, clicking through the security safeguards on ARGUS’s security perimeter. “Why should I?” she said, under her breath. “It’s not as if we’re still together or anything. Besides, how can I even ask questions if I don’t even know what questions _to_ ask?”

If it was possible to do a full-body wince, Oliver might have just done it. “I didn’t tell you everything that happened while I was gone, but it doesn’t mean I don’t trust you,” he said. “You have things you don’t tell me. And we’re on a break. That’s not the same thing.”

“That’s like comparing apples and…watermelons. Secret-filled, gigantic, _watermelons_ ,” Felicity said back, a little furiously now. “And ‘we’re on a break’ had better not become your new catchphrase. You’re not Ross, and I _refuse_ to be Rachel.”

“ _What?_ ” Oliver said, clearly lost as far as the pop culture references went.

“Guys,” Diggle said pointedly. “Really?”

“Sorry,” they said at the same time.

Diggle pinned them with a vaguely disciplinary stare before he handed a cluster of sleep darts over to Felicity, doing it the same way a responsible adult handed someone scissors, pointy ends facing inward. “Just in case,” he said. “You don’t want to break a knuckle punching someone in body armor.”

Felicity knew there was a reason she’d felt vaguely under-dressed, even though she’d followed Diggle’s lead and dressed for stealth (possibly borrowing a jacket from Sara’s stash). Even though fighting was Oliver and Diggle’s department and hacking was hers, it didn’t hurt to be prepared. “ _Right_ ,” she said, gratefully stowing them in her jacket pocket. “Good note, coach.”

“What are you doing?” Oliver said, watching them both like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. “She doesn’t need those.”

“She’s also _right here_ ,” Felicity pointed out, a reminder that went summarily ignored by her (possibly) ex-boyfriend.

Much like her (but for probably different reasons), Diggle seemed utterly unfazed by Oliver’s disapproval. “Like I said, just in case. It’s not as if the Arrow’s reflexes are one hundred percent all the time.”

Oliver narrowed his eyes slightly, clearly interpreting the words more or less the same as Felicity. Usually when they fought, Diggle was the mediator and the middle person, but maybe just this once — he was leaning towards her. Just a smidge.

Felicity suppressed a smile as she looked back down at her tablet, which announced the successful hack with a ping. She snapped her fingers. “I’m in. A few more seconds, _and_ …I just shut down the electrified perimeter fence and looped their security feeds. We have ten minutes to get inside before they notice us.”

She took it as a compliment that Oliver still looked impressed, break or not. “That’s plenty,” he said. “Let’s go.”

* * *

“Any idea where we’re headed?” Felicity said, swiping through screens full of agents going about their business in ARGUS headquarters. “I can run facial recognition on your contact, but that might take a while.”

“No need,” Oliver said, sliding a tranquilizer arrow from his quiver. “She’s head of ARGUS operations. I know where she’ll be. Look for their situation room.”

Felicity whacked his arm with the back of her tablet. “ _Head_ _of ARGUS?_ ” she hissed. “You’re about to threaten the _head_ of a super-secret spy organization that puts _bombs_ at the back of convicted violent criminals’ heads?”

“I told you it was a bad idea,” Diggle muttered. He was guarding their rear, peering down the dark corridor like he anticipated traps coming out of the walls from some kind of movie Felicity could quote by heart.

“I don’t like it any more than you do, but she’s the only person who might be able to find Slade and his army,” Oliver said. “We don’t have time to argue about this.”

Felicity rolled her eyes, muttering a string of expletives under her breath. “I’m starting to think you’re doing this on purpose,” she said. “Okay, twenty paces. Up a staircase. And brace yourselves, even in the best-case scenario, there’s still a _lot_ of guards in the way.”

Oliver and Diggle looked at each other, and the latter shook his head. “Lyla’s gonna kill me,” he said.

They started to move. Felicity used hand signals, tapping on Oliver’s shoulder or Diggle’s arm to warn them when patrols were incoming. “I feel like I’m in a _Star Wars_ movie,” she said.

Oliver had to physically restrain himself from asking about the specifics. But they were busy trying to avoid detection — and failing that, incapacitating ARGUS guards before they could raise the alarm. They left a trail of bodies in the shadowy corridors on their way to the situation room, until they were through the stairwell and rounding the corner, where the sentries were flanking the entrance as predicted.

Oliver and Diggle moved in unison. They ducked out from behind their cover, Oliver using arrows, Diggle using tranquilizer darts. The guards they hit crumpled to the floor, unconscious, and Oliver was just stepping towards the heavy door they’d been watching over when he heard a sound from behind them. Felicity turned too, and she froze, face to face with a final sentry.

Oliver moved before Diggle could even pull the trigger. He locked his arms behind the man’s neck, tugging him towards the ground, but not before he noticed that Felicity was holding on too, namely the cluster of sleep darts in the now-unconscious guard’s forearm.

“Overkill much?” she said breathlessly. “I had him.”

Oliver let go, leaving the guard crumpled at their feet. “I know.”

Even though he should have, he didn’t move away, and their eyes met. Felicity looked like she was about to say something, and in all fairness, he probably did too. She was capable of handling herself and he knew it, but instinct would always tell him to protect her first, above all else, even if she might not like it.

Above and beyond that, they were in the heart of ARGUS, and she was about to meet someone Oliver never wanted — never imagined — she’d ever have to see.

He just hoped she wouldn’t think any less of him for it. Especially now.

“We should keep moving,” Felicity said, brushing his arm briefly as she passed by, stepping up to the computerized security panel by the heavy blast-proof doors.

The system unlocked itself at Felicity’s command, and the doors moved apart without a sound. Oliver stepped silently over the bodies, before his better instincts could convince him to turn away, and walked into the situation room.

It was dimly lit, filled with screens and scrolling numbers, code and calculations — the ARGUS specialty. There was a lone figure standing with its back to him, facing what looked like a map and strategic simulations made up of indecipherable code.

It had been years since Oliver had seen her face to face, and he didn’t need a reminder that it hadn’t ended well. He took another step, one that echoed.

The reaction was instantaneous. The monitors flared, as bright as ceiling lights so they concealed the moment when she whirled, and by the time his eyes adjusted to the brightness, there was a gun pointed directly at his chest.

Oliver pulled back his hood, ignoring Felicity’s faint sound of protest. “Amanda,” he said. “We need to talk.”

A smile like a knife blade curled the edges of her mouth, cold and wicked and just as dangerous. “Oliver Queen,” she said. “I thought you’d never ask.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More OTA-heavy chapter this time round, don't know why. I think I just felt like it.  
> I know, I know, Oliver doesn't find out that Sebastian's working with Slade based off some funeral flowers. It's FANFICTION. Also, I haven't put Sebastian Blood in this nearly enough to do anything else, so. Oops.  
> Oh, and Amanda's in this! Mostly because she's scary, incredibly fun to write and I will forever be bitter that the show killed her off.


	40. Endings (City of Blood, Part III)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hellooo. Still reading? Bit of a long chapter this time. Lots of things to get through.

There had been a fair few periods of darkness in Oliver’s life. Lian Yu, Hong Kong, Russia…more than he could count. More than he wanted to remember. But there were some that defied time, and the natural blurring of human memory.

What they had in common was cruelty, a further breakdown of what he’d assumed were the absolute limits to inhumanity, and Amanda Blake Waller. Head of ARGUS, same as the first time they’d met. Only now, he was standing in front of her as the Arrow, not the blind weapon she’d once used to further her mysterious agenda.

It was taking a significant amount of self-control for Oliver not to fit another arrow in his bow — this time a purely lethal one — and shooting her in the heart. By heart, he meant the muscle responsible for pumping blood to the rest of the body, because in any other sense of the word, Waller didn’t have one.

“You’re not surprised to see me,” Oliver said coolly.

“You assume I let you fall off my radar to begin with,” she answered. “What have I always said to you about making assumptions, Oliver? They’re dangerous, especially for billionaire celebrities with a penchant for playing secret vigilante.”

“Cut the crap, Waller.” Diggle had his gun pointed at her too. “You know why we’re here.”

“Actually, I don’t,” she said. “Though I’m not surprised you ended up accompanying Oliver on his little nighttime excursion. You, on the other hand —” She tilted her head slightly, and Oliver knew she’d spotted Felicity behind him “— I assumed you were an indoor cat, Miss Smoak.”

Felicity jumped when Waller used her name, and the latter smiled again. “It must be important, if you’ve dragged most of your team all the way here to see me,” she said. “A significant risk, seeing as a push of a button by me could send this whole facility into lockdown, and three important players in the Starling City vigilante landscape — off to a Supermax in an off-the-books black site.”

“Was that a threat?” Felicity asked, glancing at Diggle. “The way she said it made it sound like a threat.”

Thinly veiled threats were child’s play to someone like Amanda Waller, which meant that she was still toying with him. They were wasting time.

“Slade Wilson,” Oliver said, and watched Waller’s expression turn dangerous. “He’s the reason I’m here.”

Her eyes hardened, and Diggle took half a step forward, like he’d sensed her grip around the gun tightening. “He’s dead,” she said, but the conviction in her voice didn’t match the look in her eye. “You made it clear that you’d killed him on the freighter.”

“The Mirakuru ensured that he survived,” Oliver said flatly. “Now he’s back in Starling City, and he’s made himself an army of other men just like him. I’m here because I want to know why you haven’t shut him down.”

“Sounds like she made a dangerous assumption,” Felicity volunteered, and in spite of himself, Oliver very nearly smiled.

Waller lowered her gun. She looked like she was thinking. “We may have taken Slade off the board as a potential player, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been following him anyway. You said he’s been making other Mirakuru-enhanced followers?”

Oliver nodded. He returned the bow back to his side, which Diggle took as a sign to holster his weapon too. “He’s working with Sebastian Blood and Isabel Rochev, and we know he plans to unleash those Mirakuru soldiers after Blood gets sworn in as mayor. It was part of his plan all along.”

“Making your mother an unwelcome complication,” Waller said, almost dismissively. “My condolences on her condition, by the way.”

Oliver felt a slight pressure on his arm. Felicity was touching him, eyeing Waller with a look of clear dislike. “Not to interrupt your super-subtle mind games, but is there any way you can use some of the equipment here in this room to help us find Slade?” she asked. “Or are you just as good as the guards Oliver and Digg left snoozing outside the door?”

Waller’s eyes narrowed slightly, but Felicity didn’t back down. “Clearly Oliver hasn’t told you about our capacities at ARGUS.”

“Maybe,” Felicity said coolly. “But I try not to believe everything I hear. Not without hard proof.”

Waller gave something of a smirk in return. “Five minutes. I think I might have what you’re looking for.”

* * *

Felicity had met a lot of people during her time helping Oliver’s vigilante crusade. Dangerous, smart, super-creepy…pretty much all ends of the spectrum, she’d encountered at least once. But none of them had managed to cement a first impression quite like Amanda Waller, along the lines of _Careful, This Species is Poisonous_. Otherwise known as the Head of ARGUS, boss of Diggle’s kickass spy girlfriend Lyla Michaels, and apparently Oliver’s… _something_ from the past.

_Something_ , because attractive women from Oliver’s past usually turned out to have slept with him at some point, and Felicity _really_ didn’t want to think about that possibility.

“Oh my god, that’s the satellite frequency communicator TX-50,” she said under her breath, running her hand across the sleek black surface. “It’s not supposed to be on the market yet. Why didn’t I think about getting myself recruited by ARGUS?”

“Because you’d have to be okay with making eighty moral compromises before lunch hour on a Monday,” Diggle said, looking around the room with his arms disapprovingly folded.

“You’re still dating Lyla,” Felicity pointed out. “And _real_ happy about it, going by office gossip — which means Tommy.”

“Yeah, well, let’s just say Lyla and I are both good at steering clear of discussing what we do in the workplace,” he said. “After you go through one divorce, you kind of get a good sense of what the trouble zones are.”

“Solid relationship wisdom,” Felicity said, carefully not looking at Oliver.

“Why were the two of you at my house today?” Oliver asked, in a superb example of changing the subject. “Your message said there was something you needed to tell me.”

Diggle and Felicity exchanged glances. “Maybe later, man,” he said.

Oliver gave them a look. “We aren’t exactly working with a lot of time here.”

“No, but I don’t think you have the greatest poker face,” Felicity said, “and it’s a big whopper. Even for us. So I vote _later_ too — along with the follow-up question: how do you know Amanda Waller?”

She was right about his poker face, because Oliver’s expression shifted, back to closed-off and _don’t ask_. “It’s complicated.”

“Always is.” Diggle was watching Oliver too. “How’d it start?”

Oliver exhaled, like the conversation was using up resources better expended elsewhere. “After I put an Arrow through Slade’s eye, I was knocked out. The freighter was sinking, water pulled me under, and Amanda stopped me from drowning off the coast of Lian Yu — but it came with a price. Working for ARGUS. She wanted me as an operative, and you know Amanda. She doesn’t take no for an answer.”

Felicity tried to imagine Oliver in ARGUS gear. Being called ‘Agent Queen’. Apart from the obvious issue of teamwork, which he was only _just_ starting to be okay with, being an operative would have involved taking orders, and it was a demonstrable fact that Oliver had issues with following directives that weren’t his own. “So why aren’t you?” she asked. “An ARGUS agent, I mean.”

Oliver shrugged. “I proved myself unsuitable as a recruit.”

He said it the way someone might say _I walked_ , or _it was easy_. As though questions about the truth didn’t come with specifics, as though single-sentence answers were genuinely enough to encapsulate the mystery of the five years he’d been away.

Felicity wondered if it had always bothered her, or if it was something she’d started to realize about Oliver — how set in his ways he could be, and _would_ be. When it came to the truth, and who knew what else.

But before she could phrase another question, Waller interrupted. “If you’re done having your little group discussion about my trustworthiness, you might want to see what I’ve managed to find.”

The interface on the monitors behind her shifted, melting into what looked like a person of interest file, except the only images in it were of the same eerie faceless mask, two-toned, with a single eye. A tall armored figure, with a sword across his back.

“We’ve been tracking the movements of an unidentified mercenary across the globe,” she said. “Nearly all our field offices have encountered at least one of his cases — mostly in the form of dead bodies, a trail that extends halfway across the world. Highly trained, very lethal, and good at vanishing without a trace. We’ve been calling him Deathstroke.”

“Subtle,” Diggle muttered. “So why haven’t you stopped him before?”

Waller gave a shrug of perfect nonchalance. “Because he wasn't doing anything of interest to us.”

“Killing innocent people isn’t something of interest to ARGUS?” Felicity asked, a little sharply. “You’re kidding.”

The look Waller gave her was slightly reminiscent of Oliver when he thought someone was being naive. “The people he assassinated were far from innocent, Miss Smoak. Of that, I can assure you. But now that you’ve alerted us to his true purpose in Starling City, that changes things.”

Felicity frowned, because something about that (maybe the careless dismissal of human life) didn’t make her trust Waller any more than she already did. Which wasn’t saying much, since her trust levels were already at rock bottom.

“So now that you’re aware he’s Slade Wilson, what do you have?” Oliver asked. “Where is he?”

“Finding Slade Wilson and stopping him directly will do nothing for the Mirakuru army he plans to unleash,” Waller said, without taking her attention off the screens. “So my search isn’t meant to find Mr Wilson at all, but for the likeliest ways to stop the advance of his superhuman army.”

“That’s not what I asked,” he snapped.

Waller raised her eyebrows, like she was waiting for his point. “I’m afraid I really don’t care.”

Oliver’s hand moved, but Felicity grasped his wrist before he could go for another arrow, hating herself a little bit. “She’s right,” she said, and saw him glance at her in veiled disbelief. “Sorry, but she is. Slade wouldn’t throw himself headfirst into the fight, not if he can have Isabel or Sebastian Blood do it for him. You’re the one he wants. The soldiers — they’re just so you’ll end up distracted enough for him to close in.”

Waller withdrew her hand from the back of her belt, clearly deciding the gun she’d been about to pull as an answer to Oliver’s threat was no longer necessary. “Very good, Miss Smoak. I can see where the brains of the operation are,” she said, making Felicity’s skin crawl. “Like I was saying, my search focused on the more viable ways to stop the Mirakuru army from advancing. Proceeding on the basis that Mr Wilson is more likely to find himself a lair from which to observe the destruction, that leaves only his lieutenants — Rochev and Blood — as the ones likely to be leading the first charge. That charge will begin from a convenient location, likely somewhere at the heart of Starling, but it also needs to be hidden until the order can be given to strike.”

Felicity let go of Oliver’s arm and circled around to the same side of the computers as Waller. It was one thing to have the kind of crystal-clear logic she’d just pulled, but another thing to say it like the computer knew what she meant.

“That’s amazing,” she murmured, watching the information being processed — soared through — at a speed that made the computers in the Foundry look like they ran on kiddie bikes. “How’s that even possible?”

Waller folded her arms. “Here at ARGUS, our systems are more sophisticated than anything you’ve ever seen. We have protocols that analyze a world of human activity in order to decide on patterns, connections, and with those connections, what the next event is likely to be. We stop bombings before they can happen, terror attacks before they’ve even left their base of operations, and yes, assassinations before the so-called killer even knows to pick up his weapon. What looks like a harmless coincidence, we put it alongside a string of other _coincidences_ , and you’d be surprised how many harmless everyday acts turn out to be twitches in a very vast spider’s web.”

Felicity wondered if the others were getting chills too, because Waller didn’t just sound proud. She sounded…as close to being _not_ human as it was possible to be.

“You must feel powerful,” she said, not taking her eyes off the screens. “And I _do_ mean it in an evil dictator, Lord Voldemort kind of way, but also in a _knowledge is power_ -type…thing.”

“Maybe there’s a place here for you,” Waller said near her ear. “If you ever get tired of operating at a _fraction_ of your potential.”

“ _Amanda_ ,” Oliver snapped. “Enough.”

“Oliver —” Felicity began, but he ignored her.

“Do what you want to me, but don’t you touch her,” he said, in a voice that was deathly, dangerously quiet. “I’ve seen firsthand what it’s like to be your recruit, and I swear to god, you will regret trying to do the same to my friends. Do we understand each other?”

Waller straightened up, her fingers drumming on the glass surface beneath. “And here I thought you’d gotten over being angry with me,” she said, with a slow smile.

“This is an alliance of convenience,” Oliver answered. “Don’t make the mistake of assuming I’ve decided to be ARGUS’s friend.”

Felicity looked at Oliver, because she could feel the anger burning beneath his skin, palpable as a heat haze, clear as a drawn knife against skin. He didn’t see her, because he was still staring at Waller, another unspoken battle being fought both in the past and present.

Always something from Oliver’s past.

Waller’s lip curled like she had a trump card. “I never thanked you for sending ARGUS its latest recruit,” she said, in a voice as sharp as a knife. “The mafioso’s daughter. She’s been a _fantastic_ addition to Task Force X.”

It took a second for the reference to register. Then —

“You put her on the same squad as Floyd Lawton?” Diggle said, incredulously. “Helena Bertinelli?”

Waller shrugged. “It was either that or have her rot in a Supermax,” she said, with supreme nonchalance. “I chose to put her unique skill set to good use. Ask Agent Michaels, Mr Diggle. She’s used her before.”

“Oliver,” Felicity said, because as much as her feelings about Helena veered towards the _oh hey, haven’t you tried to kill me?_ — putting her in a covert squad full of other dangerous criminals, with a lethal amount of explosive in each of their necks…seemed a little like the opposite of healthy rehabilitation. Plus, she didn’t like the way Waller seemed to refer to other human beings as if they were inanimate objects, weapons to be used until they broke apart from wear, easily swapped out for another.

Which begged the question: had Oliver —?

“I didn’t know,” he said, in answer to the question Felicity hadn’t asked. He was glaring at Waller. “You could have left her alone.”

“I could’ve,” she agreed. “But since I couldn’t get the archer I had in mind…I thought I might as well make do with his former protege.”

If Oliver had looked mad before, he now looked darkly, dangerously furious. Felicity honestly wasn’t sure if the tension in the room could have dissipated on its own without everyone armed in the room killing each other, but when the system sent up an alert, Waller disregarded the stand-off and shifted her attention towards the computers. She began entering keystrokes, her hands moving across the controls like a pianist playing a sonata.

“Mr Wilson’s been slowly diverting resources down to the sewer network. It’s been happening over a matter of months, but he’s ensured that an area of the defunct underground system has become off-limits to civilian access. That’s a large area, and you won’t have the manpower to search it all in one night, which is why I’m looking at a draft of an executive order from his partner Mr Blood, intended for immediate execution once he’s sworn in as mayor. It clears all personnel from a convergence point between the old and new municipal tunnel system, on the grounds that the infrastructure is too unstable to sustain further human presence.”

Waller lifted her head, looking ostentatiously smug. “Now, does that sound suspicious to you?”

Diggle was studying the map. “My god,” he said, tapping the various exit points. “They’ll be able to reach anywhere in the city without being seen.”

“Exactly,” Waller said. “If I was planning an invasion of Starling City, I’d use the sewer system for points of egress. Mr Wilson will most likely have Rochev or Blood unleash his army to attack the city, and it all starts there.”

“When?” Felicity asked.

“After Blood’s sworn in as mayor,” Oliver said.

The abruptness of his answer was a surprise, especially since Felicity didn’t know how he could be so sure, not unless his anger against Slade had given him some kind of telepathic sense of what he was thinking. But Oliver’s instincts had always been borderline inhuman, and if Sebastian was already signing executive orders before he’d even gotten into office, deep down Felicity had a feeling Oliver was right.

In a matter of days, Starling City would either rise or fall — and it all depended on what they did next.

“So,” Waller said, like it was a challenge. “What do you plan to do?”

Oliver looked around, and this time, Felicity didn’t avoid his gaze. Diggle nodded silently, and so did she. “We stop them,” Oliver answered. “One way or another.”

* * *

Tommy dragged a hand across his face, shaking his head like he had water in his ears that wouldn’t clear. “Why is it I’m never well rested enough to hear about evil plans?” he asked.

Felicity looked at him over her computer. “You mean ours or theirs?”

“Unclear,” he said, and pointed straight ahead, where Thea had been about to pick up one of the sticky bombs Diggle was still in the process of rigging. “ _Hey_ , the deal was no touching.”

“Sorry,” she said, hiding her hand behind her back. “Um — I know I’m not really part of all this, but can I ask? How is saving the city related to blowing a part of it up?”

“A question I have been asking myself since I started working down here,” Felicity said, in a not-quite undertone.

Oliver didn’t like the question being brought up at all, so he took his sister by the arm and steered her towards the side. “I gave you the access code so you could come down here and check on Roy,” he said. “I didn’t say that I wanted you involved with any of our plans.”

“Ollie, she has to hear it anyway,” Tommy said. “She needs to know what’s gonna happen. Moira’s stuck in the hospital — the doctors won’t let us move her and I don’t have an MD, but I don’t think that’s such a hot idea either. The more Thea knows, the better.”

Thea looked expectantly at Oliver. “Fine,” he said. “But don’t touch anything, okay? It’s dangerous.”

“Where was _that_ concern when I first came down here?” Tommy said indignantly, holding up his right index finger while Felicity and Diggle looked at it with mild interest. “I still have a scar from when I touched one of those arrowheads.”

“Because you didn’t think that arrowheads were going to be sharp?” Diggle said, clipping a piece of copper wire with a _snick_. “I’m glad you’re not _my_ doctor.”

“Don’t make me come over there.”

“Anyway,” Oliver interrupted. “Are we clear on our positions? Digg and I can take the explosives, Felicity can coordinate from the Foundry, and Tommy, you’ll —”

“— hit the police precinct and stay alert in case things go south. Lucky for us, I have a sergeant friend who’ll bend over backwards to help the Arrow. Though not literally, since I’m pretty sure Quentin doesn’t lean any farther back than his desk chair.”

Oliver ignored that last part. “Good, we’ll need you to do what you can to mobilize the SCPD if things do end up going south. Make sure they start with getting people out of the war zone.”

_War_. The word seemed to shiver in the air, the last thing any of them wanted to see or think about, but had to brace for anyway. In case their luck turned out as it usually did.

Oliver sincerely hoped that this time would be the exception.

“Anyone gotten in touch with Sara?” Diggle asked. “I’m sure no one needs me to state the obvious — we could really use her for this, even if we’re hoping it never gets to an all-out clash between us and the Mirakuru.”

Tommy and Felicity both shook their heads. “I’m guessing remote Tibetan assassin headquarters don’t really have great cell service,” she said. “And I’ve been tracking her passport activity — if she left the country, she didn’t do it the normal way.”

“I have a bad feeling about this radio silence,” Tommy said, looking at Oliver as though he knew anything more about the League of Assassins than they all did. “What if Nyssa ‘The Demon Spawn’ didn’t let her go?”

Oliver shook his head. “We can’t worry about that now. Stopping Slade has to come first,” he said, and caught Felicity’s eye just as she was about to look away from him.

Slade being first priority was something they had both heard more times than they really wanted to count, but neither of them gave any outward sign that it was on their minds. “What about the cure?” he asked.

Felicity tapped her phone. “I told Applied Sciences to call the second they had something,” she said. “Last time I checked, they’re still in the process of synthesizing it.”

“Without the cure, our best shot at stopping Slade’s plan is to bury his army first,” Diggle said. “Stop the fighting before it even gets a chance to start.”

There was a pause, the kind meant for people with alternative (and possibly better) ideas to interject, but none seemed to be forthcoming, so Felicity stood up — reluctantly. “I guess that’s my cue,” she said, spreading out the infrastructure map across the steel tabletop. “I did some basic physics calculations for the underground sewer tunnels, factoring in stress from environmental factors and weight differential distributions —”

“— English,” Oliver reminded her.

“Not all of the concrete is going to be equally strong,” she rephrased. “Water leakage increases the rate of micro-fractures, and parts of the sewer system have been under a busy freeway for decades, so we’ll have to choose where we put those explosives strategically. I did some math and determined the points where the infrastructural stress is concentrated in the vertical supports. Ten points in total, six aboveground, four below. The ground level ones are all around Water Street, and the tunnel ones are accessible through a maintenance route that they probably won’t be using. As soon as all of them go _kaboom_ — the tunnel collapses.”

“Wow,” Thea said suddenly, looking at Felicity in awe before she realized that she’d spoken out loud. “Sorry.”

“The explosions will trap Slade’s army underground,” Oliver said. “Even on the Mirakuru, they won’t be able to punch their way through the collapsed tunnels fast enough to start the invasion.”

“We’d also be killing some of them,” Felicity pointed out. “Not for sure, but there’s a chance at least a few of them are going to be crushed under some falling debris, and if the whole tunnel caves in…maybe more.”

A silence fell, and Oliver wasn’t sure that he was imagining the heightened tension, especially with Felicity looking at him the way she was. “What?” he asked, not unkindly.

“Not sure,” she said, quietly. “I just thought you might have stronger feelings about crushing human beings underneath a few tons of concrete — since the Undertaking.”

_Since Laurel_ was what she meant, not in so many words, but Oliver still knew her well enough to know what she was getting at.

“Would you prefer hundreds of innocent people dying at the hands of Slade’s Mirakuru soldiers?” he asked.

“Those Mirakuru soldiers were incarcerated Iron Heights prisoners that Slade injected with his poison,” she said. “Looking at it another way, they’re innocent too. You’ve kept up your _No Killing_ rule for a year. I’m just making sure we’ve thought through all our options before resorting to murder again, because it _is_ going to be murder, Oliver.”

Felicity was just as aware as Oliver that his sister was within earshot, which made her choice of words all the more telling. She didn’t like the plan, and she was making it abundantly clear with her uncompromising directness.

But they didn’t have time to lose, especially not with the kind of math involving the lives of innocents versus the irreversibly corrupted. It just didn’t make sense, and _that_ was where they would disagree.

Oliver raised his head. “Do we have a cure for the Mirakuru from Applied Sciences?” he asked.

Felicity tensed. “No, but —”

“Then we’re out of options,” he said shortly. “We’re doing this. You can either help us, or stay down here with Roy.”

Tommy winced. “Did I miss something?” he asked.

Oliver hadn’t meant to sound so harsh, but that was how it came out. Felicity’s expression tightened, and for a second, he thought she might back down to avoid clashing in front of the others. A second later, he realized that she was still Felicity Smoak, and appearances didn’t matter if she genuinely thought he was making a mistake.

Like now.

“We’re not out of options, because there’s one you’re not considering,” she said, and Oliver saw Tommy wince for a second time at her tone. “Amanda Waller. ARGUS. They could help.”

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” Diggle said immediately. “Waller can’t be trusted.”

“I know she can’t, and I’m not suggesting we make that mistake,” she answered. “But we saw what ARGUS could do with the data we have. Their computers — their predictive algorithms — they could go a long way towards minimizing the damage Slade’s army could do, maybe even stopping them. Between collapsing a few tons of concrete onto innocent people versus using someone who uses people for a living — maybe one’s less bad than the other.”

Their friends were looking between Oliver and Felicity now, clearly sensing the ratcheting tension in the air. It was a difference of opinion, and more than that. It was about Felicity pushing, pushing for a reason beyond an unequivocal order, and Oliver being asked to respond.

“No,” he said, bluntly. “It’s our mission, and I won’t involve Amanda Waller.”

Felicity gaze never wavered, not even when Tommy broke the ensuing silence. “Buddy, I think this is the part where you explain why. I mean, if this Waller person has the resources, why not?”

“Because he says so, right?” Felicity said, and looked back at her computer with a small shake of her head. It wasn’t giving up the fight, far from it, just stepping away from a battle she didn’t see a point in fighting.

Oliver swept a gaze around the rest of the table. “Any other objections?”

“What about Roy?” Thea asked. “Are you just gonna leave him down here? Asleep?”

“After what Roy did to us the last time he was awake, I’m really okay with him staying asleep until we have some news on a cure,” Tommy said, touching a bump at the back of his head from their last fight.

Thea didn’t look entirely at ease with the idea, despite Roy nearly killing her the last time they’d met. “He’ll be safe, Speedy,” Oliver said. “The Foundry might be the safest place in the city right now. Especially since Slade —”

He grimaced at the thought of what Diggle and Felicity had discovered; that the mansion had been bugged since Slade’s visit to his unwitting family.

“— Slade’s been watching the house,” Thea said, looking just as disgusted. “I should have known. No one’s ever really interested in a portrait tour. Our paintings suck.”

“I think Moira might be cool with you dumping some of them into storage after this,” Tommy suggested, and they both shrugged.

Oliver didn’t want them to get sidetracked. “Speedy, I promise I’ll come see you and mom before it starts, but after that, promise me you’ll stay inside the hospital,” he said firmly.

“Can’t I help?” Thea said. “There’s going to be people out there — and they won’t know what’s happening if all hell breaks loose. What if I —”

“ _No_ ,” Oliver said, with a sharp look at Tommy like he’d been the one to encourage her. “It’s not safe out there.”

“And God forbid she does something you don’t agree with, right?” Felicity said, in a poor attempt at an undertone.

“Okay.” Tommy was eyeing the both of them now. “I’ve _definitely_ missed something. Did someone forget an anniversary, or —?”

“More like forgetting the bottom line,” Felicity said, while Oliver’s glare sharpened.

“I’m lost,” Tommy declared.

“I’m not,” Oliver said. “Felicity, can we talk? _Now?_ ”

* * *

“Felicity, can we talk? _Now?_ ”

In another life, in another time or place, and _if_ Felicity hadn’t been Felicity, those words, coupled with Oliver’s slightly growly tone of voice — they might have freaked her out just a tiny bit. But as it stood, she was annoyed, and disappointed, and worried about their manslaughter plan falling to pieces and terrified that someone in Starling City was going to pay for what was basically another hostage situation caused by Slade Wilson. All to get to Oliver, who now had a more-acute-than-usual case of tunnel vision, amply demonstrated in how easily he was about to break the _No Kill_ rule, with a method of killing uncannily similar — and by that she meant cruelly ironic — to how one of his closest childhood friends had died.

This wasn’t Oliver. This was someone walking and talking like Oliver, not the man someone like Roy Harper looked up to, a hero, a man she’d fallen in love with. Not the man she was willing to break promises for, so he wouldn’t break the ones that mattered most. He was different from how he’d been at the hospital, and it wasn’t guilt over Moira, not entirely. It had been there since they’d broken into ARGUS, like seeing Amanda Waller again had triggered some repressed instinct, brought out something dark and dangerous that Oliver hadn’t completely managed to push down.

Felicity pushed off the table, avoiding everyone’s eyes, and followed Oliver over to the sparring area, AKA the closest place to be out of earshot from the rest of the team. And his younger sister, because she was suddenly a part of this now, including the part where she’d just heard a murder/manslaughter strategy.

“What’s going on?” Oliver said. “You’re suggesting we work with Amanda Waller? I told you she can’t be trusted, I told you —”

“— _nothing_ ,” she said. “Back at ARGUS, you told us that Waller tried to recruit you, and it didn’t go well. That’s it. And in case you’re confused, none of that explains why we shouldn’t be using her resources t—”

“—I think you mean _exploit_ ,” Oliver corrected her, cuttingly. “Listen to yourself, you’re not even…”

“What, Oliver?” Felicity said. “I’m not myself? Because if that’s what you were about to say, we’ve officially hit painful irony. You’re willing to break your rule when it comes to a bunch of people as innocent as the ones in Starling City. They were prisoners, and they were snatched off a bus by a man with _no_ regard for human life. Are you telling me that your plan doesn’t sound the slightest bit risky in terms of similarities?”

“No, because the difference is — I’m making a choice based on the lives in Starling City, the lives that his Mirakuru soldiers will take, and take, with no mercy once he unleashes them. Whoever they were, they died when the Mirakuru took over,” he answered, no less stubbornly.

Felicity gestured behind her. “What about Roy? By that logic, we shouldn’t even be trying to save him. If the Mirakuru’s really the end, then Roy Harper’s gone. Someone Thea cares about — gone.”

“That’s not the same thing,” Oliver said. “Roy only got exposed to the Mirakuru while he was trying to help the city. The others —”

“— the others never had the luck to meet _you_ ,” she said. “Roy did, and you put him on a better path. We don’t know why they ended up in jail, but you’ve made a point since you got back to start seeing the good in people, to start doing things a different way. Don’t tell me you didn’t mean that. Don’t tell me that when it _counts_ , doing things differently was just another promise you’re okay with breaking.”

“I’m not _okay_ with anything, Felicity,” Oliver snapped, abrupt enough that it should have made her jump. But she didn’t, and he clearly regretted it, because when he spoke again, he was quieter, nearly hoarse. “At the end of the day, I’m choosing the option I can live with.”

Felicity wasn’t surprised to hear that, and if Oliver knew her even a little bit, he wouldn’t have been surprised by her response either. “I’m sorry, but I don’t accept that.”

They were standing very close to each other now, closer than they’d been in what felt like a long while. Oliver looked down at her face, and she saw the conflict there, the indecision. He was resolved, but he was still wrestling with the choices to be made, right and wrong.

It still _mattered_.

“You told me that before this was all over, the both of us would end up breaking some promises,” he said, softly. “What if this is one of them?”

Something inside Felicity shifted. Changed. Like a soft blur deepening to acute focus.

“No,” she said, and reached up, her hand hovering hesitantly in front of his chest before she laid it over his heartbeat.

Oliver tensed, but she held it there anyway, right over his strong — _stupid_ — heart. “It’s not. Just like when you asked me if your humanity was the price of stopping Slade,” she told him. “I know you’re feeling guilty because of your mother, and I can tell you it’s not your fault until I run out of air, but you probably won’t listen. So listen to this. A hero makes sacrifices. One of those sacrifices is _not_ taking the easy way out, even when it presents itself. Five years ago, you made the choice to kill Slade instead of curing him. Don’t make that same mistake now. Don’t make the choices because they’re what you can live with — make the choices because they’re _right_ , because you know they’re right. _I_ trust your heart, even if you don’t. _I_ trust your humanity.”

Felicity studied Oliver’s face, his eyes, the living proof that Oliver Queen was alive, and breathing and human. He let her. Because he was studying her too. For once, they weren’t skirting around each other, afraid of seeing something in the other’s face that they already knew.

“Felicity, you’ve always been my heart,” Oliver said, as low as a caress. “But we both know that without you, I go back to being someone else. The kind of person who just…survives. That’s who I am.”

She did know. She really, genuinely did. But a part of what made her proud was seeing how Oliver learned, gradually, taking on patterns and building instincts for things he never would have considered before. Diggle was his moral compass, the equivalent of true north when it came to the black and white of making choices. Tommy reminded him to laugh, to _be_ , and that despite everything changed and lost about Oliver Queen, there was still an infallible _essence_ of what made him a best friend, a brother, a son.

Felicity sometimes didn’t know what she was to Oliver, but sometimes she thought it might have been something like hope. That if she was standing in the sunlight and reaching out her hand to him, he’d take her hand and walk out into the world with her. On his own feet, not using her as a crutch for what he had every ability to do on his own, which was to be _good_.

“Maybe that was the person you used to be,” she agreed. “Maybe it was the Oliver who made that choice to kill Slade, and that’s who you’re defaulting back to because of guilt. But you’re not the same Oliver anymore, because like it or not, we changed you. The same way you changed us, changed Roy for the better. There’s humanity in you, and light, and whatever it is that makes a hero. You've sacrificed so much of yourself already, I just don’t want you to lose that too. That’s not what you promised me, that’s _not_ you coming back home.”

Oliver shook his head slightly. Always doubting himself, always unsure. “Felicity, you can’t still think — you can’t still believe that I’m a h—”

“I do,” she said, and smiled, slow and sad. Of all of the reasons, she knew one that stood out. “Because you decided to sacrifice you and me.”

Pain briefly twisted in Oliver’s expression, as surely as it did on hers. Felicity slid her hand away from Oliver’s chest, and he didn’t stop her. “We’ll blow the charges before they reach any of the tunnels,” she said, before turning away. “No one gets hurt.”

* * *

Tommy may have taken an off-day regarding his best friend’s seldom-uneventful love life, assuming that since Oliver had managed to get the girl — the _highly_ out of his league girl — for about four weeks before Tommy even noticed anything, he’d be fine.

Clearly not. Even clearer still was the fact that the reverse logic applied too, in that them breaking up would be on a delayed news cycle, meaning he’d only find out after everything was said and done.

Tommy was about sixteen hours short on sleep to have this genre of conversation, but he now racked his brain for the side of him (comatose, probably) that was good at relationship whispering.

After Oliver’s private conversation (code: lover’s spat) with Felicity, the two of them headed in completely opposite directions, looking like they hadn’t been discussing who forgot to put the clothes in the dryer or swap out the coffee filter. Felicity went straight to Diggle to talk about something explosive-related, otherwise known as having her head completely in the game, while Oliver headed off to the back for unspecified purposes — but with the kind of facial expression that meant he wanted to beat the crap out of himself, and failing that, some busywork involving sparring dummies or working on his bike.

So Tommy, well aware of Oliver’s moods, waited. Until the lack of punching sounds and the faint rumble of an engine being tested eventually drifted back out to the Foundry. Taking a deep breath, Tommy walked into the garage.

As predicted, Oliver was on his knees in front of his bike, working at something involving a wrench and some loose bolts. He didn’t react to Tommy’s presence, which was fine, because it gave him time to pull up a metaphorical chair.

_Be subtle. Zen. Sagely._

Spoiler alert: he wasn’t.

“ _Please_ tell me you and Felicity didn’t break up,” Tommy said. “Because I swear to god, if you weren’t the Arrow and my best friend — actually, no, just the Arrow — my hands would be choking you out right now, you stupid f—”

“We didn’t break up,” Oliver said irritably, shooting a glance towards the main area, where (presumably) the longstanding target of his affections was still deep in discussion about the merits of explosive technology.

“Okay, so you’re fighting.” Tommy waved his hand in front of Oliver’s face. “How can I help?”

Oliver gave him a look and reached for another wrench out of the toolbox. “We didn’t break up, but I told her that we needed to take a pause,” he clarified. “Stopping Slade is the only priority right now, and I can’t let her get hurt because of me. Not like my mother.”

Tommy softened at the mention of Moira, and the reminder of the irreparable damage — Oliver’s worst nightmare for any of the people he loved. To be honest, if he hadn’t been that freaked out about it himself, he might have seen it coming. Oliver had ninja moves and a way with archery that sometimes defied rational understanding, but when it came to danger and romance — he was a one-trick pony.

That trick being, the freakout.

Tommy let his head sag just a little, because _oh my god_ , they really didn’t have the time. Slade was planning to raise hell and had about a three months’ head start, forcing them to play catchup. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I get it,” he said. “Don’t get me wrong, I hate it, and it’s stupid — you’re stupid — but I get why you freaked out.”

Oliver dropped something, either out of frustration or a preventative measure to stop himself from whacking his best friend with it. “I didn’t fr—”

“— you freaked out,” Tommy interrupted, before Oliver could finish. “And knowing Felicity, she went along with it because she looked at the priorities and realized that you not running around like a headless chicken stands a better chance of stopping Slade than, y’know, a headless chicken. Sometimes I wish she wasn’t so smart. Even if the alternative was you two having dumb kids, I mean, what’s the tradeoff —? _Not the point_.”

Oliver predictably ignored the part about decapitated fowl, and pretty much everything else. “Slade’s willing to level a city because he knows what I’d do for Starling,” he said, and shut his eyes, like he couldn’t even imagine it, or what he was about to say next. “I can’t — I won’t — let something happen to her because of me.”

Tommy looked at him, carefully. For once, putting aside the preconceptions, the immovable pillars of things he _knew_ were true. As if Felicity wasn’t the love of Oliver’s life and he wasn’t hers, as if they weren’t a team that defined _teams_ , as if he didn’t know anything except that Oliver was his best friend, and he wanted him to be good. To be happy. Alive.

No. It didn’t work, and Tommy blew out his breath, as if he was about to break some bad news. “Ollie, you’re bleeding. I don’t mean that literally — something you’d think I wouldn’t have to specify, but clearly the rules down here work differently.”

Oliver didn’t smile, and he continued to work as if nothing was wrong. “Tommy, I’m fine.”

Tommy shook his head. “You say that, but I know you better than pretty much anyone down here, and you’re not…okay,” he said, gently. “Whatever you think you’re doing to protect Felicity, it’s not protecting you either.”

For a second, Oliver looked like he was about to disagree. “I know. But there’s a choice that I can live with, and after my mother — _knowing_ that she nearly died because of me, that she’ll never walk again because of me — I can’t let that happen to someone else, especially not…Felicity doesn’t deserve that, and I can’t undo what’s already happened. So I’m choosing the option I can survive.”

It didn’t matter that Tommy didn’t blame Oliver, and most importantly, that Moira didn’t. That she still loved her son, now more than ever. Oliver had a unique way of filtering through all the good stuff until only the bad got left behind, and hearing him describe what he was doing like it was bare survival…Tommy got it. A little.

“The choice you can live with,” he echoed. “You know, I thought like that once. When I broke up with Laurel.”

Tommy paused, not just because it hurt, and it did. Always would, the telltale twinge of remembering a loss. He took a breath, trying to remember that if it had been Laurel sitting where he was, right now, she’d soldier through the hurt if it meant making a very, very important point. One that Oliver desperately needed.

“She was the girl, _the_ perfect girl, the one I’d been in love with for all my life, the one I finally got a shot with — I walked away from her. Do you know why?” he asked.

Oliver’s hands had gone still, and he now shook his head silently, managing to make it look like he’d meant _I’m sorry_. Which wasn’t what Tommy wanted.

“Because deep down, I knew we were taking a risk. A big one. And deep down, I was scared. I was always so close to messing it up, and she always made it right again, but what if — one day — she couldn’t? What if one day, I made a mistake that I couldn’t take back? Then it’d be over, and…I couldn’t deal with that. I couldn’t handle losing her for good, hurting her, after we’d made promises — actual, _big_ promises. So why not get out before that happened? Make it easier on the both of us.”

Tommy hadn’t told anyone that story. Not at the time, partly because he’d assumed Oliver had been in love with Laurel too. Mostly because he’d been so goddamn ashamed. For getting close to what was effectively… _it_ , as far as it came to being stupidly, happy-ever-after happy, and just screwing it up. True to Merlyn fashion.

“So you’re not the only one who knows what it’s like to make choices you can live with,” he concluded. “And I just told you all that because I’m seeing a repeat of that right now, with you and Felicity — and I really, really don’t want that for my best friend. Because you might feel like you’re surviving right now, but you’re not. Not really. Eventually, you’re going to wish you’d taken that harder option, the one that feels like it might kill you if it all goes wrong. But it’s worth it, because it’s her, you know? It’s _her_.”

Oliver didn’t say anything. Felicity was a whole room away, but the stare he’d fixed on the blank wall was a thousand-yard one, full of longing and wishes and _what-ifs_ , weighed against things he’d decided because it was safe, weighed against the craptastic epic of inhuman awful that was Slade Wilson’s re-entry into Oliver’s present.

“I don’t know what to do,” he admitted.

Tommy gripped his shoulder, giving it a little shake. “That’s because it’s real life, and the part they leave out in the stories is what to do once it works out.”

Oliver glanced at Tommy, like he wanted to say something too. “People fall in love more than once,” he said quietly. “For a lot of different reasons. And all those things you’ve been telling me — that I deserve to be happy — you know they apply to you too, right?”

Tommy gave him a look of joking skepticism, spinning one of the bolts on the floor. “Oliver Jonas Queen,” he said. “Are you trying to give me life advice?”

Oliver smiled a little, looking towards the main Foundry area again, like he was thinking about the bow — Tommy’s bow, the one he’d borrowed — sitting alongside Oliver’s and the Arrow suit. “I just figured that since you’re following in the Arrow’s footsteps, maybe the guy under the hood could give you a few pointers.”

Tommy bumped him with his fist. “ _Pointers_. Arrow pun. I like it.”

Oliver let himself be jostled, still smiling. This time, like it didn’t hurt. “I’m glad you’re here with me, Tommy,” he said. “I don’t say it enough, but I am. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

“Probably sleep better, to be honest,” Tommy said, scratching his nose. “Without me barging into the basement — fire alarm blaring — just because I can.”

“You know what I mean,” Oliver said. “After all this is over, maybe we should look into getting you your own suit. Something that… _honors_ what you’re trying to do.”

Tommy was momentarily taken aback, because he’d assumed the height of praise from Oliver when it came to him making similar choices was just…acceptance. Crossed arms, grudging acceptance. Maybe a few hard whacks with a Bo staff. But Oliver offering what he’d just did, that was more than just accepting something. It felt like…an official offer to become part of the team. For real. For good.

“They should come up with another saying, instead of just ‘partners in crime’,” Tommy said lightly. “ _Partners in vigilante_ doesn’t have the same ring to it, y’know?”

“How about just ‘partners’?” Oliver said.

“Sold.” Tommy had a grin on his face, because he’d thought of his first official act as Oliver’s partner. “So are you gonna fix it? Hit _un-pause_?”

Oliver’s face grew contemplative again. “I don’t know.”

“You do,” Tommy said. “Because if you _were_ serious about making the most of this very craptastic situation — and I’m talking all kinds of crap, horse, cow, _crow_ —”

“Tommy.”

“— right, then you’d be thinking about whether this actually _does_ anything. I mean, Slade wasn’t there, he’s not going to _know_ that you guys broke up — sorry, went on a _break_. He wasn’t there, not unless you accidentally butt-dialed him, but even for you, that’s sketchy.”

Oliver was suddenly on his feet, and Tommy looked over his shoulder, thinking he’d seen a threat. “What? What happened?”

“He doesn’t know,” Oliver said. “Slade.”

Tommy stared at him for a full ten seconds before all the very jumbled dots lined themselves up. “Now that’s an idea,” he agreed. “But you two suck at lying. Theater’s just pushing it.”

“I know.” Judging by the look on Oliver’s face, he didn’t like what he was thinking at all. “It has to be real.”

* * *

It was either Felicity remaining an a level of excessive novice, but she didn’t like driving around the city with (probable) traces of C4 on her clothes, blueprints and schematics in her head, on the eve of a time-sensitive plan to stop an invasion of super-soldier killing machines before it had a chance to get off the ground.

Well, _out_ of the ground, if she was being literal.

Which made the message Oliver had left her seem just a little weird in terms of timing. Not to mention the choice of meeting place.

The mansion windows glowed in the fading daylight, the same as always. It had always looked better at night, less imposing than its daytime self, smudged shadows like a charcoal drawing in contrasts. Tall and proud and maybe a little mysterious, a lighthouse in the fog. Now it blazed like it was made out of fire, colored by the fierce brightness of the setting sun.

Oliver was sitting on the front steps of the mansion when she pulled up in her car, not in his suit — the green leather one — but in normal clothes. Normal Oliver. Daytime Oliver.

He lifted his head at her approach, and Felicity felt a little self-conscious, climbing out of the car and crunching up the driveway towards him. She kept her hands in her coat pockets, because with the two of them alone together, she didn’t know what they could do except fidget and fumble.

It used to be because Oliver made her shy, and excited, butterflies in her stomach — and maybe he still did — but all of that was colored over, _shouted_ over, by this continuous edge she’d sensed since the hospital. Forcing them to clash, like they had at ARGUS, in front of the team during the planning session just a few hours before…like if they couldn’t be with each other, or completely apart, something subconscious wasn’t content with the in-between.

Maybe it wanted a clean break. Or an all-in.

Nothing halfway.

Felicity sat down next to him on the sandy-colored steps, their shadows stretched long by the lights behind them, stark against the brightness of the driveway winding down to the gate. “Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” he answered.

“What are you doing back here?” she asked. “Digg and I told you about the spy tech, right? I didn’t dream that.”

“You didn’t,” he said. “But my sister needed a few things — she hasn’t been leaving the hospital much, and after she heard about what Slade’s been doing…”

“Yeah.” Felicity winced. “I can see why that might take some of the joy out of the family home.”

Legitimate reason notwithstanding, none of it explained why she was meeting Oliver here. Not unless they were about to have a conversation that couldn’t conceivably be had in the Foundry, either because it was too crowded (Roy, Diggle, getting ready for the plan), or because it was something that genuinely required them to be alone. _Alone_ alone.

Maybe those two were the same thing.

Oliver broke the silence; she hadn’t even noticed one had fallen. “It’s just us. I sent Raisa to stay with some family out of Starling City. In case things got ugly, I didn’t want —”

“Yeah.” Felicity brushed a stray curl out of her eyes, a self-conscious tic, messing with her hair. “I’m really glad my mom’s in Vegas and has a habit of missing pre-booked flights.”

Oliver smiled a little, but it didn’t last. Jokes and general light-heartedness didn’t really fly (pun unintentional) when they were facing a potential war, a war that might involve the whole city this time, and the question of whether it would last until the morning. They’d faced threats before, but all those felt small-fry and isolated — happening in their own glass bubble — compared to what Slade was planning to unleash.

No one would be safe if he did.

After Moira, there was a strong argument to be made that no one really had _been_ safe to begin with.

Oliver chafed his hands together to warm them, even though she knew that he was never cold. Maybe it was his way of being nervous, having something to do with his hands. Felicity touched his knee, an action that was almost impulsive — because there wasn’t a reason to be nervous, not really. Whatever it was, they were still… _them_. They could still put things aside when it counted, and this time it really did count. Otherwise she never would have walked away from him at the hospital.

And he wouldn’t have let her.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” she said. “And I don’t just mean because of the multi-million dollar prototype using you as storage space. I’m glad you’re okay because I care. Always will.”

The look Oliver gave her now was almost a question by itself. He didn’t move her hand, and the side of his arm was pressing lightly against hers. Like even when they weren’t really together, they were still leaning on each other by force of habit. “I care about you too,” he said. “I know it hasn’t…seemed like it, over the last few days.”

Felicity slipped her hand away and returned it to her knees. “Yeah,” she admitted, turning back to face the driveway. “A bit of tension.”

“Little bit,” he agreed. “The fights…they’re starting to feel like fault lines. Like what we have — maybe it’s not as strong as we thought.”

Felicity slipped her hands into her pockets, because it was getting cold. She shivered a little, and she hid it, because she wasn’t sure if Oliver might have put his arm around her, and she didn’t really want him to. Not now. Not when they were both weighing what he’d just said, and the genuine truth in those words.

“We took a step back on the understanding that we might have to break some promises for the greater good,” she said, thoughtful and quiet. “But when push comes to shove, we can’t seem to agree on which ones.”

“That’s not a good thing, right?” he asked, softly. “If we can’t agree what to sacrifice. If we’re constantly opposed to what the other thinks.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “John and Lyla don’t agree on a lot.”

“But we’re not them.” Oliver with the caveat, as always.

“No,” she agreed. “No, we’re not.”

Another silence descended, heavy with thoughts and all the things they weren’t saying. The quiet made it easy to hear when Oliver moved, reaching into his pocket. There was something in his hand now. It glinted in the low light, small, but held close like it was important.

A key.

It might have been because they were both sitting with their backs to the massive mansion doors, but Felicity instantly assumed it was his house key — which was a little strange, considering how people as rich as Oliver Queen didn’t seem like they needed door-opening implements. Having bank accounts with record zeroes usually meant they were rich enough to hire people to _be_ their keys. Even if it _was_ for the mansion, it still didn’t explain why he was holding it out to her now. Especially now.

“Is this your way of telling me and Digg to let ourselves in next time?” she asked. “Because we already did that.”

Oliver waited until she’d accepted it, and Felicity did, closing her hand around it — a gesture that struck her as instinctively protective, even though she didn’t know why. The metal was still warm from being in contact with his skin, and she weighed the key in the palm of her hand, along with the other thousand questions she currently had. “It’s a nice key…I guess. Want to tell me what it’s for?”

“It’s not for here,” he said, like it was an explanation. “It’s for later — if you want to.”

“If I want to,” Felicity repeated. She still didn’t understand, which didn’t happen a lot, not for her.

Oliver didn’t speak for a long moment, like he was bracing to say something important. “Before we go inside, I wanted to talk. To make sure…we had a few things straight.”

Felicity hesitated. They hadn’t found any bugs around or in the front porch, but the inside was a _whole_ different story. “Inside?” she said. “You remember what Digg and I told you, right? About Sl—”

“I know. That’s why I asked you to meet me here,” he said, and took a deep breath. “Because I think we should break up.”

* * *

Felicity had been quiet for a while, and normally, Oliver would have given her all the time she needed, but they didn’t have time. Especially not now, with what was coming.

“Felicity,” he said, gently. Reminding her.

She was standing by the main staircase in the foyer, not quite looking at him, still and silent. Oliver was a careful distance away at the foot of the stairs, a patch of colored light falling between them, streaming in from the stained glass windows overlooking the hall. The setting sun blazed as fiercely as pure fire, but the stained glass and the inside of the house turned the light cold. Distant, along with the silence that seemed to push at the unseen cracks, spreading them further apart.

Fault lines.

“I was just thinking,” Felicity said quietly. “Amanda Waller, you never told me about her. You never mentioned running into ARGUS while you were on Lian Yu. Never mentioned that you _left_ Lian Yu, only to somehow end up back there again.”

Another crack, spidering beneath his feet. Felicity breathed in, and the sound came with a thousand sharp edges, a thousand small hurts.

“Were you going to?” she asked.

Oliver lifted his head. “No,” he admitted.

She made a noise under her breath, a cross between a laugh and a cough, the kind that was directed at herself. “Here we were, saying we love each other when there are…five whole years in your life that are a complete blank to me.”

Felicity’s voice was full of regret, but she didn’t sound surprised. As though she’d known it all along, deep down. The things he’d never tell her, the things he wouldn’t want to. The only difference now was clarity. A bleak, forced look at where things stood. Things that couldn’t continue, for both their sakes.

“I know,” Oliver said. “There are things I don’t share, and a part of it is because I don’t want to remember what happened — those five years I was away. But the truth is, I don’t need to, because every time I close my eyes, they’re waiting for me. Slade, Waller, ARGUS, the Bratva — they made me who I am, and every time I put on the hood, or pick up my bow, I’m reminded of that. I didn’t want another reason to relive those things, and if I’d told you the truth, you never would have looked at me the same way.”

“Do you think that’s all I see when I look at you?” she said. “That to me, you’re just…scars? Bad memories. Bad things. Is that really what you think?”

There was a telltale hoarseness in her voice now, and Oliver looked at his feet again, gathering his strength to say the words. “I didn’t want to take that risk,” he said, finally.

Felicity’s arm shifted, as though she’d been about to reach for him, but a second later, her hand was back at her side again, clenched in a tight fist. Unscarred and complete, and it reminded him of when she’d washed the blood from his hands, leaving him clean. In a lot of ways, that was who they were. Oliver was always going to be someone who needed redemption, and Felicity was always going to be hoping for someone who could be redeemed.

Maybe it wasn’t him. Maybe it wouldn’t ever be.

“Someone told me that once I let the darkness inside, it never comes out,” he said, carefully. “And I did, because I had to. Because it was the only way to survive. The truth is, these last few years I’ve been back, I’ve been trying to push that darkness down, to atone for the things I’ve done wrong by being the Arrow.”

Felicity shook her head. “That’s what heroes do,” she insisted. “They try, they _fight_. Why is that not enough?”

It wasn’t the question she’d asked, but Oliver heard it anyway. _Why am I not enough?_ It set off a dull ache inside his chest, guilt and love and the bitterness of knowing it had to be done, it just had to be. In a lot of ways, it was the truth, and after everything, maybe they did need to hear it.

“Because it’s not me,” he said. “Felicity, it’s not me, and I’m tired of trying.”

“Not even if I believe in you?”

Oliver faltered. He didn’t have an answer for her, and Felicity moved forward, not stopping this time. She nearly stumbled towards him, crossing the patch of falling light to catch him in a hug, hiding her face in his shoulder like she’d done a hundred times before. He felt her hand at the back of his neck and the gesture jarred a memory in him, of the operating room at the hospital, with a heart monitor screaming the truth that his mother was about to die. Felicity holding him in her arms, the two of them bracing for impact.

Raw, wounded. Two things that Oliver was, only because having Felicity’s arms around him was a reminder that he hadn’t always been. But not now. Not right now. Oliver took a deep breath and pulled away, disengaging himself from her. “This was an experiment, Felicity,” he said. “I was trying to be someone different. _More_ than Oliver Queen. You made me believe that I could, and I think that’s why…I think that’s why I made a mistake. I thought the way I felt about you…was different. But I was trying to be someone who wasn’t the Arrow, and I got so caught up in trying that I forgot what was the truth, and what I wanted to believe.”

Felicity inhaled sharply. “You don’t mean that.”

“I’m sorry, Felicity,” he said. “I thought I could be someone else. But I can’t. We don’t agree on what matters and what doesn’t, what we’re willing to save and what we’re willing to sacrifice, and that’s just not…what either of us wants. It’s not what we deserve.”

“And what do you want?” she asked, quietly.

“You told me that I shouldn’t make choices I can live with, but the choices I _know_ are right. I’m making that choice now,” he said. “Us being together, pretending to be someone I’m not, it’s wrong. Because of the way that I am, there’s a deadline to how long we can last, and I think…we’re there.”

Felicity stepped back, suddenly, making the floorboards _snap_ with a sound that echoed in the empty hall. Like he’d unbalanced her, and Oliver felt his fingers tighten at his sides, so that he didn’t reach out.

“So all those things you said to me…all those promises you made…they weren’t really you,” she said. “So why? Why even bother?”

Her face was hard to look at when it blazed with betrayal, and Oliver averted his eyes, but not before he saw the tears standing out in hers. “I was wrong,” he said, his voice flat. “I’m sorry.”

“Because you don’t feel the same way? Or because you’re never going to be someone who — who isn’t _afraid_ to live? To trust someone. To _love_ someone.” Her voice cracked in the middle, and it very nearly killed him.

Oliver shook his head. “I really don’t know. I just know how I feel, and I can’t give you what you want. Not now. Not ever.”

“Then say you never loved me,” she said. “Say it was never real. Say — say _something_.”

They stared at each other in the silence, two opposites resolved to stand on their respective sides, instead of trying to force something that was wrong, and _would_ be wrong. Dust swirled off the carpet, catching the sunset shining above their heads. The stained glass colors turned it gold, blue, red, and gold again. Frosted and cold, a world away.

“It wasn’t real,” Oliver said, very quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Felicity looked more beautiful, and more remote than ever in the changing light. A tear slid down the side of her cheek, and it seemed to break the spell, to jolt her from the stillness. She erased it with a sharp, abrupt jerk of her wrist and dropped her hand, a fist at her side. “Fine,” she said, turning away. “We’re done.”

Her footsteps rang out in the vacant house as she strode towards the heavy front doors. The open doorway was a patch of blinding brightness, and Felicity disappeared into it, disappeared into the light without a backward glance.

The slamming door echoed in the silence, and Oliver breathed a slow sigh of relief. It was over. All over.

* * *

The key slid neatly into the lock. Felicity heard the tumblers shift with a single, unified _click_ that echoed in her ears. The door was steel and clouded glass, and despite a key that fit and a door that was _clearly_ unlocked, Felicity wondered again if she’d gotten the right place.

_It’s for later — if you want to_ , he’d said.

Felicity wasn’t sure, but here she was anyway.

The door swung inward without a sound, and she stepped inside. The first thing that struck her was how dark it was, and at the same time…not. She’d underestimated the power of being downtown, even at night, in a city like Starling. It was a city that didn’t sleep, a trait that extended to the criminal underbelly she and her friends worked constantly to keep in check, right down to the constant clashing of good and bad, light and dark, people determined to save it and people determined to bring it down.

But it looked peaceful. At least from the windows, the tall, yawning windows stretching from floor to ceiling, windows that looked like they’d let sunlight pour in during the day, and the softer, reflected glow of city lights — distant and close, new and old — after dark.

Felicity’s heels echoed on the bare floor as she turned in a slow circle, taking in her surroundings. The sound carried all the way up to the high ceilings — higher than she’d thought, flanked by exposed brick walls, plain and simple. None of the lights seemed to be working, but she could just about tell that the place was mostly open spaces and simple, clean corners. It even had an upstairs carved out like a little private niche, a smaller space compared to the rest, but one that meant _safe_.

A loft.

Felicity stood in the middle of the room, looking around at the bare floors and bare walls. It _was_ a place meant to be lived in, but it was abundantly clear that no one did, making her wonder if it was some kind of upgrade on Diggle’s idea of a safe hotel room, i.e. one she hadn’t signed for using her real name and came with a bodyguard standing in front of the door at all times.

Increased safety notwithstanding, the safe house was also missing containers of day-old Chinese takeout left over from breakfast, _not_ that Felicity would have contemplated twelve-hour-old egg rolls, but having the option would have been nice, what with the night she’d just had. Not to mention the one that was on its way. Tomorrow, less than twenty-four hours away.

Maybe _pie_. That was a good end-of-the-world food.

There was movement behind her, footsteps on an unseen staircase, and she turned. Maybe a little alarmed, because empty rooms and no lights on? _Bad_.

Oliver emerged from a set of steps she hadn’t noticed before, and he paused at the sight of her, one hand on the exposed brick wall. “Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” she answered, relaxing a little. “Couldn’t find the light switch.”

Oliver flicked one of the switches in the wall. “Sorry. There’s no power yet.”

_Yet_. Which implied that someone _was_ going to be living here. Felicity digested this information, along with the unexplained nature of the invite and the necessary awkwardness chewing the metaphorical scenery behind them both, and she pointed a finger at the ceiling. “Is this you not wanting me to stay in a hotel room? Because Digg already okayed the new hotel suite, as long as I use the alias and ask them to leave room service outside the door…”

She trailed off, because as hard as it was to read Oliver in the low light, she was pretty sure that she was missing something, and the reason — one of many, she was guessing — he hadn’t corrected her had something to do with his longstanding habit of humoring _her_ habit of thinking aloud. “This isn’t a hideout,” she guessed.

Oliver had been making his way across the room, and he shook his head now. “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said, and she caught the smallest hint of relief. As relieved as Oliver could be, anyway, which probably meant more he wasn’t showing.

Felicity turned the other way, facing out the windows as he stepped up to join her, because in her experience, awkward things said aloud sounded better when she avoided eye contact. “Because the last time I met you at a pre-arranged address, we ended up having a staged breakup,” she said, with a nod that felt more like a wince. “If it helps, I don’t know why I’m here either.”

All she could see of herself was an outline in the glass, set against the sprawling backdrop of urban Starling City, glittering with hundreds, thousands of lights like little stars, and surprisingly peaceful from above.

Oliver was quiet too, and she chanced a sidelong look at him. He was staring out into the night, at the city he’d sacrificed time and time again to save, a city he still protected at all costs, a city that never needed to say thank you. Maybe the view reminded him of crouching on all those rooftops. Maybe it was peace to him, watching from above.

Whatever the _maybe_ was, Felicity didn’t mind sharing it, just for a while.

“It’s worth it, isn’t it?” she said, barely above a whisper, because it didn’t need to be any louder than that.

She’d meant the city, Starling, and Oliver seemed to be thinking about his answer, because he knew it. “Always,” he answered.

Felicity turned away again, fixing her eyes on the distant glow of city hall. “It was a smart idea, what you did,” she said. “Back at the mansion. It’s exactly what Slade wanted.”

“And he’ll believe it because he knows it’s something I’d do,” Oliver agreed, managing to make it sound like an apology all the same.

“Haven’t you already done it?” Felicity asked, not in the interests of beating a dead horse all over again, but just because…it felt like Oliver had. At the hospital, before they’d even gotten to the mansion and the faked breakup.

Oliver didn’t quite answer her, and it wasn’t a question that really needed answering. Felicity could see their reflections in the windows, pale ghosts, distant versions of themselves. “Fault lines and expiration dates,” she said. “You know, for a second there, you almost had me fooled. For a second there, I thought maybe…you meant it. All of it.”

Now they were both thinking about the things they’d said to each other back at the mansion, on the steps and inside the hall, the latter for the benefit of the unseen audience. Things that didn’t become any less true, just because they’d come around courtesy of the knowing voice at the back of their minds, telling them things that weren’t nice to hear, but always, _always_ , carried a telltale ring of something they knew deep down was right.

Oliver was looking at her now, and she could sense the conflict in every bone of his body, more or less because she felt the same. “It had to be real,” he said, very quietly. “I’m sorry.”

Felicity nodded again, suppressing the urge to wince. She’d also heard his apology, but her answer to it wasn’t an answer at all, because she held the key out in the palm of her hand. “Why am I here, Oliver?” she asked.

Oliver breathed out, and looked back, at the quiet, simple space they were both standing in, the loft that felt like a secret, kept safe. Felicity watched him, and there was a ghost of a smile on his face, like things weren’t exactly turning out as he’d planned.

Their eyes met with a shiver of _something_. Something they both knew. “Do you remember what I asked you the other day?” he said.

_All this to ask me to move in with you?_

_Just so you know, my answer’s yes._

Felicity did, but the delayed realization still made her feel like she’d missed a few steps on the stairs, like she’d found herself suddenly in the middle of a conversation she didn’t remember starting.

The key slipped through her fingers and landed on the floor with a small, fragile sound that rang out in the empty space. Felicity stared into Oliver’s face, at a loss for words, torn between something that was shock, disbelief, and an emotion _startlingly_ close to anger.

Then she turned on her heel, because after everything they’d already said to each other, he didn’t need to hear what else she had in mind.

“Felicity, wait.” Oliver followed her, an action that was conveniently the exact opposite of what he’d done at the hospital, what he _should have_ —

“ _Wait_.”

Felicity whirled, right in the middle of the floor, and the look on her face must have been fierce enough to convince Oliver to stay put, because he didn’t go any further, sensing the invisible line demarcating how far Felicity wanted him to go. He raised one hand, a gesture that simultaneously meant _calm down_ and _wait_. “I made a mistake,” he said.

Felicity nearly snorted at the pure understatement in the sentence, because this, even for him, was _unbelievable_. “Following a fake breakup with an invitation to move in?” she answered. “I don’t disagree. Now isn’t the right time, Oliver, and after everything we just said to each other, I don’t know how you thought this would be anything but a _terrible_ idea. Even for you.”

The last part might have been a low blow, but compared to the back part of her brain that was looking for something blunt — and very _real_ — to hit him with, he could handle the snark.

“You’re always saying there’s never a right time,” he said, evidently deciding that the safest way to go was to quote her. “I’m taking your advice.”

Felicity gave him a look that was — even against her adjusted standards — deeply sarcastic. “ _Now_ he listens.”

Oliver exhaled. “What I said to you at the mansion — I won’t say it wasn’t true,” he said. “It _had_ to be true because of Slade. So I wasn’t lying, there _is_ a part of me I don’t want you to see, because you’re a good person — better than I’ll ever be — and the truth is, I’m ashamed of the things I did, what I let myself become. A part of me is always going to know that I don’t deserve you, and that’s why I never told you about Waller, why I never told you I chose to kill Slade instead of curing him…why I’m afraid you’ll walk away. Because it’s too much.”

Felicity shook her head slowly. “Oliver, if that were true, I never would have helped you find Walter, I wouldn’t have stayed on with the team, we wouldn’t have been friends — and we wouldn’t have been together. Before all this, you asked me to move in with you, and I said yes. You’re asking me now, but I’m not saying yes anymore. Because what I just heard is that you don’t trust me, and two people who don’t trust each other shouldn’t be moving in together, much less making promises they can’t keep.”

“I trust you,” he said. “I’ve always —”

“You trust me not to ask questions,” she corrected. “That’s not the same thing, and we may have been faking a few things about the breakup just now — but not that. _That’s_ our deadline, Oliver. Sooner or later, that’s why we won’t last. Because you don’t trust me — not really — and you’re always going to think that being alone is the answer when things get tough. You’re always going to default to being a survivor, the man on the island who survived on his own.”

Oliver didn’t move, and neither did she. “What if I wanted to do things differently?” he said.

Felicity lifted her shoulders. “Is that why I’m here?” she said, because it couldn’t just be that. Not anymore. “So you can dangle another ‘what if’?”

“Felicity,” Oliver said, and she didn’t like how much she wanted to trust it, to trust the wordless hope in her heart instead of the cold, hard instinct that Oliver would always _be_ Oliver. The shadow and the ambiguity, the light always at risk of tipping over into the dark.

They were both such bad liars, it should have tipped her off that the fake breakup went off without a hitch. Because there was enough truth in it to make her feel like there was a reason to end things for real.

“I called you a hero,” she said, very quietly. “I meant it. I still do. But the hero and the man from the island are two sides of the same coin, and when push comes to shove, I know the sacrifice you’ll make — that you’ll _always_ make — is going to be you and me. What happened to your mother was the worst kind of awful, and I get why you did what you had to do at the hospital, but it doesn’t change the fact that it hurt me — that _you_ hurt me. Even if we get back together now, there’s still a chance that you’ll do it again, and I just…I can’t do that to myself. I love you, Oliver, but I can’t.”

“You don’t trust me to change,” Oliver said, in a voice that made Felicity’s throat tighten, because she didn’t want to hurt him, she just wanted him to understand why.

“Maybe I don’t,” she agreed, with a small, sad smile. “Maybe I don’t trust you to change — not on this.”

Oliver was still looking at her, and she didn’t take her eyes from his face, even though it hurt — it hurt to see the disappointment, the _want_ , the regret — because for two people who’d already knew for sure that they were irrevocably, impractically crazy about each other, something always seemed to be in the way. Another obstacle.

This time, it felt like they’d run into an insurmountable one, and worse still, it felt like they’d made it themselves.

“Back in the forest, when Slade had my mother and my sister, he wanted me to choose,” Oliver said, suddenly. His voice was flat, like he was reciting a story. An unemotional recollection of the worst night in his life — a coping mechanism Felicity knew on sight. “But before that, he put a gun to my head, and I would have let him kill me. I tried, Felicity. A part of me _wanted_ him to kill me. I would have died the same way my father did, if it meant that he’d stop, if it meant my family would survive. I would have let him.”

Felicity felt that drop in the pit of her stomach again, the same swooping heaviness she’d felt at the hospital when they’d decided to take a break. The feeling of defeat, the knowledge that Oliver — some part of him — had given up.

“That’s not the plan, Oliver,” she said, and there was a bite of steel in her voice now. “That can’t be the plan to stop Slade. Because there’s no chance — no alternate reality, no _universe_ — where I’d let that happen.”

Oliver nodded. “I know,” he said. “When Slade had a gun to my head and I thought I was going to die, I thought about you. Because wanting him to kill me, _trying_ to make him kill me — I knew it was a betrayal. But I did it anyway, and I’m sorry.”

Felicity didn’t know what to say. Thanking him seemed bizarrely inappropriate, and praising the honesty — honesty-under-duress — seemed to run against the point of the talk.

“Well, I’m glad that you still hear my voice in your head,” she said. “Even when you’re trying to do something stupid.”

She winced, hating how it sounded, but Oliver didn’t seem to be disputing her point. As if there was room to dispute it anyway.

“I’m sorry for hurting you,” Oliver said. “I’m so sorry. I know that I said I wasn’t going to let you go, and I did. I chose the easy way out, because I couldn’t take the risk — I thought I couldn’t, not when it came to you. I was wrong, for keeping things from you, for not listening, for thinking that you’d lose faith in me — all of it.”

Felicity didn’t say a word, and Oliver took a step closer, just one. “I don’t want you to say yes, not yet, because I haven’t earned it, and I know that. But I want you to know the reason I asked you to meet me here. We’re here because it’s our last night, and if it all goes to hell tomorrow —”

Felicity closed her eyes. “Oliver —”

“— because if it all goes to hell tomorrow,” he continued, “I want to believe that in some other world — if things had gone differently, if we’d _done_ them differently — this could have been us. I need to have that. Call it another ‘what if’, but to me…it’s more than that. It’s hope, and it’s only because of you that I’m not giving up on hope.”

There was a silence, and Oliver breathed in deep, the corners of his eyes crinkling just a little, from the simplest, most honest smile she could have imagined. “I love you, Felicity, and for me, there’s no alternate reality, no universe, where that won’t be true. That’s all I wanted you to hear. I love you.”

_I love you_. It wasn’t nearly that simple; it shouldn’t have been. It didn’t change the fact that Oliver had loved Felicity when he’d let her go, didn’t change the fact that Oliver would still say he loved her, even when he was sacrificing their chances to be together.

So what was different now?

_Hope_. Oliver said it himself. This apartment, this life that might have been theirs, it was more than just a promise to him. It was hope, something he’d look for in the dark, something that would keep him going, in spite of it all. He wasn’t asking her for anything she wasn’t willing to give, wasn’t asking her to stay at his side for the fight against Slade. It might well have been their last night of peace, and she knew just as well as he did that semi-well laid plans notwithstanding, there was still every chance that it could all go wrong.

And here he was, making sure that the last thing she heard before the end was that he loved her, still and always.

Oliver was never going to be easy, and he’d asked a lot of things, and so had she, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t about fault lines and uncertain trust, it was about finding their way through it, together, with the few — _powerful_ — truths they both knew for sure.

Felicity would never accept any outcome that meant Oliver sacrificing his soul, an outcome where he wouldn’t be happy. And Oliver, even given the chance, wanted the one thing, the one _inviolable_ thing, to be that he loved her.

Felicity took a step forward, then another. She walked, her footsteps echoing in the silence, until she was right in front of Oliver, and she had to tilt her head back to look at him, and they were close, close enough for a lot of things.

But Felicity did what she’d meant to do. She grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling his face down to hers, and kissed him. Her lips against his, his heart beneath her hand. Just like that, and she felt him respond. His hand caught hers, and pulled her closer still. They were shadows reflected in the glass, two outlines blurred into one. Chest to chest, heart to heart, his whole body against the length of hers. Heartbeats were racing now, something that had never been a lie, not between them.

Felicity was short on breath, her skin live with shivers that felt distinctly _good_. But she pulled back all the same, because Oliver wasn’t getting away with anything less than what she had in mind. He looked surprised at the interruption, even more so when she made a fist and punched his chest, the look on her face completely, no-nonsense fierce. “I swear to god, Oliver, this is the last time I’m taking you back. If you do it again — if you pull the same crap — or _any_ crap in general, I’m gone. I don’t care if you give me a house — or a skyscraper — or a warehouse full of TX-50 satellite communicators, I’m walking straight out, and I will _not_ guarantee that you won’t find animal flatulence on all your personal electronic devices — or that your favorite compound bow won’t go missing — or th—”

Oliver was suddenly kissing her again, and Felicity was on the verge of breaking off to be offended when she realized that he was _smiling_. “Okay,” he said. “Everything — whatever you want — okay.”

Felicity pushed her forehead against his. “You’re infuriating.”

Another kiss, soft as a whisper. “I know.”

Felicity studied him, looking for the Oliver she remembered at the hospital, the one who’d looked shell-shocked, battered — _defeated_ — because he couldn’t see a way out of Slade’s threat. The one who’d needed the space, to protect him, to keep him… _sane_.

Oliver let her, the two of them soaked in the shadows and the tall, clear space of a home he imagined they might share — one day — all around them. Their faces were very close together in the dark, like the kiss in the hospital corridor that was meant to be the memory — _the_ memory to hold onto, because the promise of reality was waiting at the other side.

_After_.

But here they were, claiming something for themselves now.

“I love you,” he whispered, and in those three words she heard everything, but what was important was saying it back.

It’d taken Oliver a little while to get there, but he had, and Felicity was holding his face, protecting their shared secret between her hands. “I love you.”

A smile, even a hint of it, was as contagious as a spark, and before Felicity knew it, they both were. It was the last night before everything might change, and with the promise of being alone, unseen…it was freedom to be in the present, to be anything.

This — all around — could be them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- I would just like to add that there is a version of this chapter that ended with the breakup. Period. Luckily, I have a friend who reminds me to be sane (and not be a dick most of the time). So they've made up. (And made out)  
> \- It's really hard to write a breakup for Olicity, guys. I think it's my brain rebelling against the idea, but writing it nearly drove me up the wall.  
> \- Also, I'm so freaking pleased that I finally have a code name for Tommy, which will be appearing pretty soon :))) To be more accurate, my friend (the insanely cool @oliver-smoaked) suggested it and actually WENT UP TO COLIN DONNELL AT HVFF AND ASKED HIM WHAT HE THOUGHT. I WAS THREE FEET AWAY. YOU MADWOMAN. Anyway, with that dubious stamp of approval (I'm joking, the man up close is a god), I am proceeding with said code name. Yaaaaas.


	41. Big Bang (Streets of Fire, Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeesh, I'm late. That's what I get for strolling in to watch Wonder Woman and getting hit in the face with WonderTrev awesomeness. And working for the summer at a pro bono legal clinic, which is both awesome and super busy. Sorry, I get in a weird headspace every now and then and it takes a while for things inside my brain to get moving again.  
> Hope everyone's had a good hiatus? :D

“Not that I’m saying yes, but this apartment needs a rug,” Felicity said, surveying the loft over the rim of her wineglass.

Far from being miffed that he was being used as a human footrest (among other things), Oliver shifted her legs slightly — completely bare and draped over his lap — so that they weren’t touching the floor. The cold, extremely unfurnished and un-upholstered floor. “You know you don’t have to start every sentence like that,” he said, his thumb making slow circles below her knee. “I told you, I’m going to earn that ‘yes’.”

Felicity leaned the side of her head against the kitchen counter at their backs, blinking at him through her lashes. “Sounds like you —” she broke off to yawn “—have big plans there.”

Oliver’s response was to gather her closer, pressing a kiss into her hair. “Big plans,” he murmured, making her smile.

No furniture, no power, and a freezing cold floor were individual mood-killers on their own, but even with them put together, Felicity was still smiling. And trying not to show it by taking slow sips of her wine, because a part of her was still supposed to be miffed at his sense of timing (again, among other things). But the other part of her, the one that liked drowsy kisses and having her bare skin against his, arms around her tight — that part was being a little less cooperative, and a _lot_ more adventurous with very grownup activities in a not-moved-into-yet loft apartment.

Felicity was wearing Oliver’s crumpled shirt, and she felt the heat of his hands through the fabric as she climbed on top of him.

“So there’s no power, and no heat,” she said, noting very subjectively that as exhausted as Oliver had to be, he was still keeping up his end of the bargain, _vis-à-vis_ doing whatever Felicity wanted. “But there’s wine and candles. Just…how well did you think this was going to go?”

Oliver’s face was turned up to hers, tantalizingly close enough for another kiss. “I don’t know what I thought,” he admitted. “Maybe I’ve been spending too much time with Tommy.”

“Ah.” Felicity was slightly, _slightly_ smiling too. “Always dangerous.”

They’d slipped back into banter again, little back-and-forths and inside jokes that had a little too much _flirt_ to them to be totally innocent. As if innocence was a thing with Oliver missing a shirt and running his hand up the inside of Felicity’s bare thigh…

Felicity caught his wrists and pressed them against the marble surface behind him. “Can we pretend — for a second — that the reason I have you on your back is because I won at sparring?” she asked. “Because I can’t believe we just had sex in an empty apartment. On the floor.”

“More than once,” he added, with an exemplary grasp of the relevant, as per usual.

Felicity hit him in the chest and he laughed, snatching up her hand before she could do it again. Playing absently with each other’s hands in an extremely non-competitive version of thumb (and finger) wars may not have been how she’d imagined the night going, but it beat sitting in an empty hotel room and having a staring contest with the ceiling while time crept steadily towards dawn.

“Do you think he bought it?” Felicity asked, growing quiet. “Us breaking up.”

She didn’t want to say the name, not here, and Oliver didn’t ask her who she’d meant. He’d been stroking her hair in the silence, and she felt his hand stall momentarily at the question. The tiny candles scattered across the apartment created pockets of shimmering haze, patches of moving air Felicity found hard to look at. Unlike her, Oliver seemed to have no trouble looking directly at the candles, the small lights dotting the space around them. He was looking at the one in the center of the floor, pinpricks of gold reflected in his eyes. The reflected glow should have been cold and distant because he was thinking, his mind far away, but something was different this time, and Felicity saw it all on his face.

“I think…he doesn’t see me the same way you do,” he said. “I think he assumes I’d never trust someone with the real Oliver Queen — the one he thinks is real — and that I push everyone away, because someone like me is meant to be alone. Isolated. Weak.” He shook his head a little, staring at the ceiling, the corners of his mouth downturned. “I think we gave him that.”

Felicity ran her fingertips along the lines, tracing his frown like she could erase it from existence. “Then he doesn’t know you,” she whispered.

Oliver took her hand again, his stubble tickling the palm of her hand when he kissed it. “Not like you,” he said.

It was Felicity’s turn to frown. “Do I?” she said, without malice. But a hint of obligatory irony. “I wasn’t lying either, you know. For two people who say they love each other, I don’t understand how there can be five — maybe three — years of your life that I know _nothing_ about.”

Oliver’s arms tightened momentarily, like he was afraid she’d start pushing him away. Then he exhaled, long and slow. “I didn’t learn how to torture and interrogate someone on Lian Yu. Not all of it, anyway. Amanda showed me how — and after using me as an example, she sent me out to do the same to the people on her list. ARGUS wanted information, and no one that side of the world would recognize a dead man. Even if they did, who would believe them?”

His voice was flat, ironed smooth of emotion, completely unlike the Oliver who’d looked at Waller like he wanted to kill her, then and there. Felicity felt goosebumps rise on her skin, a sudden chill that had nothing to do with the way he sounded, but everything to do with what he had to be remembering.

“Where? Which side of the world?” she asked. “Russia?”

“Russia was later,” he said. “I was in Hong Kong.”

“Waller let you go, but you didn’t go home,” she said, half-guessing, half-remembering from the fragments he’d reluctantly let slip at ARGUS. “You were in Hong Kong, you could’ve…”

Oliver shook his head. “I let ARGUS turn me into a monster. I wasn’t going back to face my mother and sister like that. Being dead was better than letting them see what I’d become.”

“But you came back,” Felicity said. “Later.”

“Because I learned how to hide it,” he said dispassionately. “I learned how to separate that part of me from the part I wanted my family and friends to see. It’s the way I am, Felicity. I wish I could change that — faster, better — but…”

“…a part of you doesn’t want to,” she finished for him, chafing gently at his face. “You think it’ll be everything they see.”

Oliver’s hand slid from her hair. “I have strong proof to the contrary,” he said, and leaned up to kiss her softly on the lips. “Thanks to you.”

The sky was still dark, lights reflected off the bare floor and glittering through the vast windows. Felicity watched the slow, shifting reflections from traffic passing unseen beneath the balcony, thinking about how the rules should and _did_ apply both ways. She couldn’t in good conscience ask Oliver to tell her things that were as good as scars, physical and emotional, without returning it with some honesty of her own.

It wasn’t how she’d planned on telling him, not even close, but given the circumstances…maybe it was what they needed. Another layer of sturdy foundation, building up something that could withstand what was coming next.

“What are you thinking?” he asked.

She stirred with a small, quiet smile. “I’m sorry about suggesting we work with Waller — even if it was just for the computers. I know seeing her must have brought up the bad memories.”

Oliver shook his head. “You didn’t know,” he said. “I didn’t tell you.”

“You looked angry when Waller talked about recruiting me for ARGUS,” she pointed out. “You know I wouldn’t consider it, right?”

Oliver made a noise under his breath, the telltale signs of a frown creeping into his expression. “I know. But I don’t like Amanda’s games,” he said. “And one of the many things she _excels_ at is bringing out the darkness inside the people she recruits, and just the thought of you…I didn’t — I don’t — like it.”

Felicity was looking at their hands, thinking about the crucial information Oliver didn’t have when he’d made that assessment. “So at the risk of adding another frown line to that busy forehead business of yours, you’re saying that if I ever went to work for ARGUS — I’d turn out to be some renegade hacker. No rules, no compromises…dangerous.”

“Felicity?” She must have looked preoccupied enough to get his attention, because he looked quizzically at her. “What’s wrong?”

She didn’t answer at first, weighing the words, the old memories, the ghosts and the pain, deciding whether it was worth it.

But Oliver shared, and so could she.

“I think Waller might have had her work cut out for her,” Felicity said, each word slow and careful, like she was worried about getting them wrong. “Because that used to _be_ me. A long, long time ago.”

Oliver lifted his head, genuine surprise flitting across his face. “How long ago?”

“Four years.”

They both knew a little something about a few years making the difference between one lifetime and another. Oliver sat up slightly, his attention entirely — one hundred percent — on her, but he didn’t say anything. Felicity shifted off him again, her legs curled next to him while she stared at the exposed brick walls, trying to put everything, everything she’d shoved into a box, a place locked away and out of sight, into some kind of order, so there was a chance it might actually make sense.

It was an easy kind of silence, a silence that didn’t come with obligations, the kind of silence that acknowledged the difficulty of bringing up things that hurt, and were still hurting, unspoken. It was like he knew the feeling, and of course he did. Only with him, it was dialed up to twenty or thirty, reinforced by deep-seated trauma and an instinct to shy away from sharing.

Felicity blew out her breath. “Wow, I really should have brought along some visual aids for this sharing thing,” she said, and Oliver smiled, as though he recognized the joke as her version of _once upon a time_.

“Picture a rebellious brunette hacker with a serious disregard for rules,” she said. “In college, the three of us, me, my boyfriend —” (Oliver’s hand, resting against her knee, tensed, just a little) “— and his roommate were in a…a _group_. We were — and bear in mind, I’m only using this for lack of a better word — hacktivists. There were jocks and there were math geeks, but we were the misfits who figured out that we could be gods behind a keyboard and a computer screen. We could expose government corruption, crash servers in unethical corporations, chase down criminals even the FBI and CIA couldn’t find, we could…well…you get the picture. But to do that, we needed access, to anything and everything — so I did something.”

“Bad?” he asked.

Felicity nodded, feeling the beginnings of a lump somewhere in the vicinity of her throat. “I created a computer virus that could infect servers and create root access for the only people who knew how to exploit it — us. But it went wrong. It was tempting, like having magic powers at our fingertips all the time, and one of us went overboard, got careless. The FBI caught on, and you know what happens next.”

“You weren’t arrested,” he guessed.

“I tried, believe me. But he confessed. My — um — my ex, he confessed, told them everything they wanted to know, except he said the virus, the reason why the FBI wanted him so bad — he said he made it.” Felicity stared hard at their hands, feeling her vision blur and sting with old tears. “He was going to go away for life because of something I created, and — and before the trial even started, they told me he died. Hanged himself in his cell. I never went to his funeral, because he never got one. I don’t think his parents even —”

Felicity scrubbed quickly at her cheeks with the heel of her hand. “It was my fault,” she said, flatly. The no-frills, no-holds-barred truth. “I let him — I let him go to prison, and it’s my fault that he’s dead. My first attempt at playing the hero, and I got someone killed. So I dropped it. Everything. No more hacktivism, no more rebelling, no more getting involved, no more…playing god.”

Oliver was still listening while Felicity thought about what to say next. “So, you know,” she said, with a tight smile. “You got angry at Waller for trying to recruit your resident hacker, but maybe ARGUS isn’t the worst place for someone like me.”

Her hands were twisting together, fidgeting, and Felicity stared at them with laser-sharp focus, determined not to look anywhere else. In case the look on Oliver’s face showed exactly what she’d been afraid of. That she wasn’t who he’d thought, and for all that she’d meant about honesty and trusting him, there was a part of her that couldn’t bear the unthinkable alternative, if —

Oliver’s touch startled her, and Felicity looked up, past the hand on her cheek. His palm, broad and warm, his thumb erasing the damp tear tracks down her face…all without a word, just the smallest smile that showed he’d heard it all, and nothing had changed. Nothing _could_ change.

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. “I’m sorry that you had to go through all that. But that doesn’t make you a bad person. Or someone who isn’t a hero.”

Felicity made a half-hearted sound of amusement, ducking her head again. Mostly because of the irony in Oliver thinking she was the _H_ word, when she’d spent the better part of the _After Slade_ period trying to convince him he was exactly that. It also wasn’t remotely the reason why she’d told him. Not so she’d get a pat on the head for being strong, and a few words kinder than what she could manage for herself.

“I didn’t learn martial arts and face down Starling’s worst with a bow and arrow,” she said bluntly. “I took a job as an IT girl and went blonde. _Not_ exactly the same thing.”

“Maybe,” Oliver said, with a little knot between his eyebrows that she might have tried to erase too, if he didn’t have both her hands. “But I don’t know if any IT girl would have saved my life more times than I can count. Or have been the reason my family’s company survived, the reason why I can still walk. Because that person sounds like someone who hasn’t stopped fighting, the reason _I_ haven’t stopped fighting — and I have it on good authority that heroes tend to do that.”

Felicity wondered if Oliver was only saying that so she wouldn’t start crying again, but based on the look in his eye — probably not.

“That’s because a vigilante decided to drag himself into my car and bleed all over the seats,” she said, and felt the laughter in their joined hands. “You do that, you know. Change people, for the better. Even when you don’t think you’re doing it.”

Oliver’s thumb was on her lip, and she could taste the salt from her tears. He was warm, and near her, holding her — a feeling that was safety, trust, and…something _good_. Felicity curled up close to him, tilting her head back for his kiss. It was more than just the cold, but she felt closer to him than ever, closer than they’d been in weeks.

“This sharing thing,” she mumbled. “What’s the verdict on that?”

“Should have started ages ago,” he said, and they smiled at each other. Oliver’s expression grew serious again, and he tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, his fingertips lingering on her skin as always. “Felicity, thank you for telling me.”

They met in the middle, again, and Felicity’s next words were against his mouth. “It was the right time,” she whispered.

“And the right person,” he added, and paused, smiling softly at her. “I know the feeling.”

* * *

Later, much later, Felicity remembered stirring briefly, her forehead bumping against Oliver’s chin as she tried to settle her head in a more comfortable spot to sleep — even though she was mostly there already, drowsy and going fast. He stirred, pulling his loose shirt higher up her shoulders to keep her warm, and she murmured in his ear: “you really need to buy a rug.”

Oliver’s sleepy laugh was the last sound Felicity heard before she drifted off for real.

* * *

It was the day meant for Moira’s inauguration.

The door was partially ajar; Oliver could hear the nurses and doctors moving quietly and purposefully out in the corridor, a rhythm as predictable as it was reassuring. A demonstrable sign that the world would continue to spin on, somehow, no matter how ugly the things that were thrown their way.

He was by the window, his head leaned on the glass while he watched Moira breathe peacefully in her sleep, late afternoon sunlight stretching across the floor. The room smelled like disinfectant and flowers, the latter mostly due to the bouquets all over the room. They were presents from well-wishers and family friends, but the bright vaseful of daisies was the only thing Moira kept by the bed. The sun lingered on them now, hitting the glass at precisely the right angle to cast a dozen refracted lights across the wall and floor, orange and yellow blazing in the warmth.

Sebastian Blood had been sworn in as Starling City’s mayor. The last step in Slade’s plan, executed with unfeeling precision. A step that would have involved his mother’s murder — if they hadn’t been lucky. Or whatever it was that resulted in Moira surviving the attack, albeit with consequences — unforgettable, enduring consequences — they would never be able to undo.

A dark voice at the back of his head called it _justice_ , but Oliver couldn’t believe that. Not if Slade was the one meant to be carrying it out.

Moira stirred, quiet and easy, blinking against the unexpected glare of the windows. He could tell that she was trying to decide what time it was, and how long he'd been sitting there alone. In that moment, before the gleam of her ever-present armor snapped back into place, she was his mother. “You should have woken me,” she said, sounding quietly reproachful. “It’s rude of me to leave visitors unattended.”

Oliver had to smile at her infallible standards of politeness, even while recovering in a hospital bed. “I’m your son,” he said, crossing over to kiss her forehead. “And you need your rest.”

Moira responded with a quiet chuckle, patting Oliver’s face before he pulled away to sit at the chair by the bed. “How are you, sweetheart?”

“I spoke to a neurosurgeon in London,” he said. “We talked a little bit about what he might be able to do — there’s a new experimental procedure that’s been getting amazing results, and —”

“ _Oliver_.” Moira reached out for his hand, and she felt her fingers squeeze. “I want to recover, not to expend time and energy trying to chase the impossible.”

“I know what you said. I just…I want to make sure that you have all your options,” Oliver explained. “The world’s changing, mom. Stem cells, cancer treatments — growing ears on mice — what if there’s something out there for you too?”

Moira smiled at his determination, still holding his hand. “As touched as I am that you’ve finally started to expand your horizons, I would be the poor mouse in this scenario,” she said frankly. “And I’m not entirely sure I’m cut out for it.”

Oliver knew Moira loved him too much to say _leave it_ , too much to ask him to carry the weight of hope, the kind that came with the odds stacked against it, infinitesimal in the chances of success. He’d taken on Robert’s cause as his crusade once before, and if finding a way to reverse what Slade had done to his mother — as long as it came with a fraction of reality, no matter how small — Oliver wouldn’t stop looking.

But it felt like Moira wanted him to. “It’s not a shameful thing, to make peace with reality. Not for me, and least of all for you,” she said, with her uncanny ability to sense what was going on inside his head. “The guilt isn’t your burden to bear.”

Moira sounded almost sad, as though she was remembering a time when nothing used to bother him, when guilt used to be equated with responsibility — something to be brushed off at a whim. Oliver couldn’t count the number of times Moira must have taken it upon herself to clean up his mistakes, known and unknown to him, and the son she’d watched grow up, the one who’d died on the Queen’s Gambit — he would have let her.

“I’m not that person anymore,” he said, just as honestly. “And I don’t wish I was.”

“Must be where all these lines came from,” she said, but with the faintest glimmer in her eye to tell him that he was being teased, fondly. “I’m your mother, and I will love you no matter who you become, but if you recall, you’ve already made me one promise. I’d much rather see you try to keep it. Within reason, of course.”

Oliver didn’t say anything to that. _Within reason_ wasn’t something he could promise when it came to Slade, and what he was willing to do to make things right. “I want you and Speedy to stay safe tonight, okay?” he said. “I’ve already spoken to her — she’s going to be here all night.”

Moira looked momentarily taken aback. “Is there something I don’t know?”

Oliver glanced at the door, making sure they were alone. “It’s a chance to bring Slade down, once and for all,” he said. “But in case — in case it gets bad, I just want you to be careful.”

Moira gave him a look, no trace of laughter now. “I’m worried, sweetheart,” she said. “You take risks with yourself, and I just wish you could be far, far away from this.”

“I know.” Oliver smiled a little. “But you know why I can’t.”

“I do.” She held onto him, nearly painfully tight, looking torn between decisions she didn’t like, and things she couldn’t change. “I love you, Oliver. Very, very much.”

Oliver leaned forward and hugged her, and Moira sighed quietly against his shoulder, holding her son in her arms. “Love you too, mom,” he said.

He stayed with her until he heard voices in the hall, and Thea came into view, followed shortly after by Felicity. “Look who I found in the cafeteria,” said his sister, waving an inexplicable handful of glossy magazines like they were some kind of trophy. “You should have brought her up here, Ollie.”

“I was just coming to meet him,” Felicity said, looking a little shy, like it was barely the half of Thea’s teasing. “I come — well, _came_ — bearing gifts.”

Thea crossed her arms in front of the magazines protectively. “So I guess things are back to normal between you two, huh?”

Moira tilted her head. “Were they not before?” she asked, and Oliver knew he was being teased, again. “I was wondering why you looked so much happier.”

Oliver gave up his chair so Thea could sit by their mother, giving her a kiss on the top of her head instead of an answer. “Hi,” he said to Felicity.

“Hi,” she said, with a smile.

It was time to go, but neither of them needed to say it out loud.

Oliver looked at his sister again. “Remember what I said. Stay safe, and call if anything happens. Take care of mom, okay?”

Sensing that he was about to leave, Thea got up and hugged him, her face hidden in his shirt. “You too, big brother.”

Oliver grasped Moira’s hand until the last, and Felicity was waiting for him at the door when she spoke up. “Felicity,” Moira said. “Take care of him. Please.”

Felicity nodded, as Oliver slipped his hand into hers. “I promise,” she said.

* * *

“I would like to express my deepest regret at the turn of events that resulted in my becoming mayor of this great city. What happened to Moira Queen is a tragedy, and the thoughts and prayers of this office are with her, and her family,” Sebastian said, a clip from his first speech in City Hall now overplayed to the point of insanity on all the major news channels.

It was being broadcasted on the biggest monitor at Felicity’s workstation, the news being one of the few things that they could do without their owner/resident tech whisperer to help them out.

Tommy grunted — partly because there was something incredibly punchable about Sebastian Blood’s smug face — but also because Diggle had him in something of a chokehold on the sparring mats, and the attempts to throw him off weren’t turning out as planned, what with Diggle’s significantly more threatening muscle mass and combat training.

Lucky for Tommy, he’d figured out more or less from the get-go that his best bet was to be smart, speed and surprise over anything else. Which meant improvising, but it also meant trying hard not to think about how Malcolm probably approached his fights in the same way, given the whole _Dark Archer/League of Assassins_ thing.

Because that wasn’t helpful at all.

“Use your arms,” Diggle said, still not loosening his grip. Leave it to him to still be a teacher, the kind that didn’t give free passes when there was a lesson to be learned. “If I’m a Mirakuru soldier, you can’t throw me off — so break the hold. You got it?”

One of the leather boxing gloves was pushing against Tommy’s chin, making it hard to articulate a response that wasn’t _hrff-grf_. The soundtrack of Sebastian Blood’s victory lap and yet another reminder of his super-villain dad hit the perfect note of frustration, and in lieu of an answer, Tommy dropped his weight in a backward slump, back into Diggle. Pushing instead of pulling, forcing Diggle to catch his balance. Tommy threw his elbow back — aiming for Diggle’s diaphragm — and twisted clear of the chokehold, rolling across the mats.

Super gracefully, of course.

“ _Good — effort_ ,” Tommy rasped, getting back to his feet, fists raised to keep going. “What else you got?”

Diggle smirked, and Tommy instantly regretted asking the question. The former made a fast swipe at his head and followed it up with a series of jabs and uppercuts that made Tommy feel more like a performing acrobat, what with all the moves he had to pull in order to avoid getting the stuffing beat out of him for training.

“Goddamn it, Merlyn,” Diggle said, after Tommy pulled off a particularly stupid-looking dodge (too much twirl for the absence of a tutu). “Where did that come from?”

“I wanna say from a good place, but that would imply my dad isn’t a massive dick who doesn’t deserve a punch to the teeth,” Tommy said, aiming a few therapeutic swings of his own.

Sebastian Blood was still on the TV, a fact that coincided with a bitter taste inside his mouth, and after Diggle blocked his next punch, Tommy decided to call a time-out. Still no sign of Oliver or Felicity, and he stood beside Diggle in front of the computers, catching his breath while the news channels continued to cover Starling’s shiny new savior. Even though it was more like handing over the castle keys to a flaming, stinking traitor with big plans for a remodel, the kind that involved a bulldozer and lots of TNT.

Seriously, how did these things keep _happening?_

“As the son of a guy who kept me in the dark about being a murdering Black Archer dude, I know I should be used to this kind of lying, but I’m just…not,” he said, breathing hard. “I don’t understand how we missed it.”

Diggle was watching the broadcast too, and gave a little shake of his head. “That’s not a bad thing, not being used to lying. It means you’re about as different from Malcolm Merlyn as it gets.”

Tommy gestured behind him at the sparring mat. “Am I the only one who just saw that?”

Unlike Tommy, Diggle didn’t seem to think his sparring moves were as prophetically stupid as they seemed. “Yeah, and I’ve seen Malcolm fight,” he said. “He fights dirty, and you don’t. You’ve saved Oliver’s life twice now, and like it or not — that makes you more of a white knight than a dark archer, and that’s what sets you apart from your father. Don’t ever forget it, because Oliver’s going to need you, all of us, if he wants a shot in hell of beating Slade.”

Tommy thought about it for a second, standing shoulder to shoulder with his badass, insanely wise, no-nonsense friend, feeling like he was about to make a promise. “I don’t know,” he said. “I think he might stand more than just a shot of beating Slade Wilson with all of us — emphasis on _all_ — backing him up.”

The exact content of the _all_ went without saying. Diggle, Tommy, and Felicity. Oliver couldn’t do it without them (though Tommy knew a part of him would always be game to try), and unfortunately, he’d chosen the precise wrong moment to make a Picasso out of everything.

The dark thought was interrupted by the door at the top of the stairs opening — loudly. It might have been the sparring (or a few accidental hits to the head) but Tommy didn’t see how that was a problem for a long, few seconds. Until he did, because the last thing Oliver probably wanted was to hear Blood’s smug-faced speech without being able to stab an arrow into his face.

Tommy lunged for the keyboard with the intention of averting that precise situation. Except he missed (damn boxing gloves), hitting the keys that didn’t turn the screen off, but the ones that, coincidentally, turned the volume way, _way_ up.

“So I ask you today, as mayor of this great city —” Sebastian boomed, while Tommy went through his vocabulary of curse words trying to find the button, _any_ button, that would make it go away.

“Hey,” Diggle said, getting up and coincidentally (or maybe not so) putting himself between the stairs and the monitors. “Wasn’t expecting to see the two of you together.”

“What?” Tommy looked up, thunderstruck, away from a Sebastian Blood — muted — but now a shade of vivid, inexplicable magenta, and proceeded to stare.

Oliver wasn’t alone, far from it. He’d just walked into the Foundry with Felicity, as though it was the most normal thing in the world (and it really, really was), and Tommy felt his face break out into a grin. “You stubborn ass,” he said.

Felicity took up her place in front of the monitors, and Oliver stood beside her, like they were about to start a normal, save-the-city discussion. “He really is,” she said. Again, like it was the most normal thing in the world. “Now let’s go over the plan.”

* * *

Night had fallen. Oliver stood in the shadows, the same as he had always been, night after night, ever since he’d returned from five years in hell with a single purpose. To save Starling City. The hood protected him, reminded him, turned him into something more than just Oliver Queen.

He was the _Arrow_.

A cold breeze swept across the rooftops and he inhaled, the smoke and steam and _life_ — so many lives — that deserved to be lived, that deserved more than an ending in fire and blood and chaos.

Oliver knew about sacrifice. The essence of a sacrifice was free will. It was what made it hurt, sometimes an unbearable hurt, but what it left behind was strength, a determination not to let what was lost have been for nothing. His journey as the Arrow had begun with sacrifice, and it continued because he was willing to let go of what was necessary, in order for something more than just one man to exist — for something else.

There would be more to come, before the night could end.

But Slade wouldn’t win. Starling City would _not_ burn, because Oliver was going to do whatever it took to make sure it didn’t. To correct his mistake, right his wrongs.

The bow was in his hand, and he angled it now, aiming towards the ground.

“Ready?” he said, knowing he wasn’t alone.

“Ready,” said Diggle.

“Ready,” said Tommy.

A sound that was nearly a sigh. “Ready,” said Felicity, reminding him of the one thing — one of the few things — that wasn’t a sacrifice, but a strength, all that and more.

It was a spark inside his chest, a light when all else failed. The arrow left his bow, and Oliver followed the path of the wire, swinging down into the endless dark.

* * *

“I feel like I’m in charge of the world’s most dangerous carpool,” Felicity said, as the van pulled up near the junction. She’d hacked the Traffic Authority before they’d set off, clearing and diverting traffic where she could, sending false road closure messages for the rest.

The result? Seeing empty asphalt stretch far, far ahead. City lights coming on as night fell, the sky inky blue and darkening fast. As eerie as it was silent.

“I think that might be a first for downtown Starling City,” Tommy said, poking his head into the front seat. “It’s like the world zombie-apocalypsed while we weren’t around. I feel like I should have a baseball bat stuck with nails.”

Felicity glanced at the equipment bag behind her seat. “Think of those as the helpful non-apocalyptic equivalent,” she said. “Though in all fairness, super-strong, super-brainwashed soldiers who can’t be reasoned with don’t sound all that different from zombies.”

Tommy rolled one of the modified arrowheads in his palm. “On a scale from _static shock_ to _lightning storm_ , how strong are these things?” he asked, meaning the re-upped voltage on their gear.

Felicity considered her answer. “It won’t kill a Mirakuru soldier, but it’ll give you enough time to get a head start,” she said. “I think. We’re not exactly in a situation where there’s do-overs, and I don’t see any of you roping a Mirakuru soldier in for us to experiment on.”

“Speaking of apocalypses, try not to blow anything up while I’m gone,” Diggle said, opening the side door and sliding his pack off the seat. “I’ll meet you back here after I set the charges, we’ll pick up Oliver, and then we hit the switch.”

Everyone looked at the perfectly innocuous remote detonator, sitting deactivated and very still in the empty front seat beside Felicity.

“Okay.” She unclenched her hands from the steering wheel and picked up her tablet, adjusting the earpiece so she could hear better. “Good luck.”

“Thanks. And Felicity —” Diggle leaned forward and gripped her shoulder, “— we’ll be fine.”

Felicity managed a smile, and then Diggle was gone, vanishing into the shadows underneath the freeway. Tommy went towards the back of the van, looking out the back window in case there were cops, his bow laid flat across his knees. She looked down at her tablet and brought up the live map of the whole stretch of sewers, above and below, already handily marked with the places where the charges would have to be set in order to do the right amount of damage.

Two moving dots, one on ground level, the other beneath. Diggle and Oliver, two people she couldn’t imagine losing. “Please let this go well,” she muttered. “Please.”

* * *

Oliver heard water dripping. Constant. Disembodied. Like the disjointed sounds of a strange, old-fashioned clock. It seemed like he was alone — and with Felicity observing from above — he knew he was.

Yet he felt watched.

Oliver turned the corner and sighted a series of converging supports, cracks spidering across the concave ceiling and densest at the upper right. He reached into his belt for one of the round explosives and attached it carefully to the highest point that he could reach. “One left,” he said. “Still no sign of anyone.”

“Digg’s nearly done up here,” Felicity said. “And you’re right — I can’t see anyone in the tunnels. I really hope we didn’t pick the wrong night to booby trap the sewer.”

“Maybe we got here early,” Tommy suggested. “Better safe than sorry.”

“Says the people who juggle with highly explosive remote-detonated charges,” she muttered. “Oliver, keep heading east. You’re looking for a vertical column, something big enough to cause a cave-in.”

Oliver did, navigating the tunnels by the unsteady gleam of flickering emergency lights, taking turns and crossing obstacles, until he slid down a rusted ladder — and stopped. Silent. “Can you hear that?” he said.

No response, except for the faint bite of static.

* * *

Tommy’s breath misted up the tinted glass window, and he wondered if it was a good thing to hope that the night might get more interesting than endless stakeouts. Definitely not, because that would mean explosions. Like, _more_ explosions than the controlled detonations already on the book.

But Tommy was trying this thing where he didn’t tempt fate by stating the obvious, especially when it came to a mission as high-stakes as this one. The same way he wouldn’t walk into a dark, creepy house saying _there’s definitely no axe murderer waiting for me in the basement_ , or walk into a tropical jungle thinking _hey, that snake totally won’t bite_. Because the outcome common to both those situations was him ending up very dead. Beautiful, but still dead.

“So,” he said. “How’d he do it?”

Felicity was still in the front seat, the detonator sitting beside her and very much off-limits until the designated time. Her focus was zeroed in on the tablet in front of her, seamlessly keeping track of the many, many things that went into a mission. One of those being his best friend, otherwise known as her boyfriend/lobster/soulmate/all of the above.

“How’d he do what, Tommy?” she asked, without looking around.

Tommy made his way back up to the front of the van, sitting behind the empty front seat reserved for Diggle. Close enough to give Felicity’s shoulder a poke. “Y’know,” he said. “How’d Ollie make up for being a — pardon my French — total flaming dumpster fire of a boyfriend?”

As used to his detours as she was, Felicity still turned to give him a look over her glasses. “Are we actually having this conversation right now?” she said, caught between disbelief and very Oliver-like irritation.

Tommy gestured with his arms, indicating the vast expanse of quiet streets through the van windows. “Not as if there’s anything else we can do. Plus — and this is important — I forgot my deck of cards.”

Felicity rolled her eyes. “You’re unbelievable.”

“I know,” Tommy agreed, and leaned more ostentatiously against the back of her seat. “So how’d the dum-dum do it?”

Felicity scratched behind one ear, looking faintly shy. “He gave me a key.”

“A key,” Tommy said. “Metaphorical, literal? Big, small? Safe, closet, drawer, door —”

“ _Door_ ,” Felicity interrupted, clearly realizing the mistake she’d made in trying to be vague. “He asked me to move in with him. He showed me the apartment, and we — we talked.”

Tommy perked up, because _hot damn_ , Oliver could exceed expectations, though usually only after underwhelming them to the point that he’d scraped up a new basement. But it was correcting his mistakes that mattered, and from the sound of it, he’d gone for the equivalent of a grand romantic gesture.

As an aside, Tommy sincerely, genuinely hoped that _some_ part of that had included furniture, some candles, wine — maybe a nice CD or two (cough, Billy Joel). Not a skeleton apartment that looked like it was better off inhabited by a low-maintenance ghost.

“Did you like it?” he asked. “Not whatever you guys did to make up — because I really don’t need to know. Not because your sex life grosses me out — I mean, _look_ at the two of you — but because I really don’t need the specifics to guess that you guys probably rattled some things loose in that apartment.”

Felicity whacked him at the back of the head — not hard at all — and Tommy laughed, reaching up to pat down his hair. “Ground rules, mister,” she reminded him. “And I haven’t said yes.”

That just made him grin, because the implication was that she was tempted. Very tempted. The only thing stopping her was probably the fact that Oliver — apart from his habit of folding sweaters and refusing to get in touch with pop culture — had a stubborn tendency to act stupid at the worst possible times, especially when it came to the people he couldn’t see himself living without, and that was _big_. An understandable hangup before using that key Oliver had given her.

But it was a step towards making things right anyway, because Tommy couldn’t have imagined Oliver moving in with anyone a year ago. Much less that he might be in a relationship that wasn’t the equivalent of a loaded gas tank sitting next to a campfire.

That it’d be someone like Felicity Smoak.

“Smart,” Tommy said easily. “After that crap he pulled? I’d make him sweat for it.”

Clearly the answer hadn’t been what Felicity had expected, and as worried as she currently was about Diggle and Oliver, she still seemed to be teetering on the edge of a smile, and she leaned over suddenly to give him a kiss on the cheek. Maybe to shut him up, or something else, but Tommy wasn't picky.

“Tommy Merlyn,” she said. “You never give up on him, do you?”

Tommy shook his head. “Nah,” he said. “I’m a natural busybody.”

Felicity laughed, and she only looked away because her tablet gave a beep — the kind that sounded vaguely important — and Tommy leaned over her little more to see the screen over her shoulder.

“What does that say?” he asked, squinting. “A-R-G— _Felicity_. Why are you hacking Digg’s girlfriend’s secret government agency? The CIA and the FBI —”

“— aren’t being led by someone who redefines snake-like,” Felicity said, still drumming away on the screen. “Besides, their satellite was in the area, and I just need to borrow —”

“— _borrow?_ ”

“— _repurpose_ the heat vision scanner for the perimeter map,” she finished. “Not that I have a lot of experience with planning city-wide invasions, but they _clearly_ need advance prep.”

“Right,” Tommy said. “So it doesn’t make sense that Oliver hasn’t seen even one Mirakuru soldier.”

“Exactly,” she said. “And _bingo_.”

She turned the screen over to him, and Tommy saw a big, colorful splotch somewhere on the map. A heat mass, and Oliver was moving nearly parallel to it, separated by a few big tunnels and crisscrosses.

“Oliver,” Felicity said, tapping on her comm to reopen the channel. “You’re getting closer to the egress point — take the next path down and you should be in a connecting tunnel to the right area.”

No response.

“Oliver?”

Before they could really do more than shoot each other wary looks, a warning popping up on the tablet screen, blocking the tracking program Felicity had been running. It vanished before Tommy could read the specifics, but judging by the look on Felicity’s face and how she’d shot upright, it wasn’t good.

“What?” he said, as she started to type, fast. “What was that?”

“It was the Foundry access systems — the doors,” she said, shaking her head slightly like she wasn’t understanding the logic.

Tommy did. “Doors?” he said, experiencing a flash of Roy kicking down the basement entrance with one foot, having shaken off the Tibetan pit viper venom paralysis (somehow) so he could storm out into the night again, going on another homicidal rampage. Only now at pretty much the worst time possible, in terms of manpower availability. “Breaking in or out?”

Felicity shook her head. “I don’t know, but that’s not what I’m worried about. The alerts I programmed are supposed to stay up until I do something about it, but they’re gone now, which means either someone knows enough about my system to circumvent the alarm, or we’ve been hacked.”

“ _Hacked_? But you’re basically hack-proof,” he said. “What w—”

He trailed off, because Felicity had just brought up the surveillance, and they were both seeing something they didn’t understand. It wasn’t a zombified Roy, wreaking havoc inside the basement. No, everything looked quiet. The IV bag of pit viper venom might have been running dangerously low, but he hadn’t moved. The back of Tommy’s neck was still prickling, and they both watched the screens with painful intensity while Felicity flicked through the available cameras.

They almost missed it; the shadow, lurking at the edge of the frame.

Tommy knew who it was before the figure even appeared, and his heart began to pound — furiously, dangerously loud — when he recognized the familiar build and the armor. Every nonsensical, rage-driven instinct in his body was telling him to pick up the nearest, heaviest thing he could lift and hit Slade Wilson, hard. To race back to the Foundry and fight him, to make him pay for what he’d done to Moira. To hurt him, as much as he’d hurt Oliver and Thea and the people in his life. But Tommy couldn’t fight Slade, not when he was out of reach. Not when he was already helping them fight back — if they managed to set and blow those charges.

All he could see was the back of Slade’s head — without the mask — and more importantly, him returning a sleek metal cylinder to the back of his belt, something that looked vaguely familiar, even if he couldn’t quite place it.

“Skeleton key,” Felicity breathed. “Oh frack.”

“What’s he doing?” Tommy said. “Why the Foundry?”

“I don’t know. But—” Felicity clearly didn’t want to finish the thought, not with Roy sitting so close to danger.

Slade moved as silently as an animal through the forest, naturally clandestine, even if no one was really watching. He stopped in front of a motionless Roy, and they saw his head tilt slightly, a smirk cross his face.

They couldn’t hear him, but the body language made it obvious enough. Slade was relishing the sight of another one of Oliver’s failures, and Tommy wanted nothing more than to punch the look off his face. Not that Tommy could hear over the sound of his pulse, because if Slade so much as disturbed a hair on Roy Harper’s head —

Tommy would head for the nearest blowtorch and burn — sear — scorch Slade a whole new one.

But Slade moved away. Roy wasn’t who he’d come for. He was just a side note, a convenient reminder of another battle Oliver had lost. Slade moved on, standing squarely in front of the computers. The tracking programs were up and running, and Tommy guessed it was because Felicity was using the computers as some kind of main terminal for the stuff she was running on her tablet. Though from Slade’s point of view, it looked like they were just there on their own, a background process run by a computer, rather than a person now outside of the Foundry and watching.

Was Slade making sure that Felicity had gone? After the breakup performed to apparent perfection for his creepy little spy-cams, was he covering his super-villain bases to make sure that the source of some significant troubles in his evil plans was actually, legitimately out of the way?

Slade was studying the moving map, and she saw him manipulate it with his fingertips, zooming in on one tracker above all others. The one marked _Oliver Queen_. It showed him moving inside the sewers, only Slade now knew where he was too.

Tommy saw him reach for his sword between the time it took to blink, and without warning he slashed straight through the row of monitors lined up on the table, sending them toppling backwards onto the floor in a shower of sparks and sparking electricity. Smoke rose from the shattered displays, dead and black.

The sword flashed again, and Tommy winced as the empty glass case meant for Oliver’s suit crashed into a million broken pieces. Followed by the cabinet of arrows, scattering across the debris already on the floor. Seemingly satisfied with the deliberate destruction, Slade walked at an unhurried pace through the Foundry. He vanished up the staircase he’d come from, but not before they saw his hand move towards his ear, as though to a comm-link not unlike the ones they all had.

He wasn’t alone.

“That’s not good,” Felicity said, having beat him to the realization that not only was Slade alerting Blood or Isabel Rochev to Oliver’s whereabouts (in a closed, underground maze to boot), they’d also lost contact and with that, their only way to make sure Oliver wasn’t walking straight into a trap.

“Oliver,” Felicity said, a note of fear in her voice, tapping on and swiping through a medley of controls on her tablet as she tried to restore the signal. “Oliver, do you copy?”

“Ollie?” Tommy tapped his earpiece. “Ollie?”

No answer.

“Digg?” Felicity said. “We have a problem. Slade’s onto Oliver, which means Blood and Isabel are onto him, and we’ve lost him on comms.”

“It’s not because of the explosives,” Diggle said. “Otherwise I’d be gone too. He must have walked into something.”

“What, bad reception?” Tommy said. “It’s the sewer.”

“ _Bad reception_.” Felicity smacked herself in the forehead. “Jammers. Of course they’d be using jammers. That means he found them — or whatever area they were using to stash the Mirakuru soldiers —”

Felicity unsnapped her seatbelt and was reaching for the door when Tommy saw something move through the windshield. It was a split-second decision, and he made it out of pure instinct, yanking Felicity out of the way just in time to avoid the _thing_ that crashed straight through the glass.

As it turned out, not an arrow. But a sword, now embedded in the leather seat, the exact spot Felicity’s head had been just seconds before, the curved tip of the shiny blade quivering mere inches from Tommy’s face.

“Correction, we have _two_ problems,” Tommy reported, as they watched the small figure march towards them, showing no signs of slowing down. The figure reached a slender arm back and pulled another sword free with a chilling screech of bared metal.

“What the hell?” Felicity said.

“More like _who_ the hell?” Tommy corrected, trying to see through the splintered windshield.

“First one to come out gets a quick death,” said a bone-chillingly familiar voice. “I always appreciate someone who isn’t a coward.”

“Oh frack,” Felicity breathed, which was — to put it mildly — a lot nicer than the profanities running through Tommy’s head.

Isabel Rochev, and even if it was too dark to see her face, Tommy took the fact that she’d tried to impale Felicity’s face with a full-length sword as a sign that she probably wasn’t happy. Or in the mood to for a conflict resolution seminar, delivered off the cuff and in bi-weekly installments. Sensing this, Felicity slid towards the passenger’s side of the front seat as Tommy clambered through from the back, unsticking the sword from the ripped headrest before he took the wheel.

“I’ll get Oliver,” she said quietly, like they were trying not to provoke a raging bull into attacking. “You keep her busy.”

“Yup,” Tommy said, one hand on the gearshift, the other on the steering wheel. “You got this?”

“Probably,” she said. “Be careful.”

“You too.” Tommy hadn’t taken his eyes off the not-quite-distant figure of Isabel Rochev, closing in fast. “One, two —”

“ _Three!_ ”

Felicity threw the side door open and took off towards the shadows, tablet in hand, barely a second before Tommy turned the headlights on full blast — hoping they would blind the She-Demon — and jammed his foot onto the gas pedal.

Tires screeched, and Tommy’s back slammed into the driver’s seat as the van hurtled across the asphalt, straight towards Isabel with extreme prejudice. He’d expected her to dive aside, and she did, moving faster than he’d thought possible. Now Tommy couldn’t see her, and he swung the van around just in time to avert a head-on collision with a concrete beam.

“Uh, Digg?” Tommy said, trying to see through the cracked windshield and the windows, looking for signs of Isabel, either pancaked or still (unfortunately) 3D. “I think I just got promoted. Lookout Guy to Getaway Driver.”

Tommy didn’t know how, but he could _sense_ Diggle stopping dead in his tracks. “Where’s Felicity?” he demanded. “What the hell’s going on?”

It was honestly cute how Diggle of all people expected Tommy to know even a little more than he did. “Short version, Isabel Rochev’s crashing the mission — literally — and Felicity’s going after Ollie,” Tommy said. “Because Sea-Witch’s got issues and the other two idiots have _no_ clue how normal people act in a breakup. Even a pretend one.”

Diggle swore. “I’m done with the charges, meet you back at the van.”

“Will d—” Tommy heard the faint thud of something landing above his head and threw himself aside, narrowly missing the second sword that speared the roof of the van like it was made of butter.

There was someone on top of him, and _not_ in the fun way. Tommy had a string of profanities on full-blast as he kicked the seat controls and threw the chair flat, clambering into the back of the van before the sword started shish-kabobbing again.

Whatever Isabel had been eating since they’d knocked her out at the power plant, it was clearly enough to help her rip open a solid metal car roof like she was carving up a turkey. Slightly panicking now, Tommy snatched up his bow just as a shadow appeared through the jagged rip in the ceiling, and Isabel peered into the hole, her head tilted slightly to one side.

He could see black and orange, a mask just like Slade’s, and a dangerous gleam in her eye that meant homicide and head-trophies.

Good thing he’d learned how to aim.

His fingers closed around one of the arrows spilling out of his quiver. “Hey psycho!” he called, and let go of the bowstring, sending an arrow crackling with pure electricity flying straight for her face.

As it turned out, the night was about to get significantly more interesting.

* * *

Communications were down.

Oliver had two choices: he could go back and re-assess, fix whatever faulty comms issue had caused it to cut out. Or he could keep moving, set the charges, and finish the plan. One involved backtracking and losing what little advantage of time they had, and he couldn’t afford that, not for this.

He was already moving further into the tunnels. He’d entered through a maintenance shaft, blocked off from the broader tunnel access by walls of rusted grating. All he needed was to find a column somewhere — a place to set the charge. He’d only gotten a few feet before he realized that there was something different about this sector. The light had changed, burning darker, smokier. The structure seemed older, somehow. Like he’d entered into unknown territory, volatile and unpredictable.

He was also sure that he could smell blood.

“My brothers,” hissed a voice, unforgettably distorted, warped to the very edge of what it sounded like to be human. “You have come far. Far beyond the limits of what is possible, far beyond what others have dared to dream.”

_Brother Blood._

_Sebastian._

Further ahead, there was a gap between the paneling, small enough that he had to crouch to slide through. Oliver shifted carefully, easing himself past the narrow gap and straightening up in the sudden space. It was round like a silo, gaping holes in the upper walls from abandoned pipes, the concrete water-stained from previous use, dried the door of old blood.

Oliver had come through one of the pipes, and he had a feeling the other empty passageways led to the rest of the city just as easily as it had led him here.

Waller had been right; it was the starting point for the invasion.

In the room below, fifty men at least, all of them wearing a facsimile of Slade’s mask, erasing any human expression, like they were all part of the same unified body, extensions of the same warped mind. Even the way they stood was uniform, arms by their sides, compliant, listening to Slade’s chosen lieutenant.

They would kill at his command too, and Oliver needed to stop them. Staying crouched, Oliver reached to the back of his belt and removed the last charge, weighing it in his hand. The most effective spot to put it was the ceiling, increasing the chances that it’d demolish the whole room, but he couldn’t risk the sound. Especially not if the team had no way of knowing that he needed them to set off the explosives immediately.

“You will be rewarded for your efforts tonight,” Sebastian said, in that same, nightmarish voice. “You will be the first to walk with me — into a new day. A new world. And it starts…with killing the Arrow.”

Oliver froze. The skull turned, the dim light shifting eerily across the stretched, tattered leather as it found him. Sunken empty holes for eyes. “Did you think we didn’t know?” he said mockingly.

Change of plan. Oliver hurled the explosive out into the open space and shot in the same breath. His arrow streaked towards the black disc just as it began to sink in a downward arc…

Fire exploded across the room, knocking Oliver back with a blast of sound and heat. He collided with the wall, his teeth jarred from the explosion, ears ringing, but he forced himself back up and into the tunnel.

He’d bought himself some time, but not for long. Sound echoed off the curved walls, amplified in the darkness, and he heard Sebastian’s next words as clear as day: “ _Kill him_.”

Oliver kicked through the rotted grating and threw himself into the maintenance shaft, racing back the way he’d come. He knew the Mirakuru enhanced speed, which was why he’d made it about the first corner before he sighted the first soldier. He was alone, but if the rest were following, planning to use the tunnel as an access point to the heart of Starling, it wouldn’t be for long.

He turned and shot, arrow after arrow, and some landed — only because the soldier didn’t care as much about wounds that couldn’t physically hurt. Pieces of a broken shaft landed on the ground, followed by a bloodied arrowhead. Oliver cursed, and threw himself out of the way before the soldier’s fists could land. Rubble hit the ground, dust and grit spraying the air. Oliver shot an arrow that exploded into magnetic cables, pinning the soldier’s forearm to the wall, but he only wrenched that free, sending the wire sparking across the metal pipe. Oliver snatched it up and kicked off the side of the wall, landing behind the Mirakuru soldier with the carbon steel wire drawn taut. He twisted it tight around the soldier’s throat, hauling with all his strength — until he couldn’t feel his hands —

The back of his head crashed against the wall when the Mirakuru soldier threw him off, and Oliver was struggling to get back on his feet when a kick sent him flying. He’d lost his quiver and his bow somewhere inside the tunnel. His knee was pulsing now, intermittent flashes of pain like the bio-stimulant had gone into overdrive against the exertion, and before he could turn, a hand closed around his throat, lifting him clear off the ground.

Oliver experienced a sudden, visceral memory of the dead security guards found in the Queen Consolidated warehouse, when Cyrus Gold had broken in to steal the centrifuge. Their necks, broken with only one hand.

He was choking, desperately digging his fingers against his own throat to stop the thug’s grip from clenching tighter still —

“ _Hey!_ ”

There was a blinding flash of light and a crackling blast that sent the Mirakuru soldier crumpling to the ground — out of Oliver’s field of vision — and he dropped, landing on his hands and knees, sucking in ragged gasps for breath.

A surprisingly small shape stepped over the Mirakuru soldier’s unmoving figure, surreal in the dim light. Oliver blinked to clear the fuzzy spots in front of his eyes. “Felicity?” he said in disbelief.

“Are you okay?” she said, shoving the glowing screen of her tablet under her arm and bending in front of him. She had his quiver over one shoulder, an arrow shaft in her fist —

“You used my arrow,” he croaked. Because he couldn’t believe she’d come after him, despite the plan never providing for exactly that outcome, and without a weapon to boot.

Felicity looked around like he’d just reminded her, and picked up his bow from where it’d fallen in the dark. Grime and dust on her face, probably more on his, along with soot and explosive residue. “I improvised,” she said, brushing it off — a simple gesture completely devoid of self-consciousness — before she held it out to him. A ghost of a smile flickered across her face, nerves, relief, and a little bit of pride rolled into one. “Some breakup, huh?”

Oliver’s leg was aching, painfully, but he did the one thing he wanted to do, at that very second, and pulled Felicity close, kissing her because the words _thank you_ just didn’t seem anything close to adequate, for reflecting just how grateful — and awed — he was when it came to her.

She’d always come after him, and he’d always do the same for her.

Felicity let go of his bow before she let go of him, her fingers curled tight in the front of his suit. “Some breakup,” he agreed as they looked at each other, unsure of anything except that they were staying together, right then and there.

Sounds echoed off the tunnel, and if more Mirakuru soldiers weren’t already headed towards them, they would be. Felicity pulled on his arm. “We need to go,” she said. “ _Now._ ”

* * *

Felicity’s comm-link was crackling static as she raced through the maze of sewer tunnels with a limping — yet somehow still running — Oliver at her side. She was navigating using her tablet, which was a whole other thing in itself, trying to make sense of complex infrastructure maps while on the run. Physically, literally on the run.

This was so, incredibly _not_ her field of expertise.

The Mirakuru soldiers were still coming, and she made the mistake of turning to catch a glimpse of them as they advanced. A whole group, clearly meaning to march their way up to city level, two pesky non-obstacles aside. Getting to kill those two non-obstacles, _that_ would just be a handy perk.

“ _Felicity!_ ” Oliver grabbed her before she fell, nearly stumbling himself, their feet kicking a shower of grit into the empty space below.

“Frack,” she breathed, staring straight down.

Otherwise known as a live subway tunnel, accessible after a sharp drop over a railing at their backs. Which was doubly bad, because while a train might conceivably make pancakes out of two normal human beings, Slade’s goons could probably break the momentum of a speeding L-train with only their foreheads.

They must have gone the wrong way, but the other end of the tunnel was a no-go now, closed off by the advancing, targeted-to-kill army of Mirakuru drones.

“We have to collapse the tunnel,” Oliver said, still holding her steady with one arm. “They can’t get to us, and they can’t use the way out.”

She grabbed his sleeve, partly because it was dark, partly because she wanted him to stay close. “Even if we pretend the _No Kill_ rule isn’t a thing, you realize that if you blow part of the tunnel, there’s a chance it’ll collapse on the both of us too, right?”

Oliver slid an exploding arrow from his quiver, with a look on his face she supposed was _we don’t have a choice_. “Which is why I’m lucky to have you,” he said. “Do the math. Where should I aim?”

Felicity hadn’t prepared for this. High-speed mental math with a full-powered subway train at her back and a death squad army advancing by the minute? She’d take the twelfth grade Mathematical Olympiad, hands down.

“Felicity,” Oliver said, just her name. No panic, just the fact that he trusted her answer first.

“Okay.” She pointed to one of the ceiling lights. “Third one straight ahead. Hit it right between the connecting wire. It should bring down enough rubble to obstruct the passageway, but not kill anyone — including us.”

 _Theoretically_ , she added silently.

Oliver must have known she’d refrained from making the unhelpful addition, but chose to aim anyway. She tensed. He’d put himself between her and the soldiers, and he was still for a second more. “Hold on to me tight,” he said, and fired.

Felicity was watching when the arrow left his bow, until it struck the concrete and suddenly it was fire, smoke, and the deafening roar of collapsing walls. Felicity ducked, feeling Oliver twist her downward, shielding with his own body, and she was holding on to him like he’d asked when the falling rubble plunged them into total darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So Oliver and Felicity just died, you guys. They got crushed by falling rubble. The next chapter is about their funeral.
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> I'm kidding, obviously. Until the next update!


	42. Buried (Streets of Fire, Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello hello - I know the update's super late, but life is totally freaking busy. I haven't even had a chance to look at the comments from the last chapter, but seriously, thank you guys for sticking with the story and taking the time to drop me a line.  
> Also, don't hate me for what happens in this chapter, okie? Muah <3

The electrified arrow missed — or more accurately, Isabel’s now-superhuman reflexes meant that she dodged, arching backwards like a gymnast and somersaulting off the roof of the van in the same breath.

Only to land on her feet, her sword menacingly drawn. Because _of course_.

“Son of a bitch,” Tommy said, as another window imploded from a direct collision with Isabel’s sword arm, and he scrambled further towards the back of the van.

Her other sword was still sticking out of the driver’s seat, and he grabbed it on his way out, throwing himself through the double doors — making a significantly less graceful landing on the asphalt with his miscellaneous choice of weapons.

_Mega ouch_.

Tommy barely had time to roll onto his back before something flashed, and he threw up both sword and bow to block, catching the downward point of Isabel’s murder-happy weapon, steadily inching its way towards his eye.

Needless to say, he liked having both his eyes (what with them being perfect and all), and having Isabel try to gouge one of them out with her sword — not cool. _Very_ not cool.

“Since when — do you — know how to — sword-fight?” he grunted, shrinking further towards the ground as Isabel pressed even harder on his arms.

“I’m a quick study when it comes to getting what I deserve,” she snarled. “And after having to put up with your smug little face for months, what I really deserve is to kill you myself.”

Clearly, a contest of strength wasn’t going to go his way. Which was why Tommy did the smart thing and recalled everything Oliver and Diggle had ever taught him about a fight where he was the one outmatched. Be smart, and stay alive.

“Get — in — line,” he hissed, and let go.

The sword point drove downward towards his skull — or would have, if Tommy hadn’t also twisted his head and neck sideways as soon as he let go. Isabel’s sword punched straight into the gravel with a small _pop_ of white sparks — close enough that he felt the metal shave the side of his cheek — and Tommy drew his leg back and kicked, stomping right behind the knee.

It was enough to force Isabel off balance, and Tommy rolled back onto his feet again, swinging the sword like he meant business, because after everything she’d helped Slade do, he really, _genuinely_ did.

Isabel knocked aside his first swing with her arm and wrenched her remaining sword out of the ground with a metallic screech, a belated reminder that engaging in a sword fight when he’d really only been trained in hand-to-hand and archery was a terrible idea. But Tommy was pissed, and Isabel Rochev would only be getting anywhere near someone with the last name Queen over his dead body.

That being said, the _dead body_ part was starting to feel less metaphorical, now that Tommy thought about it. The blades crashed together again, and Tommy hissed between his teeth at Isabel’s strength as she slowly drove him back towards the wrecked van.

“I helped cripple Moira Queen,” she taunted. “I broke little Thea’s world by giving her a monster for a father. _Your_ father, and there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

“That’s all Slade,” Tommy snarled. “You’re just taking credit for someone else’s homework — try a little harder.”

True to super-villain fashion, she completely ignored him, choosing instead to break the stalemate and hurl him against the side of the van. Lights went off behind his eyes as he collided with the warped doors, and broken glass dug steadily into his back from Isabel pushing, driving the crossed swords towards his throat. Even if she wasn’t going to slice his jugular, the combined pressure of her and the metal would crush his chest anyway.

“Slade wants Oliver for himself, but he never said anything about you,” she continued. “I’ll make sure Oliver finds out that his best friend died a slow, painful death because of him — unless you tell me where I can find Felicity Smoak.”

_Lightbulb. On._

It was an idea that would probably get him skewered for real, but Tommy could feel the adrenaline buzzing in his limbs, because he was about to try something. A piece of mind-scarring gossip picked up ages ago, now — suddenly, _randomly_ — not so pointless. “Felicity Smoak?” he said, like he wasn’t about to die. “You mean because of that one time — when you and Oliver were together — and he said her name instead of yours?”

If Isabel had been pissed before, now she looked like she wanted to carve him up into little pieces with a red-hot scalpel and pulverize them beyond existence while he was still alive enough to watch. “Change of plan,” she said. “I’ll find Felicity Smoak myself.”

Tommy saw something move behind Isabel, but concentrated very hard on not taking his eyes off her murderous face. “I mean, you probably thought that Oliver — given his extensive history of sleeping with anything on two legs — tends to say the wrong name a lot, but he really, _really_ doesn’t. Which makes the slip-up with you, and I mean this on so, _so_ many levels, kind of embarrassing, doesn’t it?”

Isabel’s eyes flashed and she forced him to his knees with a sharp kick, her sword against his throat and her fist gripping a handful of his hair to keep his head back. “I’m going to enjoy this,” she said, as he felt the first bite of the blade on his skin.

“Not as much as I will,” said a voice, and Isabel turned just in time to intercept a steel crowbar to the forehead.

It didn’t send her flying, but it _did_ make her let go of Tommy, and Diggle, pulling an arrow out of nowhere, stabbed the glowing end straight into Isabel’s chest. What followed next was a fraying snap-and-crackle of electricity that sounded — even to his biased ears — highly painful. She was rooted to the spot, frozen and kept that way by the electrical current running through her body in the most satisfying closed circuit in the history of ever. Eyes wide, teeth and jaw clenched, limbs locked and useless. Tommy smelled something that reminded him of burned hair by the time Diggle let go of the electrified arrow, still locked onto Isabel and sending pulses of electricity through her system, and turned back to him. Probably to check for missing limbs.

“I think you might have a superpower,” he said, reaching down to help Tommy. “You okay, man?”

Tommy winced at the _everything_ -ness of how it hurt. “Peachy,” he answered. “Thanks for the save. My superpower of supreme distraction only gets me so far.”

“No worries,” Diggle said, as they both hurried back towards the much-abused van they’d arrived in. “Now about that detonator —”

They both went still, because Diggle had just opened the front door, and sitting on the floor of the destroyed van — in pieces — was the detonator they were supposed to use to set off the explosives. The explosives meant to stop the Mirakuru army from getting out of the tunnels and into the heart of Starling City.

“Crap,” Tommy said.

“We might be able to get Felicity to re-route us a signal,” Diggle said, clearly thinking aloud. “But we can’t get a hold of her, and —”

Tommy had been hitting him on the arm, and Diggle turned, looking in the same direction. More specifically, towards the city, where the night sky burned as orange as a sunrise. But it was the dead of night, so it wasn’t, and shouldn’t have been possible.

In the distance, police sirens and heavy rumbling — like something, or a lot of _somethings_ , were all coming down. It was the sound of an invasion starting, and an army being let loose from underneath the city.

Tommy’s heart sank. “We’re too late,” he said.

* * *

“Felicity?”

A voice, but also a roar, mechanical somehow, like a nightmare machine had grown snapping jaws and the ability to screech. She flinched, thinking it was another explosion — or a huge piece of falling concrete. There was a tinny sound in her ears, receding a little as the thudding of her pulse took over, but it made her feel dazed, disoriented, like everything was spinning.

_Proximity hearing impairment._ Too close to the blast.

A hand was on her face now. “ _Felicity!_ ”

Her eyes opened and she lurched, coughing the taste of grit and decades-old dust from her throat. The sound she’d heard — the roaring — it was a train passing by, passing through the subway tunnel she’d nearly fallen into. “Did it work?” she croaked, mostly to make sure if there was a genuine reason why they hadn’t been turned into Mirakuru squeeze toys.

Oliver’s hand slid from her cheek to her throat, just over her pulse, like he’d sagged in relief. “Yeah,” he said, audibly wincing. “It worked.”

Felicity’s tablet screen was cracked along one side, battered from hitting the ground along with her, but usable. After working with the Arrow for as long as she had, the only tech she took into the field was the kind that could withstand a proximity detonation.

A little giddy with relief (or because her hearing was acting up again), she shone the light around them now, sending a small shower of fragmented debris skittering into the shadows when she moved. They were in a much tighter space, a grotto made from chunks of collapsed tunnel. “It didn’t kill us,” she said. “It didn’t —”

She broke off, staring at what looked like Oliver’s leg, the bad one, pinned underneath some rubble. Like he’d pushed her out of range for the worst of the debris and got himself caught by exactly that for his trouble. “Oh my god,” she said, dropping the tablet to shift some of the rocks. “Is the bone broken? Can you feel your foot?”

Oliver grimaced in answer. His face was shiny with sweat, teeth gritted with pain. “It’s not broken,” he said. “But my knee — it’s starting to hurt again.”

Felicity’s fingertips came away sticky from his leg. “By ‘starting to’, do you mean _a whole lot_?” she asked, showing him the blood.

Oliver ignored it, pointing towards the open railing on the opposite side of the blocked-off tunnel, still wide open. “Felicity, you should go,” he said deliberately. “We’re over a subway tunnel. You could hack into the transport network, stop the next train. You can…drop down…find a way out, meet the others, and —”

“What?” she said, taking a momentary pause from shifting rubble to put her hand on his cheek. “Tell them I left you behind with your leg stuck under some rock? Not a chance. We’re getting out of here together.”

Oliver’s face twisted again, cycling through another expression of pain — this time unrelated to the physical. “Is there a world where you ever listen to what I say?” he asked, pushing himself upright by his elbows.

Felicity leaned down and pressed her forehead briefly against his. “If there is, it’s a world where I’m not me.”

Oliver pushed back against her forehead in answer, and Felicity held them for a second more, before she went back to the rubble. Easing pieces here and there, leaving others where they were, timing herself against the schedule of the downtown L-train…basically an incredibly high-stakes game of Jenga, because if she shifted too much — she risked collapsing the shelf and sending more weight onto Oliver’s bad leg.

“What happened to the comms?” he asked, while she continued to work. “They cut out a while before I found Blood.”

Felicity had been busy forcing two fragments into position, propping open the spaces she’d already made in the collapsed concrete wall, and she paused, wiping the back of her hand across her sweating forehead. “Jammers,” she answered with difficulty, because each breath felt twice as dense, and her head was already spinning. “I’m guessing they didn’t want anyone reporting on the location for their secret zombie clubhouse. Slade only knew you were getting warmer because he broke into the Foundry with the skeleton key —”

There was a sudden, _urgent_ scuffle, as Oliver sat bolt upright. “ _What?_ ” he said.

“— which isn’t the worst part,” she continued, before he could freak out. Any more than he already had. “Isabel threw a sword at my face and I left Tommy to distract her so he and Digg could blow the charges first. Which in hindsight, might have been a terrible idea because we have no idea where they are, and what they’re doing, and —”

She winced, not wanting to finish the thought. The incredibly obvious truth of their friends being in danger wasn’t something either of them needed a reminder of, especially not now. Which — naturally — meant that her brain had made a beeline straight for the problem area.

Oliver’s best friend, who she’d left behind to face a super-enhanced Isabel. Odds stacked against him, and all she’d thought of at the time was how she couldn’t leave Oliver alone in the tunnels beneath the city, the jaws of a Slade-assisted trap closing in on him.

“I should have stayed,” she said. “Let Tommy come after you instead.”

Against expectations, Oliver actually laughed. Short, and more like a wheeze, but still technically an audible expression of amusement. “Felicity, you’ve met Tommy,” he said. “Do you _really_ think he’d have it any other way?”

Felicity smiled at the thought, remembering everything Tommy had done to try and get them together — unlikely scenarios and behind-the-scenes meddling inclusive — all to make sure his best friend and a girl he’d for some reason decided was a pure, perfect fit for said best friend, wouldn’t waste time, valuable, precious time, by being anything but together.

“No,” she agreed, loving him for saying it. “We’re getting out of here — and we’re gonna find him, and Digg, and everyone.”

Oliver nodded. “Right,” he said, with a smile. “We’re getting out of here.”

* * *

Oliver’s leg felt like it was on fire, and as used to pain as he was, the past week or so of having it dulled to almost nothing made the sudden intensity harder to deal with, especially with his mobility compromised by the shelf of rubble pinning him to the spot.

Felicity was still moving each piece with extreme care, like she was building something delicate with her own two hands, like it was her personal responsibility to make sure he walked away from this as unharmed as humanly possible.

It wasn’t, but Felicity would think it was anyway, and that was one of the reasons why Oliver loved her. He’d told her that she was his heart, and he hadn’t been lying, or exaggerating the truth. It felt like a living pulse, this connection between them, something real and strong, the reason he couldn’t have walked away from her and — maybe — why she couldn’t have walked away from him either.

There weren’t a lot of things Oliver would hesitate to do in order to protect her from Slade, which made the knowledge that the Foundry had been compromised all the more important.

“Why would Slade break into the Foundry just to destroy our tech?” he said. “He could have used the skeleton key to breach our firewall like Tockman did and disable us remotely. It doesn’t make sense — if all he wanted was information.”

“Exactly,” she said, and he could tell from the quickness of her answer that she’d been thinking about it too. “It’s like…he was making sure I wasn’t there. Like he knew that if I was still working with you, I’d be in the basement, at those computers.”

There was a pause, punctuated only by the small shifting and crumbling of solid concrete being moved. Oliver tasted something bitter and dark at the back of his throat, imagining what might have happened if Felicity _had_ been at the monitors. If he’d let his instinct to keep her out of harm’s way take precedence over everything — an instinct Slade must have guessed at, for him to sneak into the Foundry the way he had.

Slade knew Oliver, knew what he’d do. But those calculations didn’t — and couldn’t have — taken into account the fact that Felicity would never have stayed in the Foundry with the world outside going to hell, that Felicity would have chosen to come after Oliver in the tunnels, even with the threat of a Mirakuru army.

Slade didn’t know Felicity the way Oliver did, and it was his mistake. For failing to predict — for underestimating — Felicity Smoak.

“So now he believes us,” Oliver said. He’d gone very still, and Felicity hesitated, a jagged piece of concrete in her hands.

“We did a pretty convincing job,” she said, letting it drop with a dull _thunk_. “For two people who suck at lying.”

There was something in her voice that made Oliver look up, a note of self-doubt and hurt — same as the mansion, same as their fight at the apartment — because it needed to be said.

“Felicity,” he said, just her name.

It was enough to make her look over, and Oliver leaned forward, carefully. More carefully still, his hand at the side of her face, drawing her near, and the soft kiss on her lips. She shut her eyes and he felt her breathe out, slow and steady, like it was a kind of relief, or as close to it as she’d allow herself to get, with their friends in uncertain danger and his leg still trapped under a ton of rubble.

Oliver hadn’t apologized enough, or told her enough, and it was a mistake he intended to rectify for as long as he could. Because there was power in giving voice to the obvious, unshakable truths, and he was starting to learn that a secret didn’t always have to go unsaid, not if saying it aloud was a kind of strength.

“It had to be real,” he whispered. “But this is more than that — _we’re_ more than that.”

Felicity leaned the side of her head on his, her eyes closed. Oliver listened to her breathe, feeling his heart slow to keep time with the pulse against his own, and when she opened her eyes again and looked at him in the almost-darkness, it felt like they were something else.

“Do you know what I’m thinking about now?” she said, with a smile that felt like the sun on his face.

Oliver shook his head. “What?”

Felicity’s lips near his ear, her arms around his neck. “The view from the apartment,” she said. “I haven’t seen it during daytime, but I’m guessing it’s really something.”

No regrets. That was their night together in the apartment, for all it meant, for all it _could_ mean. Oliver knew he’d told her that one night was all he needed, but accepting things as they were, rather than what they could have been — that had never been Felicity. With her, it was the dream that got bigger, brighter, no matter what the darkness threw their way, and Oliver smiled back, because he loved her all the more for it.

“It’s better,” he answered, meaning every word. “It’s hope.”

They were still holding onto each other when they heard — and felt — a distant rumble, one that traveled through the tunnels like an aftershock. Their smiles faded, because they both realized what it meant. The sound had come from above, and it wasn’t close enough — or destructive enough — to have been the charges they’d set going off via the detonator, which pointed to one, unthinkable thing.

Slade’s army. Free. Wrecking havoc.

“ _No_ ,” Felicity breathed. “It didn’t work.”

Oliver felt his insides twist with anger, fear, and above all — responsibility. His city, his mistakes, and _his_ job to make sure he kept it safe. “We need to get out of here,” he said. “Help me, please.”

Felicity nodded, her face drawn and faraway now, thinking the same thoughts that he was, fault and unanswered questions. But if she was anything like him — and in some ways, she really was — she was forcing herself to concentrate, because he was still trapped, and after failing to keep Slade’s men from reaching the surface, the only thing on her mind had to be making sure the two of them were still there to fight.

The last piece of rubble came free with an accompanying release of pressure on his leg, and Oliver gasped from both pain and relief. “Okay,” Felicity said, looking down at her handiwork. “I think we can try moving that leg.”

She moved so that she was kneeling behind Oliver, her arms crossed in front of his chest. “You concentrate on pulling — I’ve got you.”

He nodded. “On three?”

“Agreed. One, two, _three_ —”

Oliver groaned, and there was an ominous sound of pieces shifting as he pulled his leg clear of the tight gap, only for more pieces of rubble to close the small pocket of air they’d made, a few of them rolling to rest against their arms and feet. But it didn’t matter, because he was okay. She had him, and he was okay.

For a moment, just a moment, they stayed where they were. Felicity’s cheek pressed to the side of Oliver’s neck, his chest expanding and contracting beneath their interlaced fingers. The both of them were breathing hard, sweating, hearts racing from the adrenaline and at the thought of what was coming. But somehow, even with lost time pressing on them, Oliver couldn’t move away, not yet.

Felicity finally unwound her numbed fingers from his and started to reach for the tablet she’d left in the corner. She was shaking a little as she unlocked the screen, looking for the diagnostics program for the microchip in his knee. She brushed her hair out of her eyes as she studied the tablet, reading the complex messages and calculations in the dark. There was dust and dirt on her face and forehead, and one of the lenses in her glasses had been scratched in the explosion. “The chip took some damage,” she said. “The fight just now burned through a chunk of battery power. I’ll have to do a manual reboot to try and reroute some of the operating protocols through undamaged processors.”

“How long?” he asked. “How much power left?”

Felicity started the reboot and the screen went dark, but not before she’d looked at the automatically synced timer. “Couple of hours,” she said, quietly. “Not days.”

Oliver tensed as the chip powered down inside his leg and the pain centers in his brain began to register the real damage from his injury. He tried not to make a sound, but Felicity was too smart to think it wasn’t hurting him.

More importantly, they needed a plan. A way to fight. Another move in a game they’d consistently been outflanked at since before they even knew it had started. Outnumbered now, nearly fatally so. Four people against an army of unstoppable soldiers.

“What do we do?” he said, trying to keep the pain out of his voice as much as he could. “Our plan was to stop the Mirakuru soldiers before they could get to the surface.”

Felicity must have sensed something in his tone, because she shot him a look, a sharp one. “Before you try to say it’s your fault,” she said, “don’t. I’m the one who should have planned for signal jammers, planned contingencies — I didn’t. But more importantly, it’s Slade who’s responsible. Don’t lose sight of that.”

“Slade’s been a dozen steps ahead of us since we started,” Oliver said, because it was the truth. “ _This_ was supposed to be us getting the advantage, and I can’t — I can’t think of any way this can end without me trying to kill him. I _have_ to kill him, Felicity. It’s the only way.”

“Oliver, _no_ ,” she said. “This is a setback, I won’t lie to you about that. But another thing I won’t do is tell you to do exactly what got you into this situation in the first place. Which is putting an arrow through Slade’s eye instead of curing him. So don’t, Oliver. Please, think of another way.”

“But what if there’s no other way?” he asked. “What if the only way is for me to face him and fight?”

Felicity didn’t answer immediately, as if there was a truth she had to make her peace with, as little as she liked it. “You will,” she said. “One way or another, it ends with you and Slade. But this? _This_ is a chance to make things right, and killing Slade is going to cost you more than you think. All the work you’ve been doing as the Arrow until now, the sacrifices you’ve made, the people you’ve lost — they’ve made you a better person, a different person. Someone with humanity, and love, and _hope_ , and killing Slade flies in the face of who you are.”

Her hand was at the back of his neck, and she pressed her forehead to his, emphasizing a point the way only she could. “Someone who isn’t alone,” she whispered fiercely.

Oliver felt himself break into a smile. “I know I’m not exactly a born optimist, but between you, me, Tommy, John — that’s barely enough people to cover a city under siege,” he said. “I don’t see us recruiting volunteers in an active war zone, and we still don’t have a cure.”

“No,” she agreed, and far from being dampened by the pragmatic assessment of where they were losing the fight against Slade, her expression was something he’d seen before. Live wire, bright and intense and a little dangerous. “But I think I know how we might stand a fighting chance. The only thing is…I can think of about twelve reasons why you won’t like it.”

Oliver didn’t hesitate, because as a matter of personal history, Felicity’s best plans tended to be the ones that he disagreed with. “Tell me,” he said.

* * *

“You _what_?” Tommy said into the phone.

Felicity and Oliver were both alive, thank God. But a few things had changed since the team had split off: the first being, crazy Isabel Rochev, now confirmed Mirakuru lab rat number two hundred and whatever. The second being, they were short one getaway car. For obvious reasons, trying to drive a van with a hole clawed through the roof and too many broken windows to count (okay, _five_ ) in a city being attacked by super-strong masked men was a bad idea, but walking was even worse. Which meant they’d had to borrow — a word he wholeheartedly meant — a new getaway vehicle, AKA the nearest parked car that looked like it had some decent horsepower.

Who knew Diggle (Mr Moral Compass of the Year) could hotwire a dash?

“Where are you?” Tommy said, turning to look out the back window, because he could have sworn he’d just seen a shadow running behind them. But there was too much fire and smoke coming from the buildings and piles of debris, a landscape of wrecked cars and broken glass and gouged pavement. “Felicity, you’ve gotta yell. The signal — for understandable reasons — is complete and utter sh— _look out!_ ”

Diggle saw the barreling shape the same time Tommy did and hauled at the wheel, sending them into a one-eighty tailspin that caught the Mirakuru soldier in the chest with the very solid nose of the car, sending him bouncing off and giving Diggle enough time to lean out the side of the window and shoot — three perfect shots that genuinely, _seriously_ , should have killed the psycho stone dead.

“Felicity?” Tommy looked at his phone and realized he’d dropped the call. “Crap, I lost them.”

“Bigger problems, man,” Diggle said, the look on his face revulsed as the Mirakuru soldier he’d just shot peeled himself off the ground and faced them again. This time with a few of his friends appearing through the smoke in the background.

“Gas,” Tommy said, hitting the dash. “Gas!”

Diggle threw the car into reverse, and they were still reversing when the Mirakuru soldiers started sprinting, very much at them, with the clear intent to kill. Tommy yanked open the sunroof of the car and stuck his head and shoulders through, ignoring the wind blowing past his face as he took aim with his bow.

Shooting from the roof of a reversing car at high speed. A scenario they’d totally, completely covered during training.

_Not_.

Tommy took a deep breath, trying to have an Obi Wan inner voice moment, only with a combination of Oliver, Diggle and Sara.

“You got this,” he said, and let go.

The arrow sliced straight through the smoke and exploded into electricity upon contact with one of the soldiers. Tommy saw him slam into the ground, twitching, before the chaos swallowed everything up again. His next one missed, and he ended up accidentally-on-purpose drawing two arrows at once, because _that_ was something he’d always wanted to try.

They’d just snapped from his bow when something landed with a thud behind him, and Tommy turned just in time to get a hand clamped around his throat and an extreme close-up of a pair of black eyeholes in a terrifying orange mask.

Diggle cursed, right before the soldier lifted Tommy clear of the car, clear of the sunroof, and Tommy — choking for breath, _again_ — whipped an arrow from his quiver and stabbed downward towards the neck. Except in the heat of the moment, he’d grabbed a non-electrified arrow and the head exploded into smoke instead, which didn’t kill the thug, but made him drop Tommy, who landed on the roof of the moving car and slipped towards the side, hanging on for dear life.

“Digg!” he yelled, as the car swung around, clearly trying to shake off the hang-on. Which was great, except Tommy was now one of them.

“Hold on!” was Diggle’s answer, and Tommy saw that they were heading straight for a tunnel. The low-hanging kind. Only he highly doubted the Mirakuru soldier had reflexes so slow that he wouldn’t jump to avoid getting smooshed at high-speed.

The roar of an engine, and Tommy looked around, past the wind tearing at his face. A bike was hurtling up behind them, gaining speed, and he saw green, along with a flash of gold. Oliver and Felicity, a power couple that really, genuinely deserved to get their own label.

Like _nuclear duo_ , or something.

“Get down!” Oliver yelled, and Tommy did.

His arrow exploded into wires that zipped around the Mirakuru soldier’s legs, and Oliver shot a second one that anchored the snare to a row of steel guardrails as they flew past.

_One. Two._

_Three._

The soldier whipped out of sight before they’d even reached the tunnel, soaring out of the way like a reverse yo-yo, and Tommy whooped, hauling himself onto the roof of the car as Diggle slowed down on the other end of the tunnel, squarely in the center of the cross-harbor bridge.

The air smelled like salt because of the sea, and Tommy had full, fresh lungfuls of it as he slid off the car. The bike slowed down too, and Oliver turned back to check on Felicity (who’d had her arms coiled around his middle), his hand on her face. They both looked significantly more banged up than before, scrapes and bruises all around like they’d lost a showdown with solid concrete, and Tommy gave them a few seconds of space — or at least the time it took for Oliver to get off the bike seat — before he tackled him in a hug.

“Thank god you’re okay,” he said. “You’re okay, right?”

Oliver sounded like he was trying not to wince, which pointed at some kind of badly concealed injury. “I’m okay.”

“Liar,” Tommy said.

“It’s his knee,” Felicity answered for him. “Power’s running out on the bio-stimulant.”

“I have a few hours,” Oliver said, like that was what mattered, not whatever amount of pain he had to be in. “I need to make them count.”

Diggle had his arm around Felicity post-hug, and they all looked a little better, having seen each other and confirmed that no one had lost any fingers or toes. A relief that was short-lived, given the chaos happening in Starling City, thanks to Slade and his zombie army.

“We couldn’t blow the charges in time,” Diggle said. “I’m sorry.”

Felicity shook her head. “I’m just glad you’re both okay. How’d you leave Isabel?”

“Unfortunately, _not_ pancaked beneath a car,” Tommy said darkly. “We’ll be seeing her again.”

Oliver, Felicity and Diggle exchanged one of those three-part looks like they were all on a different — but shared — frequency. All around them were empty vehicles, the doors hanging open like the owners had seen the chaos and run for cover instead. It was an eerie sight, and it genuinely echoed what he’d thought earlier, seeing the roads Felicity had cleared before the operation. It looked like the world had ended, except the fires and screams in the distance reminded him that the war was still being fought, close and present.

And unlike the year before with the Undertaking, Tommy had a delayed realization that _holy shit_ , he was part of the collective unit meant to be fighting that war.

“Isabel can wait,” Oliver said. “We need to move. Applied Sciences still doesn’t have the cure, and we need to buy time for the city until they do. But Slade has more men that we thought, and the four of us won’t be enough to stop them.”

“An active war zone’s not exactly the best place to find volunteers,” Diggle said bluntly. “You got a few ideas?”

“Just one,” Oliver said quietly, and looked at Felicity.

“Before we get to that,” she said, taking it as her cue, “the Foundry’s been compromised. Slade got in with the skeleton key, and we can’t keep using it as a base of operations if he could come barging in with an army of Mirakuru soldiers at any minute. Someone needs to head back and move Roy —”

“— I’ll go,” Diggle said immediately. “The only problem is where to stash him. We’ll need a base with a good vantage point, hopefully somewhere the Mirakuru men haven’t destroyed — and those places are in short supply.”

“Queen Consolidated,” Oliver said. “We’ll be waiting for the cure there anyway, and it’s outside of the chaos — for now, anyway. But we also need the SCPD. One of us needs to head there to get them moving, and keep them updated on what’s really happening, because Sebastian sure as hell won’t. They need to get people out of danger, and the only person Quentin Lance will believe is —”

“— me,” Tommy said. “But what about the hospital? Thea? Moira? We have a serious manpower shortage here.”

Oliver’s face tensed. “I know,” he said. “But the hospital’s out of the city center, and with everything else…it can’t wait, Tommy.”

Tommy felt his insides do an acid boil, the first of many choices he had a feeling he’d need to make before the night was over. Family and responsibility. Duty and want. Heart and head.

“I’ll hit the precinct,” he promised. “But I’m heading to the hospital as soon as I can.”

Oliver nodded, and turned to Felicity. “And you —”

“—aren’t going anywhere,” she finished, like she knew what he’d been about to say. “Nice try, but it’s my plan. I’m seeing it through.”

A ghost of a smile on her part, like Oliver’s over-protectiveness was a little cute, even under the circumstances. Though the reasons for it remained murky, because Oliver’s default around Felicity was to be on sentry mode, danger or no danger.

“Er,” Tommy interrupted. “I’m lost. What’s the plan that we’re all splitting up for?”

There was a little pause, like Felicity was thinking of a better way to phrase it, and clearly coming up very short.

“We’re breaking into ARGUS again,” she said. “Because I want to borrow Task Force X.”

* * *

As far as knee-jerk reactions went, Felicity thought it could have been worse. No one laughed, or suggested a trip to the nearest insane asylum (though in all fairness, with the city on fire, safe routes to asylums were probably in short supply). Oliver didn’t look happy, but that was expected, given his personal history with the current head of ARGUS — a woman of unverified human status who would have been right at home in a pit of vipers.

Neither did Diggle, which probably had something to do with his girlfriend being a badass covert operative way, way up in the ARGUS pecking order, not to mention their previous B&E into said super-secret spy organization. Which was very, very recently.

“Let me get this straight,” Diggle said, his tone remarkably even, “the last time we snuck into ARGUS headquarters, Waller triggered some of Oliver’s PTSD, tried to get her hooks into Felicity, threatened to have all three of us sent indefinitely to a black site — and we want to repeat all that to borrow a squad full of the worst criminals Starling City has to offer. Including Helena Bertinelli, who’s tried to kill everybody standing in front of me right now.”

Tommy opened his mouth to correct the estimation, but very quickly closed it again. “Yeah, no — she tried to kill me,” he said. “I _always_ forget that part.”

“And Floyd Lawton?” Diggle said, ignoring Tommy. “He killed Andy on a job.”

Felicity winced. “I know,” she said, and meant it. “I’m sorry. I know what this means to you, and I don’t want to work with Helena any more than you want to work with Deadshot, but we are running out of non-lethal, non-scorched earth options.”

Oliver stepped in there, because between him and Diggle, they had a history with Waller that outstripped hers by miles. “It’s not just about borrowing Task Force X. We were the ones who told Amanda that Slade’s alive, and we told her that we were going to stop his men by collapsing their underground access,” he said. “By now she knows we’ve failed, and I’ve never known Amanda Waller to operate without a contingency. What do you think she has planned to stop the Mirakuru soldiers from taking down Starling City?”

Diggle’s jaw tightened. “It won’t be good,” he admitted. “But we already broke in once. Knowing Waller, she’s closed up security twice as tight. Breaking into the detention level is going to be something else.”

“You say that like you have a suggestion,” Felicity said.

Diggle gave her a faint smile. “Maybe one,” he answered. “But it can wait until after Roy’s safe at Queen Consolidated.”

Felicity nodded gratefully, and turned to the others. “So that’s the plan,” she finished, the words shivering in the cold night air. “Any questions?”

No one said it aloud, but the biggest question was hanging over them all. Because the moment when everyone would have to go their separate ways was drawing closer, and they all knew it. They were stretched thin on the ground, and one of the few certainties was that they couldn’t stay. Starling City needed them, and there was no guarantee — none at all — that they’d make it out on the other side.

Tommy was the only one splitting off to head for the police precinct, and Felicity reached up to hug him, squeezing tight even though it made her ribs (and probably his too) hurt a little. “Be careful, okay?” she whispered. “Orders still stand.”

Tommy huffed a laugh. “Roger that,” he said in her ear. “Nothing reckless, I promise. All G-rated stunts.”

Diggle extended his hand, and Tommy gripped it with a smile. “I meant what I said, Merlyn,” said Diggle. “You couldn’t be more different from your father. Tonight’s living proof of that.”

“Tonight’s proof of a lot of things,” Oliver said softly, and Tommy looked over at him.

The two best friends stared at each other for a second, but Oliver was the one who moved to hug Tommy. “You didn’t have to do this,” he said. “Any of this.”

It was a quiet voice, a voice that betrayed the tangle of emotions at seeing his childhood friend face down a war, a war none of them could have imagined, or even believed. One year ago, the city had been under attack from Malcolm Merlyn, from the earth-splitting chaos that ensured nothing would ever be the same again. Oliver had fought back then, the vigilante under the hood, but he’d also lost one of his childhood friends to the fight with Malcolm.

Now the horizon was burning red from the carnage of a city under siege, and deep down, Felicity knew the similarities had to hurt. If the destruction could repeat itself, a perpetuating cycle, then what was going to stop Tommy from ending up exactly where Laurel Lance had been?

It was a question Oliver couldn’t answer, but then Tommy laughed. For real, unexpectedly, and so easy — in spite of everything else. Unfailing in his ability to find the joy, the _hope_ , in anything. “The same way you never had to put on that hood,” he answered. “I guess we’re both trying to do the right thing.”

They pulled apart, but Tommy kept a firm grip on Oliver’s arm. “Take care of him, okay?” he said, to Diggle and Felicity. “I know he gets grumpy sometimes, and has stubborn, self-sacrificing tendencies, but…”

Felicity stood on her toes and gently kissed Tommy on the cheek. “I promise,” she said, and they smiled at each other.

They were heading in opposite directions; Oliver, Felicity and Diggle one way, Tommy the other. As though he could sense the moment that was about to break, the temporary safety that was about to shatter, Oliver looked around at them as though he had something he wanted them to know. “Thank you for standing by me tonight,” he said hoarsely. “For every night. I know it’s a lot to ask — more than anyone _should_ ask — but you’ve all done it without me having to say a word. That doesn’t just make you brave, it makes you heroes. The city may not have given you a name — but that’s what you all are, and I won’t forget it.”

Felicity slipped her hand into Oliver’s, and she squeezed. “Speaking of names, maybe we should all look into some cool ones after this is over,” she said, and he smiled.

“Deal,” he answered.

It was time. The circle made up of the four of them — four friends, and four very ordinary people with some very extraordinary abilities — held for a moment longer.

But they had to go.

Tommy tackled Oliver in one last hug, holding on tight for a handful of hard-fought seconds. Then he was ducking into the car, the engine and headlights coming to life, and Oliver watched from his bike as it reversed into the smoke. Felicity was at his side, and neither of them said a word, staring after the receding lights until they vanished into the shadows.

“He’ll be all right,” Felicity said, thinking — _hoping_ — that things would be different this time, and that before the night was over, Oliver wouldn’t have lost another one of his best friends.

Not again.

Oliver nodded, as though he was thinking the same thing. “I know.”

* * *

In hindsight, Tommy’s plan to just _walk_ into the police precinct was a little undercooked. Aside from the fact that they had to be on lockdown, there was also the teensy, insignificant fact that the front doors looked like someone had taken a blowtorch to them, and the windows had Mirakuru soldier-shaped holes, because clearly it wasn’t in the zombie soldiers’ modified mindset (or lack thereof) to take a hint from a barricaded front door.

“Crap,” Tommy said, swiping for McKenna’s number.

No answer. Same when he tried Quentin. Nothing from McKenna again.

Clearly, the only way he’d be making an entrance would be through a whole lot of hostile fire, which meant possibly exposing himself and Oliver in the process, and he couldn’t do that — it wasn’t his secret to tell.

But that didn’t matter as long as he could protect the people who mattered to him, and he had it on good authority that masks didn’t always go hand in hand with being safe. So Tommy pulled up his hood (voice modulator attached to the collar) and headed for the alley beside the precinct. He climbed onto the boot of a smashed police car and swung for the fire escape, climbing up the rusted railings with his bow and quiver slung across his back. He could hear gunshots and yelling through the broken windows, but he kept going.

“Ollie, I’m at the precinct,” Tommy said, twisting mid-air to avoid what looked like a desk, slamming straight through a window and into the alley below. “It’s not pretty.”

There were sounds from Oliver’s side of the line too, and Tommy didn’t need an explanation to know that he was busy doing the city-saving thing too, only more adeptly and probably looking a lot cooler. “Are you okay?” Oliver asked.

Tommy grunted, still climbing. “Not exactly the main concern here, buddy. McKenna and Quentin are both inside, I think. Looks like they’re trying to fight off a wave of Slade’s goons — I’m gonna do what I can to try and stop the precinct from getting overrun. What’s up with you?”

A muted crash from the other line. “We’re still en route to Queen Consolidated — running into some roadblocks. Do you need backup?”

“Not — on your — cheek dimples,” Tommy said, and hauled himself up onto the roof in one, heavy-breathing piece (it was harder trying to climb with his gear).

The wind that gusted across the rooftop should have been cold, but it was as warm as heat haze and smelled as black and acrid as smoke, ash and live electricity, like a lightning storm waiting to happen.

Tommy turned, surveying his surroundings. Points of egress and escape routes, the whole vigilante-training shebang. There was a skylight, punctured in a few places with some stray bullet holes — pretty easy to crack, if he aimed in the right place.

Which meant he’d just found his grand entrance. “Hold that thought, would you?” he said, sliding an arrow from his quiver. “I’m about to do something stupid.”

“ _Tommy_ —”

The arrow vanished through another puncture in the glass and Tommy felt the connecting wire shudder when it struck something solid. Half a breath, and then he went for it, crashing straight through the cracked skylight, the zip-line skittering through the hook on his belt as he swung down from the rooftop and into the chaos.

And it _was_ chaos. The lights had gone out, leaving the dim glow from the smoky windows and the stray computer screens to help differentiate between friend and foe. It helped a little that the bad guys had chosen to wear those stupid cult masks — which was their big mistake — because nothing said _target_ like bright orange, and Tommy went for it with a vengeance.

He’d already shot someone before he stuck the landing, and as soon as he unhooked himself from the wire, he saw a shape make a beeline for him. Things in training always moved fast, so fast that Tommy had once wondered how the hell he was meant to correct mistakes if there wasn’t even the time for him to make the correction before someone was knocking him off his feet again.

Until he’d realized that making enough snafus was how instinct kicked in, and boy, did those instincts kick in now. He grabbed an arrow and stabbed it straight into the thigh with a sickening squelch. The thug dropped — convulsing — and Tommy swung underneath the head-crunching punch of another, shoving a rolling desk chair towards him and shooting an explosive arrow into the seat that went off in three, two —

_Bang_.

Tommy was behind a desk, breathing hard, sweat and soot already on his face from the first few minutes of the fight. “Ollie?” he said. “Still there?”

“What did you do?” Oliver said, and judging by the sound of it, he was somewhere near a fire. Probably doing something cool.

Tommy glanced around the desk, trying to spot more hostiles. They were rushing up the stairs to the second floor, but the majority of the fighting was still in the bullpen, a complete chaos of shapes moving too fast to see.

“One year ago, the city was under fire and you were telling me to get to safety,” he said, taking aim from behind the desk and shooting at another Mirakuru soldier. There was a pause, and Tommy almost, almost laughed, because saying _things change_ was probably the biggest understatement they could use to describe just how different their worlds were — and how they’d stayed the same. “Where did we go wrong, buddy?”

Oliver probably didn’t appreciate the humor, gallows or not. “We didn’t go wrong,” he said. “You changed — for the better — and I’ve realized that I can’t, and shouldn’t try to stop you.”

“Really?” Tommy ducked a flying projectile and skidded into the torn-up break room, shooting arrows through the holes in the glass panes. “Does that mean I should be expecting my mask any day now?”

Oliver made a sound that nearly smacked of amusement, unwilling as it was. “I promised I’d look into it,” he said. “But for now, stay on the mission, Lancelot.”

Tommy saw a Mirakuru soldier pull a stun grenade off a slumped police officer in riot gear and aimed straight for the hull of the canister. The arrow made contact and released a sound — along with a blinding flash — that momentarily made Tommy forget what he’d just heard.

Then —

“Who’s _Lancelot_?” he said, his ears ringing. “Did you get a new best friend?”

“It’s you,” Oliver said, like it was the simple answer to a simpler question. “You’re still missing a mask, but I thought you might want a code name. Merlin’s a little obvious, and the Dark Archer’s taken, so — Lancelot.”

“Because I’m fantastically handsome and the stuff of legend?” Tommy said, the cogs in his brain whirring as they processed everything he could think of when it came to King Arthur. Which was saying a lot, because he’d been obsessed as a kid, a fact Oliver must have known — and still knew — for sure. “I like it. Plus, since I’ve saved your ass a bunch of times already — you’re welcome, by the way. That’s classic knight behavior, right?”

He could sense Oliver’s eye-roll over the comms. “Don’t get too cocky,” he said. “Now you have to live up to that name.”

Tommy grinned in spite of everything else, leaping over the window ledge and returning to the thick of the fighting. “Just try and stop me, _Arrow_.”

* * *

Felicity checked her phone for updates as she hurried up the concrete steps in front of the Queen Consolidated building and pushed through the glass doors. The evacuation was over and done, but the lab techs at Applied Sciences had set the batch of mystery serum on its final bio-synthesis stage before getting the heck out of dodge, which meant it was down to the machine. As soon as it cleared, the cure was ready.

In theory, because they still had _no_ clue whether it would work, but baby steps. In the face of an unstoppable invasion, baby steps was good.

“This is so _weird_ ,” she said, turning back to look at Oliver as they walked.

In all fairness, the adjective could have referred to a number of things. Oliver Queen, suited up in full Arrow gear and walking into a building with his family name on it, secret identities be damned. But _that_ strangeness paled in comparison to the ghost town surrounding them. The lobby of the Queen Consolidated building was deserted, same as the rest of the district — empty skyscrapers with gaping blank eyes made of steel and shadowed, reflective glass. Slade was smart, and he must have known that hitting a bunch of office buildings after working hours was unlikely to cause enough destruction and mass panic for it to be an effective invasion starter.

Which meant at least twenty or so blocks of silence, darkened windows and abandoned buildings. The twenty-four-hour security guards at the front desk were nowhere to be seen, probably because they’d been paying attention to the news, and an annoyed supervisor ranked second to a citywide siege and concern for their families. She just hoped they’d managed to get home and out of the way.

One hour and fifty-four minutes since Slade had unleashed his men.

Which was already long enough.

Felicity swiped her access card and set the elevator to her office floor, but pressed the button for the Applied Sciences level as well. She’d lost contact with Queen Consolidated just minutes after the first soldiers made it out of the tunnel, and she had no way of knowing if they’d stayed beyond that. Even if they hadn’t, she knew the protocols and had the security clearance to decode the unreadable labels through the system — which was even better, because without anyone around, she wouldn’t have to explain why her first priority during a total and flaming crisis was to walk out of the office with a haul of unspecified mystery serum.

The doors slid open to a hushed, darkened floor. Oliver held out one arm to stop her from going first. He looked wary, and for understandable reasons. Everything had been overturned, and they’d be idiots not to be careful.

He checked both sides of the hallway before he stepped out, his bow already fitted with an arrow. The lights had all gone dark, and apart from the ghostly glow of lit computer screens and whirring lab equipment left idling, they were alone.

Apparently.

Applied Sciences was divided into sub-departments, and Felicity gestured for Oliver to follow her as she turned on her heel, looking for _Biomedical_ in the maze of labs and offices. A more easily distracted mind like Cisco Ramon’s might have been sidetracked by how many experiments and prototypes they passed, but Felicity just wanted what they’d come for.

“Aha,” she said.

Oliver was on the other side of the entrance, and Felicity nodded at him before she released the door with her access badge. He stepped through, sweeping the corners, but the room — like the rest of the building — was deserted except for them. Felicity stepped over the mess of loose papers and overturned chairs, left in the rush to evacuate, scanning the tables until her gaze alighted on the black shockproof briefcase marked with the QC logo.

She cracked the lid, and felt her breath leave her in a slow sigh that wasn’t entirely relief. Applied Sciences had delivered, in spades. “There’s more than we need in here,” she said, counting the number of tiny vials lining the insides of the case, all the same uniform shade of blue.

_But_ —

She didn’t voice the morbid thought, with Oliver looking over her shoulder. Somehow, seeing the cure (or what was _supposed_ to be the cure) wasn’t as reassuring as she’d thought. Partly because the Mirakuru had never actually _been_ cured, and the guy who’d supposedly made the only other sample was also very, very dead.

Felicity rolled one of the vials between her fingers, the insides as cold and viscous as mercury. She’d already screwed up once with the explosive charges and nearly letting Blood spring his Slade-assisted trap on Oliver. She couldn’t afford to screw up with their last straw too — the cure.

“How do I know it’ll work?” she said, thinking aloud.

Oliver’s expression was unreadable, but she knew it was more for his benefit than hers. “Roy,” he said quietly, and it sounded like a thought he wouldn’t have spoken aloud, not to anyone except her. “We could cure him.”

Felicity tensed. Injecting Roy with an unknown and highly experimental serum…it was less than half a step from what Slade had done to turn him into an elemental force of rage, to build himself an army of mindless soldiers.

Time and time again, the risks they were taking, choices they were being forced to make in order to stop Slade — they cut a little too close for comfort to exactly what they were trying to stop, blurring the line that separated them from Slade Wilson.

Felicity hoped this still put them on the right side of it.

“You should go,” she said, turning to Oliver. “Thea and Moira are at the hospital, and Tommy probably needs backup — I’ll wait here for Digg and Roy.”

“Not a chance,” Oliver said instantly, and she hesitated. “Tommy said it himself, Isabel’s after you.”

Circumstances aside, Felicity had to smile at the look on his face, purely protective and one-hundred-percent sincere. “And you don’t think I can take her on if I have the cure with me?”

“I know you can,” he said, without a trace of irony. “But I have a score to settle with her.”

“Get in line,” she answered, and he smiled.

In another time, another place, they might have left it at that, but something nagged at Felicity, the sense that it wasn’t enough, not nearly. The world around them was upside down, a nightmare of destruction and pure, senseless anarchy, yet here they were. Still together, still fighting, and after having a tunnel collapse on top of them, as close to unshakable as it could get.

Felicity knew they weren’t splitting up — on any level, not if she or Oliver had anything to say about it — but they’d done more than enough sneaking around and pretending to be something they weren’t, enough for a lifetime. So she moved close, and a flicker of surprise crossed Oliver’s face when she pulled his face down to hers.

Their lips touched, and Felicity felt Oliver’s hand slip to her back, holding her close. Instinct, a wordless reassurance that he wasn’t going anywhere. She’d meant to be soft, but her fingers were on his chest, his beating pulse beneath her palm, and he pressed closer still, with something that resembled urgency, as though she’d reminded him of something that couldn’t go unsaid. It was a moment meant for them in a world that sure as hell wasn’t going to stop, but Felicity felt as if they’d long since agreed to claim those seconds for themselves, whatever happened next.

Like right now.

“What was that for?” Oliver murmured, their faces still close together.

Felicity nudged her forehead against his. “Just in case,” she whispered, her hand over his heart.

They stayed where they were for a second longer, before — reluctantly — breaking apart.

“Let’s go,” Oliver said, and she nodded.

Felicity took the case so Oliver would have both hands free for his bow, hefting the titanium alloy blend, light enough to mean that she could haul it around in a war zone with ease. Which was a good sign, because she had a feeling they’d need to run.

“That’s one bright idea taken care of,” Felicity said, as they retraced their steps, striding down the darkened glass corridors towards the elevator. “Any ideas about getting started on the next one?”

The distant glow from the city cast uneven shadows on Oliver’s face, half-hidden by the hood, but Felicity might have caught a faint smile. “I thought I was supposed to leave the plans to you,” he said. “You _were_ running point the last time we broke into ARGUS.”

“We weren’t trying to break into secure lockup,” she pointed out. “I’m good, but even I have t—”

Oliver moved suddenly, sensing something Felicity hadn’t, and he hurled himself at her. They both hit the ground hard, and Felicity felt a cold breath of something passing over their heads, embedding in the window behind them.

A thousand cracks spidered the vast pane of window glass, now turned the color of frost, throwing into sharp relief the shadow that wrenched a long, slim shape free from the pane. A few fragments plummeted towards the street below, and Felicity heard the wind whistle shrilly through the cracks like a warning come too late.

“Hello, kid,” Slade said, his sword at his side.

* * *

It had been five years since Oliver had seen Slade Wilson in armor. Five years since they’d faced each other in the sinking freighter, groaning metal and seawater surging around them like a whirlpool of black ice. Shado’s hood. Slade’s sword. Rage. Hate. Revenge.

Oliver felt the echoes of it now, along with the bright, hot pain of new wounds, opened because Slade had reappeared in Starling City with only one mission. To destroy the only world Oliver knew, starting with the people he loved. Moira. Thea. Tommy. Sara. Felicity. Slade had managed to hurt every single one of them, in his slow, poisonous way, like an embedded knife twisting into flesh.

The Slade standing in front of Oliver now wasn’t the same soldier he’d fought on the freighter. The ASIS protective gear he’d worn on the island had been replaced with armor, dark Kevlar and dull, metallic plates marked with scars from battles he’d survived since then. Hardened. More dangerous. No trace of the laughter that used to crease the corners of his eyes when he spoke to Oliver, no trace of the warmth that Shado used to acknowledge with her quiet smile, as though they had a secret.

Gone.

Then again, so was Oliver. He still wore Shado’s hood to honor her memory, but the boy Slade used to mentor, with effortless, gruff determination, the boy he’d protected on the island, trusted, before the poison had taken his mind – the boy he’d nearly killed on the Amazo – was gone.

The five years after Lian Yu had burned away that innocence forever, and now Oliver Queen was someone else. Something else.

Oliver’s grip on his bow tightened. Always reflections of each other, no matter how hard he tried to fight it. Slade was a dark mirror to himself, of who he was, and who he might have been.

If it hadn’t been for the people Oliver had encountered along the way, new faces and lucky — inexplicable — coincidences like Diggle and Felicity, strengthened bonds with old friends and family like Tommy, his mother, his sister…

Slade would never know what it meant, because to him, all they could be to Oliver was weakness, and Oliver had seen firsthand that weaknesses tended to be underestimated by Slade. It was a fatal mistake, and Oliver put Felicity behind him, because she was a strength he intended to guard, whatever the cost.

As he reached silently for a venom arrow in his quiver, he felt her hands at the back of his suit, and the brush of something cold like she’d slipped something into his pocket. But it barely registered with Oliver, because he was following Slade’s every movement — braced for the attack.

“You’re on your feet,” Slade said, sounding faintly amused by the sight of Oliver standing without help. He knew the damage he’d done to Oliver’s leg, knew how he’d nearly — nearly — ended the fight, there and then. “I thought you’d still be on your knees, after our fight.”

The thinly veiled threat made Oliver tighten his grip around the arrow shaft, fierce enough that it might have snapped. He had every reason to kill Slade, but _the_ reason not to — the only reminder he needed — was standing behind him. Felicity hadn’t let go of him, her hands steady against his back, and Oliver knew what to do.

“I know what you’re trying to do, Slade. I know you’ve been trying to push me towards the edge,” Oliver answered, his bow at his side.

Because he was trying to find another way.

“It didn’t work,” he continued. “You tried to kill my mother, you tried to take my sister away from us, but it didn’t work. I’m still here, and so are you — because you underestimated me. You underestimated the people in my life. You don’t know me anymore, Slade. And you won’t win.”

The silence stretched, and Slade’s face remained as impassive as carved granite, shrouded in the shadows of the darkness he’d created.

“You’re right,” he said, finally, his voice like grating metal. “Because the only thing I underestimated was your willingness to hide behind the people you love. To let them take the fall for _your_ sins. Like your mother did. Like Shado.” His stare slipped towards Oliver’s far side, even though there was nothing there — nothing that he and Felicity could see, anyway.

A flicker of bewildered emotion crossed Slade’s face, a momentary glimpse of vulnerability — at the memory of a long-lost love and a smiling, dead girl who would never return — but then his gaze was alight with accusation again, burning with it, and Oliver knew what he was about to say.

“Like Felicity,” he whispered, and Oliver moved.

The point of his arrow was trained on Slade’s heart, an involuntary reaction to the threat, and he saw Slade’s smirk again, as though he’d guessed right. “I see you still remember my promise, from all those years ago. It haunts you, I imagine. Just like she haunts me.”

Oliver narrowed his eyes. _She?_

But Slade had already moved on, taking a step towards the side like he was deep in thought, turning his sword over in his hand. The long, slim blade took on the orange glow of the fires burning in the distance, taunting Oliver with the silent reminder of what he could do. “Complete despair,” Slade said, breathing out slow, breathing out deep. “I promised you that, and tonight — it ends.”

“It doesn’t have to,” Oliver said, but the words felt like they were only delaying the inevitable, because he and Slade were rushing towards a confrontation, as sure and unstoppable as gravity. “Slade, there’s another way.”

A humorless chuckle escaped Slade’s lips, and the tip of the sword gently scraped against the marble floor. “I destroyed your team’s hideout. I unleashed my army on your city. I stand in your family’s legacy because I know how you think, kid. I _made_ you, and rest assured, I _will_ be the one to send you back where you belong.”

The air sharpened, and Slade moved without warning. Steel flashed, and Oliver pushed Felicity out of the way, turning back just in time to fire. The arrow streaked past Slade’s neck, grazing the vein, and Oliver braced, raising his bow just in time. Metal found metal with a jarring crash, and Slade’s eye gleamed with savage pride. “ _Hell_ ,” he whispered.

Oliver’s knee was throbbing — _shrieking_ — in protest, and it was all he could do to keep Slade’s sword from his throat. “Felicity,” he said, through his teeth. “ _Run._ ”

Slade’s face was alight with mocking satisfaction, even as Oliver warned Felicity to get away. “You still love her,” he said, and Oliver felt his footing give way, giving way under the strength of the Mirakuru. “Did you really think I couldn’t guess that you’d keep her —”

There was a stir of movement behind him, and Slade twisted, freeing one hand to catch Felicity by the throat, lifting her clear off the ground in a single, effortless motion. Felicity choked, and something dropped from her grasp as both her hands went to her neck, fighting for breath against Slade’s tightening grip.

Slade tilted his head to one side, a wordless challenge meant for Oliver.

“— at your side?” he finished, and hurled her backward without so much as a glance.

Oliver snarled, but Felicity was already rolling across the floor, stopping only when she slammed into a column — hard. She’d tried to stab Slade, and the venom arrow snapped to pieces beneath his boot, the viper venom seeping into the carpet of broken glass like blood. Dazed from the impact, Felicity stirred faintly, the side of her face bleeding from the glass. The case holding the cure spun to a stop halfway across the room, but before Oliver could even form a plan to retrieve it, Slade seized on his momentary distraction and pressed him back with the edge of his sword, towards —

In the span of a heartbeat, Oliver realized that the only thing behind him was the splintered window. Slade’s mouth curled in a smile, and he forced Oliver back with a single heave of his sword. Oliver’s shoulders collided with the weakened glass, only it didn’t shatter. Not yet. The point of Slade’s sword dug into his chest, pressing just enough to draw blood, just enough to hold him exactly where he wanted.

Thin ice.

A frayed wire.

A falling spark.

The wind raised shivers along the back of his neck, reminding him of the long, sharp fall. Oliver felt each breath, each thud of his pulse, torturously slow — all because Slade had meant it.

Felicity lifted her head, the haze clearing just in time for their eyes to meet across the floor. The cure, the plan, they didn’t matter now. Right now, it was fear, guilt, love — hand in hand with the knowledge that the smallest movement would destroy the delicate balance they’d been caught in. The simultaneous realization that this, this _precise_ moment, was exactly what Slade wanted.

Felicity’s fingers scrabbled in the broken glass; she wanted to reach him. It already dawned on her, what Slade was about to do. “Oliver,” she said, her voice flaring with desperation. “Oliver, no —”

_I love you._

_I trust you._

But that wasn’t what Oliver thought, in those last, fragile seconds. In the space between heartbeats, while their gazes still held. Not about Slade’s threat and what it meant for the woman he loved.

What he thought of was a promise. Not the one Slade had made, five years ago, the one that pushed him to do the unthinkable, the unforgivable. The promise Oliver held in his mind was something that burned bright, blinding white and utterly surprising in its intensity, because it was hope.

They were stronger when they weren’t hiding what they were, and how they felt. Stronger together, no matter how hard their world tried to pull them apart. What was happening now — it wasn’t any different, and Oliver had to believe it. That since the start, Slade had only thought of Felicity was a weakness. However brilliant, however brave, however defiant, she had only ever been Oliver’s flaw, and he would keep her alive without fearing what she could do, until he could fulfill the twisted vow he’d made to Oliver.

The threat should have killed him, then and there, knowing that Felicity had a sword at her throat because of him, but it didn’t. Because Slade’s fatal mistake was thinking he understood Felicity Smoak, and out of the few things that Oliver could be certain of in his world, one of them was that he genuinely, truly did not.

There was fear on Felicity’s stark-white face, but she nodded, small and silent, and Oliver knew she understood too.

_I’ll come back for you_ , Oliver thought, in a moment of improbable, inexplicable hope.

Whatever it took.

“Felicity —”

Oliver never finished, because just as the name left his lips, Slade kicked, shattering the wall of glass with a crash that nearly, nearly drowned out Felicity’s scream as Oliver plummeted through the open window in a free fall.

“ _OLIVER!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Errrr so the next chapter is Oliver's funeral? I don't know how he'll survive getting kicked out a window, I really don't.
> 
> Oh, and Tommy got his codename! I know it's either super obvious or super cheesy, but hey, my friend (the FANTASTIC @segsibongsoon/used to be Oliversmoaked on Twitter and Tumblr) got Colin Donnell to say he liked it, so I guess that's good enough for me. My bad for it taking ages though.  
> Anyway, have a good weekend, and until the next update! :)


	43. Superpowers (Streets of Fire, Part III)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shit, guys. I don't even know what to say about the gap between this and my last update. Just believe me when I say that between the part-time job, job interviews and school, I mean...I'm glad I managed to come back to this. If anyone's applied for vac schemes at law firms, you know what I'm talking about (*sends positive vibes*).  
> Anyway, if you're still following the story, thank you, and do take the time to drop a line, the extra encouragement really helps when times get tough.  
> Right, enjoy the two chapters, and see you around Christmas, eh? :D

Oliver was in pain. Glass underneath his side, his knee throbbing like it was about to split open. A wire trailed past his open hand, snapping and skittering as the wind tore at it, gusting through the window he’d smashed through upon landing.

Somewhere, at the back of his mind, it registered as a bad sign. Anyone could tell where he was, and if Slade had backup, they’d —

Oliver was in no condition to fight, but he had to. His vision flashed red as he forced himself to lurch upright, his breathing ragged and uneven. Something slipped out of his suit when he moved, something different from the fragments of broken glass. The vial of dark blue rolled across the floor before his fingers closed reflexively around it, only dimly registering what it meant. The cure. One dose. He was moving now from instinct, not conscious thought.

Because the only one he had left, right now, was —

“ _Felicity_ ,” Oliver said, as the elevator doors opened and a shadow caught him before he stumbled.

“Jesus, Oliver,” Diggle said, heaving him into the elevator before the steel doors slid smoothly shut. “Where’s Felicity?”

“Took her,” Oliver answered, with difficulty. “Slade — he — upstairs. We need to —”

“Did he hurt her?” Diggle asked sharply.

Oliver’s throat was too dry to answer, so he nodded. “But he won’t kill her, not —”

Diggle cursed before Oliver even finished his sentence. “Diggle,” Oliver said, tightening his grip on his bow because everything else felt like it was slipping away from him. “How did y—?”

“Broken window,” he said darkly. “Didn’t take a genius to see it — and I know you have a habit of taking shortcuts that don’t involve elevators.”

Oliver’s breathing sounded unnaturally loud in his ears, and Diggle glanced down at his side. “You’re bleeding,” he said, in a quiet voice. “We need to get you out of here.”

“ _No_.” Oliver tried to move, but Diggle had a grip on the back of his suit. “Felicity’s still here, she’s still —”

“If we fight Slade like this, we’re as good as dead,” Diggle responded. “It’s suicide, Oliver, and you should know better than to expect me to help you with that.”

“It won’t be,” Oliver said, holding up the vial in his hand. “Felicity gave this to me…before we were separated. It’s for Slade. The cure.”

Diggle stared at it for a long moment, and slowly shook his head. “I don’t think that’s what she meant.”

Before Oliver could answer, there was a faint sound, distant, but it made Diggle’s forehead crease like he knew what it meant. Another one, this time making the elevator floor rattle — the lights flickering — and Oliver listened hard. Crashes, echoing through the elevator shaft, through the walls. Slade’s army, making its way through the building they thought they’d claimed. The elevator doors opened to another blast of cold air, and Diggle hauled Oliver through to the rooftop.

“They’re coming,” he said, pulling the gun from his belt. “Get behind me.”

Oliver managed to stand, but his knee felt like it was on fire, another bad fall pushing the microchip in his knee to the absolute limit of what it could sustain. But it was just a little further. Just until he’d made sure she was safe. If pain was the price to get Felicity back, it was a price he’d pay without hesitation. Better his pain than hers. The thought steadied him as he pulled an arrow from his quiver; which one, he wasn’t even sure, only that he knew where it was meant to hit.

The two of them were stranded on a rooftop, hundreds of feet off the ground, and Oliver couldn’t see a way out. One vial of the cure, a cure they weren’t sure would work, and dozens of Mirakuru soldiers who meant to kill them.

“Here they come,” Diggle said, his grip steady on his gun as the first masked soldier burst through the door.

They emerged as a swarm, and Oliver’s arrows vanished into their midst, but the ones that dropped from the high-voltage arrows were outnumbered by the ones that didn’t, and he felt Diggle grab him by the back of his suit.

“Go!” he shouted.

They backed towards the edge of the rooftop, Diggle still firing shots that sparked white against the night, Mirakuru soldiers massed around the staircase entrance and the elevators, with more on the way. Even without looking over his shoulder at the sharp drop — the second in a span of fifteen minutes — Oliver didn’t see much of a way out. As he reached for another wired arrow to break their landing, he heard a noise, above the shrill scream of the wind.

Diggle turned, and his expression morphed from wary to incredulous as the chopper blades sliced through the air, a stark searchlight sweeping the roof, casting long black shadows across the steel. Instead of shielding his eyes, Oliver saw a shape inside the helicopter move, and he dragged his friend down to the ground before a blinding flash streaked towards the rooftop stairwell.

It erupted into fire and a shockwave that nearly threw them flat, and they both looked around to see who’d shot the projectile. She was in unfamiliar gear, dressed like a soldier ready for war, dark hair blowing around her face from the wind, the fierce glow from the fire reflected in her eyes.

“Lyla,” Diggle murmured, relief and surprise and something else. Something as strong as a heartbeat, meant for only the two of them. “She came.”

The chopper edged closer to the roof, and Lyla leaned out the side, her arm outstretched to them. “We have to stop meeting like this,” she called, with the smallest smile that suggested more relief than worry. “Come on, Slade’s soldiers won’t stay down for long.”

Oliver struggled to stand, coughing because of the thick smoke. Lyla wasn’t wrong; with the Mirakuru soldiers incapacitated, there was a chance to get back below and fight. “Diggle,” he began. “We have t—”

Diggle must have sensed something he hadn’t, because he grabbed Oliver just as he lurched, stopping him from hitting the concrete. His broad palm came away from Oliver’s suit, dark with blood, and Diggle lifted his head. “I’m sorry, Oliver,” he said, and the tone of the apology told Oliver he wasn’t going to like what happened next.

But Oliver’s vision was slipping in and out of focus, and before he could respond, his vision blurred and he slumped against Diggle without a fight, unconscious.

* * *

Tommy hoped he wasn’t running out of arrows. The rest of the precinct — what was left of it, anyway — was starting to put up a barricade on the upper floor, and Tommy’s job from the shadows was to buy them time, by making himself as annoying to the Mirakuru soldiers as possible.

If Isabel’s reaction to him was anything to go by, his superpower was being annoying to anything with a functioning cranium. Much less one enhanced on Mirakuru.

He’d swung up to one of the rafters, aiming arrows at the Mirakuru soldiers below. It helped him keep out of sight, but also, selfishly, gave him a vantage point to keep an eye out for Quentin and McKenna.

The fights were moving too fast to see, and Tommy chose to believe it was the only reason he was having trouble spotting them. Not because of anything else. If Oliver could be stubborn on that point, Tommy was immovable. They were still alive, still fighting. That was what mattered.

Tommy had just taken down another Mirakuru soldier when he squinted through the fires. Most of the officers had made it up the stairs, but there was a big guy with an orange mask striding through the debris, hefting something that looked a whole lot like explosives he’d stolen from the evidence room.

Trust the Mirakuru to give _those_ destructive tendencies an upgrade too.

“Hey!”

Someone else had clearly made the same deduction, because said someone was crouched on the staircase, a lone — tiny by comparison — figure aiming shots that only slowed the Mirakuru soldier for half a pace. Trouble. Definitely, trouble.

“Oh no you don’t,” Tommy said, snagging a wired arrow over the beam and swinging down.

He caught the Mirakuru soldier with a kick that sent him flying, and stabbed an electrified arrow into his chest before the thug could get up. Then Tommy went for the explosives, grabbing the heavy box by the handle before it could slip right into the flames.

Another hand reached out to grab the C4 before he could, and Tommy heard the telltale click of a gun. “Drop it,” McKenna said, sounding completely in charge despite of the situation, and he winced at the implied threat.

Not that he could really blame her, since a black hood and a bow didn’t exactly have the best reputation around Starling City. Once again, thanks to Malcolm freaking Merlyn.

_Dad of the year, wrecking havoc on people’s love lives since 1966._

“I’m a friend,” Tommy said, wondering what a guilty confession would sound like with a voice modulator. “Trust me, I’m here to help.”

The smoke stung his eyes, clouding the air around them and making it hard to see. McKenna peered at him through the haze anyway, her gun trained on his chest.

“My precinct’s in flames because of a bunch of psychos in masks,” she answered. “You’re gonna need to do a little better than that, besides having a hood on your head.”

_The Arrow sent me._

_I come in peace._

_I’m the guy who makes pancakes for you._

All cringeworthy comebacks, but Tommy was saved from having to answer when he sighted movement behind her. “Get down!” he shouted, and fired off an arrow just as she turned to shoot.

Arrow and bullet glanced off the piece of actual rubble that the Mirakuru soldier had in front of him like a battering ram, and Tommy cursed, because more of his friends were peeling out of the shadows to join him. The footlocker of C4 was on the ground, and Tommy grabbed McKenna’s forearm, breaking into a run.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded, because clearly, she didn’t think explosives left in the hands of psycho-terrorists were the greatest idea.

“Improvising,” Tommy said. “Aim for the C4, let me do the rest.”

Voice modulator aside, the light from the fire must have caught on his face, because he felt McKenna pause. “ _Tommy?_ ” she said in disbelief.

No time to dissect what _that_ meant. Tommy fired a wired arrow to the beam above, grabbing McKenna around the waist just in time to get them both clear of the ground. They hurtled towards the shattered skylight, and McKenna, holding onto him tight, aimed towards the mass of Mirakuru soldiers below. A shark tank, with lots of explosive chum.

The gunshot made contact with a flash of light, and the explosion blew them straight into one of the conference rooms on the second floor. Tommy hit the ground hard with McKenna, slamming so hard into the rubble that his ears were ringing and he felt like he could have detached his teeth in one hand.

Weird thing to think of while his girlfriend was right beside him, but still.

“Are you okay?” he said, giving his head a shake. “Sorry about t—”

McKenna caught him in a hug before he could speak, bumping the side of his (very sooty) face in a gesture he only belatedly realized was a relieved kiss. “Thank god,” she said.

Tommy tapped off the voice modulator in his collar, holding her tight. Fighting a war and trying to save the people closest to him was all well and good, but at the end of the day, it was the person under the mask who mattered, and Tommy didn’t want to go through another hellish night in Starling City without letting McKenna know that he was right there with her. Not some guy in a mask, but Tommy Merlyn. Maybe not the person she’d thought he was, but he was okay with the truth. Always the truth.

“Slade Wilson’s behind this,” he said. “We were trying to stop his army from getting loose on the streets, but that didn’t work, so my first stop —”

“— was the precinct,” McKenna said, quick on the uptake as ever. Her knuckles looked like bloodied crap and there was a cut down her face from the fight, but she could still strategize like a no-nonsense boss. “We can’t reach the whole city in time, so we’ll need a safe zone.”

“Yeah, but —”

“— Fifth and Lawson might be a good place for a perimeter, but we’d need the Commissioner to okay it f—”

Tommy took her face in his hands, smiling because it was both completely insane and incredibly McKenna Hall to think up a siege defense plan while he was trying to tell her that she was important to him. Like, crazily important. Scary important.

“I came back for you too,” he said, ignoring how incredibly lame it sounded. “Not because you can plan a citywide defense strategy inside your head, or because you’re fully capable of kicking my ass, but because I…”

Tommy took a deep breath, and McKenna leaned in to press her forehead against his. “I know,” she said, so that only he could hear.

Tommy breathed in, because it was the worst time to be stopping, the worst time to remind each other that they had people they cared about, people on the frontline and just as infuriatingly determined to risk their necks. But he wouldn’t have had it any other way, because he’d seen what it had done to Malcolm, not having anyone left to lose, and that wasn’t Tommy Merlyn.

The people in his life weren’t his weakness. They made him someone who wasn’t his father, and more importantly — they made him strong.

“This might be the biggest understatement of the year, but I think I have a lot to tell you,” Tommy said, and McKenna laughed, a small, breathless sound.

“And I’ll listen to all of it,” she said, cupping his face. “On the other side, because we are getting out of this alive, Tommy Merlyn, and I’m not taking no for an answer. Do you hear me?”

Tommy nodded, cracking what felt like his first real smile of the night. “Yes, ma’am.”

There was a gigantic _crash_ from down below, and Tommy raced over to the railings to look down at the precinct. “ _And_ the nice moment’s over,” he declared, reaching for an arrow as the flaming debris gave way to a moving mass of Mirakuru soldiers. A fresh wave, undeterred by their buried buddies-in-homicide. “McKenna, get behind the barricade.”

“Not on your life, Merlyn,” she answered, pulling a spare mag and reloading her gun. “Imagine I said something less ironic.”

Tommy aimed an arrow at a Mirakuru soldier down below and fired in the same breath. “I’m not arguing with you right now!” he said. “Those guys won’t stop —”

A Mirakuru soldier Tommy had been about to shoot was suddenly blasted backwards, by what looked like one hell of a double-tap. “Hall!” Quentin came into view, limping a little with a literal shotgun in hand. “Where the hell have you —”

He stopped dead, noticing the hood, and Tommy ducked his head, hiding his face in its shadow. “You need to get behind the barricade,” he said, trying to channel Oliver’s version of the _don’t-mess-with-me_ voice. “We’ll handle things out here.”

Quentin fired off another shotgun blast into the mob of Mirakuru soldiers below and ejected the spent shells with a snort. “You and what army?” he said. “And while we’re at it, who exactly are you supposed to be? A Robin Hood knock-off? I hate to break the news to you, but we’ve already got one this neck of the woods.”

“He’s…” McKenna began, as though realizing that Tommy didn’t exactly have a preferred name pinned to his chest. “He’s a friend, sergeant. And he saved my life.”

Quentin paused, eyeing Tommy’s dark hood and bow with what felt like an uncomfortable level of clarity. “Hell,” he said, “at least there’s a Dark Archer doing some good in the city this time.”

Tommy looked up at the reminder, the unnecessary reminder that they were seeing a repeat of last year’s chaos, only ten times as warped, twisted, and somehow worse. The same chaos that had killed Laurel Lance and left Quentin with two gravestones to visit at Starling Cemetery. His throat felt tight, because between Sara and Tommy…they were the only family Quentin had left. “I —”

“Son,” Quentin said, cutting him off, “the city may not care who’s under the masks, but I do. I want them — the woman in black, the Arrow, Dark Archer 2.0, or whatever you plan on calling yourself — to be careful. So do me a favor, and keep the risks to that neck at a minimum, copy?”

Tommy sighted movement from below and fired an arrow that frayed the air with an electro-shock blast and a burst of white light. Two shadowy figures toppled back into the tangle beneath the upper floors, and Tommy saw Quentin take in the shot he’d just landed, assessing what it meant.

That Tommy wasn’t playing around. That he meant to protect his city, just like Sara, just like Oliver. Even if it meant risking himself too.

“I’m sorry,” Tommy said, and a part of him, the part that wished he could have stood back and let someone else do the fighting, really, genuinely meant it. “But I don’t think that’s something I can promise.”

Quentin broke off to blast another shotgun round into the mass of Mirakuru soldiers below. “Well, you’re gonna have to,” he said stubbornly, reloading his weapon. “Because I already lost one daughter to a psychopath trying to destroy the city. I can’t lose a son too.”

Tommy hesitated, and McKenna grabbed his arm, reaching for Quentin too. “Look out!”

A piece of rubble slammed into the railing, tearing steel and concrete in two, nearly sending all of them tumbling off the balcony in the process. The Mirakuru soldiers had swarmed their way around the blockade, and the three of them — Quentin, McKenna and Tommy — turned to shoot at the shadowy figures below. But there were too many of them, and as one of the shapes clambered off the tallest piece of debris like something from a horror movie, and Tommy took aim, determined to fight on anyway.

An arrow buried itself in the Mirakuru mask’s eyehole, and it took Tommy a second to realize that it wasn’t one of his, but a black arrow, with just a hint of crimson.

Which only meant one thing.

“No way,” Tommy said, turning his head towards the skylight.

Two — four — six dark shapes spiraled down from the shattered skylight, firing arrows with lethal precision and absolutely zero fear. But one stood out from the rest, a flash of silvery blonde and black, and Tommy was so busy staring that he didn’t cover his ears when the sonic shriek came, drowning out the chaos with the Canary’s cry.

Quentin said it for them both, staring as his daughter landed on the precinct floor and charged the superhuman soldiers without a trace of fear, leading her own army of hooded fighters that moved like shadows come to life. “Sara,” he breathed, and Tommy started to think that maybe, just maybe, they had a shot in hell of pulling this off.

* * *

Felicity’s mouth tasted like sawdust. A hint of iron too, like a rusty nail. She must have cut the corner of her lip on something. Or from the impact from being hurled with embarrassing ease across a room like she weighed pretty much nothing. The taste was as sharp as the scent of smoke, a constant reminder that she was just about the furthest from _safe_ as it could get.

They’d put her in her own office. Her own chair. Not tied to it, or handcuffed, but with masked Mirakuru soldiers patrolling the corridors and standing guard at the only exits, her options were limited. Oliver had a knack for surviving unsurvivable situations — something she refused to disbelieve, especially now — but Felicity didn’t have a lot of expertise in that area. Hacking impenetrable firewalls and causing all kinds of digitally untraceable mayhem, she could manage before her first cup of real coffee, while wearing her favorite pair of pajamas.

Being forced to play the sitting duck while a bunch of homicidal brainwashed nuts smashed through her city? A lot more high-stakes, and a lot more terrible, but Felicity didn’t have an option that wasn’t staying put. Fires bloomed in the distance, too close for comfort and simultaneously surreal. It made her stomach churn to look at them, but she did it anyway, refusing to look around when she heard someone enter the room.

“How does it feel?” said the last voice she was interested in hearing.

Isabel, in full Maleficent mode, complete with a pair of crossed swords along her back and some heavy-duty eyeliner to match her black-and-orange leather. For someone who’d enjoyed sitting at the top of proverbial mountains and cowing everyone else into submission, post-Mirakuru Isabel was surprisingly okay with embracing team colors.

Probably because she thought it put her on the winning side.

Despite Felicity’s lack of acknowledgment, Isabel stepped around the table and into her line of sight, leaning against the glass surface with a condescending tilt to her head. “Barely a month after you stole my company, and here I am — back to take what’s mine.”

Felicity had to resist the urge to roll her eyes. Not that she was in the market of advising would-be super villains on how to do shady deals, but having their unsuspecting targets sign a piece of notepad paper as proof of a multi-billion dollar company changing hands…amateur hour.

“I realize this is like asking a black hole what it feels like to _suck_ ,” Felicity said, her voice still croaky from Slade’s death-grip around her throat, “but is this really what you want?”

“Winning?” Isabel said, exhibiting her usual case of tunnel vision.

Felicity straightened up slightly, looking Isabel in the eye. “I remember what you told me in Moscow,” she said. “You told me that you were abandoned, that it hurt, and that you survived. You pretended to be a lot of things while you were at Queen Consolidated, I don’t think you were lying about that.”

The silence stretched, and this time Isabel was the one looking away. She was watching the skies above Starling City, and Felicity was watching her. Every flicker, every movement, for a sign that she was getting through.

“We don’t see eye to eye, but we have that in common, don’t we?” Felicity said, her voice painstakingly slow, the closest thing to casting a spell. “We both survived. There were people in our lives who didn’t choose us, but we kept going. Built something for ourselves, because we deserve better. Because we deserve not to be defined by what _they_ did to us.”

Isabel’s expression was as unreadable as carved granite. The fiery glow, as distant as it was, threw the shadows on her face into sharper contrasts. Dark and light. No matter who it was, there always had to be a fight somewhere deep inside, and Felicity remembered the glimpse of Isabel Rochev back in Moscow. Back where she’d been born, before the world had chewed her up and spat her back out again, only with a lot more sharp edges and a lot less innocence.

One of the people who’d hurt Isabel was Robert Queen. Oliver’s father, and Felicity didn’t doubt that the family resemblance was enough to undercut whatever interactions they had with revenge, a score unsettled. As _ick_ and non-vaguely Greek tragedy the whole Moscow hookup had been, Felicity understood Isabel. Enough to know that in another life, if she’d made different choices after her father had walked out, after Cooper…

Maybe Felicity would have been the one standing on the other side of the line.

It wasn’t exactly the best feeling, understanding someone she genuinely, truly hated.

“There won’t be anything left behind if you don’t stop Slade,” Felicity said, pressing forward, just a little more. “Everything you built for yourself — after — all gone. Is that really what you want?”

A long, long moment, and Felicity waited, barely breathing, hoping to see that she’d guessed right.

Isabel’s gaze had shifted while Felicity spoke, drifting slowly across the inside of her office, until it stopped. Maybe it was the situation, or the fact that Isabel looked — even in the best of lighting — like Wednesday Addams if she developed a killer instinct for swords, burning hatred, and winged eyeliner. But Isabel was unsettling, stationary and in motion, and she’d stopped dead now. The smallest smile curled at the corner of her mouth, turning it razor-sharp again. As Felicity watched, Isabel stepped forward and reached for something — something Felicity had left on the sideboard, behind her while she worked and easy to see whenever she turned her chair away from the computer for a break. Something that made her smile, even when the day was being nothing short of cruddy.

A picture frame, nothing special…except for the photo inside it.

Felicity stared at the photo, remembering the circumstances around its existence in vivid — almost _painful_ — detail. Another morning at her house, before everything with the Mirakuru and Slade had whipped any pretense of calm out the window ( _bad_ choice of words, considering what’d just happened to Oliver). Everything was all pillows and rumpled sheets and sunlight, but Oliver was smiling up at the camera while Felicity buried her grin in the curve of his neck, because even with cute, in-the-moment selfies that were completely her idea, she was still painfully shy about her morning face.

Oliver hadn't cared. He really, really hadn’t, and Felicity remembered the kiss that took her breath away about a second after that, and the next one, and the laughter — muffled under the covers, scratchy stubble against her skin and completely graceless squirming —

“Isabel,” Felicity said, as her long fingertips skimmed across the smiling faces inside the frame.

It was probably a bad, _bad_ moment to remind her how differently things were going with Felicity and Oliver as compared to Isabel’s flaming and entirely disastrous affair with his father (still ew).

“Do you know what real survival is?” Isabel said, so quietly that Felicity nearly didn’t hear it. “It’s making sure that nothing ever hurts you again, and it won’t. Because there won’t _be_ anything left to do the hurting.”

The silver frame dropped to the floor with a _crack_ that made Felicity wince, picture-side down, and Isabel ground her heel into the backing for good measure, turning the fragments to glittering powder.

“Save the speeches, Felicity,” she said flatly. “Robert Queen taught me how to hate, but Oliver’s going to learn how to pay for his family’s mistakes — watching the city he loves burn to the ground — ”

Isabel bent gracefully at the waist to put her face exactly level with Felicity’s.

“— right before Slade drives a sword through your back,” she finished, with a sweet, poisonous smile. “And kills Oliver himself.”

Felicity didn’t move, because she wouldn’t give Isabel that, even though the death threat sent a slow, hidden chill up her spine.

Still, Felicity didn’t waver. Isabel could do fire, and she could do ice, but Felicity Smoak was pure steel, and she wasn’t backing down now. “He can try,” she answered coolly, and Isabel’s eyes gleamed at the challenge.

“Didn’t anyone teach you not to play with your food, Isabel?” said a voice, and her dark gaze flicked towards the door.

Sebastian Blood was a distinctive presence anywhere, larger than life from his television appearances, a political _wunderkind_ meant for rallies full of cheering people and fiery speeches. But now his voice was sharp with tension, new lines dark and creased around his eyes and mouth, and unlike Isabel, he didn’t look like someone who thought he was on the winning team.

“I don’t take orders from you,” Isabel said flatly. “You might be the Mayor, but we all know how you ended up there, even if you didn’t even have the stomach to gut Moira Queen yourself.”

Sebastian’s jaw tensed, and he dropped what he’d been holding onto Felicity’s desk with a slam that rattled the metal joints. It was the Applied Sciences briefcase, holding everything they had of the cure for the Mirakuru. “Go to hell,” he answered, his eyes narrowed to angry slits. “And next time, send someone else to do your dirty work.”

Isabel smirked, and circled around to inspect the case. She cracked the lid slightly, revealing only a glint of the glass vials sitting neatly inside. “You destroyed the samples in the lab?” she said, and Felicity knew it was because Isabel wanted her to hear it.

“Everything,” Sebastian said, practically spitting the words at his supposed teammate. “That case is everything they have. They won’t be able to make more.”

Isabel raised one eyebrow, conspicuously withholding thanks, and a muscle in Sebastian’s cheek spasmed. Frustration, taut and about to snap. “What the hell is going on?” he said furiously. “The army was supposed to go for the bridges and tunnels. Now I hear they’re moving north? Where? What the _hell_ is up there except industrial parks and warehouses?”

 _ARGUS_ , Felicity thought, a quicksilver impulse that registered as not quite right. That couldn’t be it. What would Slade need inside a top-secret government agency that ran on intelligence and covert operatives? He already had the brute power to smash through a city, and ARGUS was sure to have its defenses way, way up — if Waller hadn’t evacuated the base already or called whatever the equivalent of DEFCON-2 was for an organization that ran on paranoia and sketchy secrets.

If Isabel knew the real reason for the Mirakuru army taking a detour, she gave no sign of it, and only shrugged. “If anyone thought you were important enough to know the plan, you wouldn’t be asking me questions.”

Sebastian’s stare hardened. “Where is he?”

“ _He_ ,” Isabel said, with remarkable unconcern, “is doing exactly what he should be doing. Which isn’t wasting time. You did your part, Sebastian. Now let him do his.”

“This isn’t what we agreed on,” Sebastian snapped. “We agreed that I would be Mayor of Starling _City_. Not a burning crater and half the population dead from Mirakuru soldiers. They killed the District Attorney right in front of me — the Aldermen — the whole City Council —”

Isabel tossed her head. “Not Slade’s concern.”

“Goddammit, where is he?” Sebastian shouted.

“ _Here._ ”

Slade was standing in the doorway, silent as a shadow and infinitely more dangerous. His black, eerily still gaze was on Sebastian, and the latter paled visibly in the face of someone who exemplified what it meant to be a volatile, homicidal maniac, with no qualms against blood and death to get exactly where he wanted to be.

Which was saying a lot, given the present company.

“Are you dissatisfied with your reward?” Slade said, taking a single step into the room.

The sound echoed in the dead-silent room. Sebastian and Isabel both shifted aside, like it was second nature. But while Isabel managed to make it look effortless, respectful — Sebastian managed to make it look like a twitchy gesture born of nothing except self-preservation.

Felicity felt her stomach clench when Slade’s gaze passed over her, but he didn’t acknowledge her presence. He didn’t need to; not when she wasn’t going anywhere.

“Judas accepted thirty pieces of silver for his betrayal,” Slade said, pausing briefly to glide his fingertips along the surface of the closed case. “How much do you think your acquiescence is worth, Mayor Blood?”

The steel-rasp voice never wavered above a whisper, but Sebastian swallowed, his throat working furiously to muster an answer. “I…wouldn’t call what I did acquiescence. I became Brother Blood. I found your army. I led them out of the ground, and —”

“— and you were promised the Mayorship of Starling City for it,” Slade interrupted, with the barest hint of contempt. “A seat tainted by the blood of a woman with more spine than you could ever have. Consider yourself lucky that you were never a loose end to be dealt with, like your dear Aldermen and District Attorney.”

“Slade —” Sebastian began, and broke off, staring at the cold, unforgiving faces of his not-quite partners. “I just…does it really have to be this way? You already have the cure. You have the city. You killed the _Arrow_ —”

“— Oliver Queen is not dead,” Slade snarled, and Sebastian fell silent. “You would be a fool to think it.”

Sebastian’s eyes darted nervously to Felicity, who was exactly where they’d left her. Watching. Listening. “Then he’ll come for her,” he said. “He’ll come for her, and you —”

“— _you_ exhaust my patience.” Slade took a step closer to Sebastian, who tensed, looking like he was trying not to back away. “That would be unwise, seeing as how Starling City’s mayors have a tradition of being replaced before their time.”

Sebastian breathed in sharply at the threat, but Felicity saw something else. A gleam of recognition like he’d heard the words somewhere before, and she intercepted the hurried gaze he threw her way.

“I’m sorry,” he said to Slade, and the words sounded stiff, but sincere. “I’ll keep an eye on the situation…and do what I can.”

“Not that you’ll need to,” Isabel said, smiling her slow feline smile. “We have the city, we have its leaders, and we have the cure.”

As she spoke, she pushed open the briefcase, and Felicity watched her face change, skimming the rows of glass vials sitting inside the lining. Sebastian glanced over Isabel’s shoulder, and his frown deepened. Because Felicity had counted the number of vials in that same case, and she knew without having to look that they were missing just one.

One vial of cure against a Mirakuru army was a pretty terrible ratio, mathematically speaking, but Felicity had it on good authority that the team — _her_ team — had a habit of beating those kinds of numbers. To do the impossible, the kind of impossible that stood for hope, and light, not the unthinkable that meant darkness and blood.

Felicity also wasn’t a mind-reader, but she had a pretty good feeling that they knew it too.

“Where is it?” Sebastian said, as Isabel’s face blackened. “Where’s the missing dose?”

Felicity raised her head at the question, meeting their gazes without flinching. “Before making smug speeches like that, you _really_ should learn how to count,” she said, and smiled.

Slade’s mouth twitched in a humorless smile, and Felicity braced for the blow she knew was coming. But it still snapped her head back upon impact, throwing her out of the chair, and the edges of her vision blurred to fuzzy black as she heard Slade say: “ _Proceed_.”

* * *

_“You can’t still believe that I’m a hero.”_

_“I do.” The brush of her fingertips against his mouth, as if she was entrusting him with a secret. “Because you decided to sacrifice you and me.”_

Oliver didn’t remember how he’d gotten there, but he knew it’d been Felicity’s hand on his lips, and he leaned into her palm now when she reached up to cup his face, even before opening his eyes. It was a moment he wanted, a moment that had to last, even if it was only for seconds — _a_ second — more. Felicity’s fingers curled inward as she pulled him closer, and her chest pressed gently against his when she raised herself on her toes, swaying slightly into him so they could meet in the middle.

It was a soft kiss, her lips against his, his pulse beating strong underneath her open hand. Undemanding, and unhurried, smudges of shadow and breaths that whispered in lieu of words.

The seconds stretched on, because neither of them wanted it to stop. Whoever moved back first, Oliver couldn’t be sure, but Felicity’s forehead pressed against his as they caught their breath, parted lips still tantalizingly close, promises that both of them meant to keep.

“It’s a beautiful apartment,” she said.

Oliver shut his eyes and leaned a little more firmly against her. “I know,” he whispered. “I also know you didn’t have to kiss me to say that.”

Felicity smiled, and Oliver smiled back, into another kiss, tempted, _so_ tempted to press another against those lips, but then it would lead to one more, and one more after that…and it wouldn’t stop.

Right now…they couldn’t. For some reason.

“That’s how I know you’re a hero,” Felicity whispered, and Oliver lifted his head in surprise, instinct stirring at the familiar words.

_“It’s worth it, isn’t it?”_

_“Always.”_

Another time, another place.

“I’m not giving you up,” he said, before she could suggest otherwise. His grip tightened on her waist, as though he could feel her slipping away. “I love you, Felicity.”

Felicity’s fingers slid gently through his, and Oliver had to let her go, even if he didn’t know why. The ground lurched beneath his feet, but nothing in the world seemed to shift, not in the sunlight streaming through the windows, in the sound of the key — the apartment key — being picked up from the floor.

Felicity weighed it in the palm of her hand, looking around her while Oliver stood rooted to the spot. Then, without warning, their eyes met, and Felicity smiled.

“Don’t give up,” she said, because Oliver needed to hear it too. “There’s still hope.”

“Felicity,” Oliver said, but the sun was blinding to him, and the ground shuddered, because everything was about to change again. “ _Felicity_ —”

* * *

Oliver snapped awake, lurching upright with a gasp. “Easy,” said a voice, and he felt a steady pressure on his shoulder, holding him down.

It was Diggle, keeping him from jarring whatever fresh injury he’d managed to rack up, no different from another night on the streets. A year ago, when Oliver had been the Hood. There was pain in his sides too, in one of his shoulders. Dull. Slow. Everything registered as not quite _right_ in Oliver’s head, for some reason, and it took him a few seconds to realize why.

_Felicity._

Oliver shut his eyes again. Three deep breaths, forcing himself to inhale three searing breaths of oxygen when all he wanted to do was stop. It was paralyzing, this fear, just as it was meant to be. Because Slade had someone he loved, _the_ woman he loved, and fear only scratched the surface of what Oliver was feeling.

But it was also why he had to keep going.

“Diggle,” he said with difficulty, feeling like he’d impacted solid concrete during the landing. “What did you —?”

“— do?” Diggle said, turning back to him with a syringe full of something clear. If there’d been any anger in Oliver’s chest, itching to take itself out on his friend, Diggle’s expression — dead serious and earnest as ever — made him go still.

Seeing the fight go out of Oliver, Diggle nodded slightly. “If you mean that I bailed you out of Queen Consolidated before you could get yourself killed, you’re welcome,” he said. “If you mean how I dosed you with a shot of lidocaine because you were about to lose that knee, you’re also welcome — but I think you need another hit.”

Oliver caught Diggle’s wrist before the needle could find his leg. “I’m fine,” he said, with difficulty. “It’s not bad.”

Diggle raised one eyebrow, and Oliver grimaced. “Not _that_ bad,” he conceded, sitting up with the help of Diggle’s arm.

Diggle peered doubtfully at him, as though something wasn’t right. “You remember what happened, don’t you? Queen Consolidated, Felicity —”

Oliver gritted his teeth at a stab of pain that had nothing to do with his knee, or the fresh stitches in his side. “Slade took over,” he said. “Took Felicity. The cure. Kicked me out the window. We were on the rooftop — and Lyla —”

Diggle breathed out, as though hearing that he hadn’t lost his all recollection — along with his mind — was a small relief. “Wasn’t expecting the last one,” he admitted. “But it’s nice to know there’s still some good luck going around these days. Unfortunately, that luck didn’t take us as far as I thought. The bazooka didn’t take out too many of the Mirakuru soldiers. Slade still has his zombies swarming your family’s office, last time we checked.”

The use of the word _we_ reminded Oliver of something, and he swept a look around, searching for Lyla’s familiar face. He saw Roy first, lying still and unmoving with the IV still in his arm, which was a relief on its own, but —

“Lyla’s checking the perimeter,” Diggle said, reading his mind. “Having you passed out on a slab was a little awkward for the both of us.”

Oliver didn’t smile, because he knew Diggle wasn’t joking, not really. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you for —”

Diggle shook his head. “Never mind that. You said Felicity wasn’t hurt. Think it’ll stay that way?”

“He won’t kill her,” Oliver said, even though the words sounded more tenuous out loud than they did in his head. “He won’t hurt her until he gets what he wants. Until…until it’ll hurt the most.”

“Which is when?” Diggle asked flatly, folding his arms. Losing his composure wasn’t how his friend showed that he was rattled, but Oliver could tell from the glint in Diggle’s eye that he was intent on getting an answer. “When the city’s about to crumble? Because every second we hold off on a strike back, they’re getting closer to that, and Felicity’s in danger.”

Oliver nodded. “We need backup, I know.”

Diggle made a sarcastic sound. “We need Felicity, the cure, then backup. In that order. I know I’ve always been a firm supporter of you growing up and realizing that Felicity Smoak can take care of herself, but I’m not sure how I feel about it happening right this second. Especially when it concerns Slade Wilson and Isabel Rochev.”

“Trust me, all right?” Oliver snapped, his temper flaring at last. “I know, and I _will_ get Felicity back, but you and I can’t do it without reinforcements, so right now, we are just wasting time arguing about the specifics.”

Diggle stared at Oliver without speaking, and after a moment, brought his hand up to the side of Oliver’s head, giving him a little shake, the same thing Tommy would do if he was having a hard time getting through. “You, me and Felicity. That’s how it started, remember?” he said. “You’re right. We _will_ get her back. Just don’t lose sight of who you are, or everything we’re doing — everything we’ve sacrificed — it won’t mean a goddamn thing when all’s said and done. There’s no point fighting a war that won’t leave anything on the other side.”

Oliver inhaled, nodding silently. It hurt a little less, this time, because Diggle, as always, was right. “Felicity said something like that,” he said, and Diggle cracked a smile.

“It takes the both of us to keep Oliver Queen from doing some _very_ stupid things,” he answered. “And I don’t see that changing any time soon.”

It was Oliver’s turn to smile. “Agreed.”

Diggle turned to help Oliver off the marble slab, pulling his bow and quiver from one of the stone ledges lining the room. “Since we’re on the subject of stupid things, is the plan still a go?” he asked. “Because it’s about to be one hell of an awkward conversation if it’s not.”

“It’s still a go,” Oliver said, wincing as his heel touched the floor, yet another reminder that they were running short on time.

“Good,” said a voice, and Oliver nearly snatched up his bow, until he realized it was Lyla Michaels, returning from a sweep of the perimeter.

Diggle hadn’t gone for his gun at all, and he stood his ground as Lyla moved into the dim light, half her face still outlined in shadow. “You look like hell,” she said, a statement directed at Oliver, who didn’t intend on disputing the point.

“Thanks for helping us,” he answered.

“I figured it was a pretty good bet, Johnny being where you were,” she said, with a hint of warmth even though the words were matter-of-fact.

“Speaking of, wasn’t sure you’d come all the way here,” Diggle said to his ex-wife, standing fixed at Oliver’s side. “Why?”

“An active war-zone, Johnny?” she said, meeting her ex-husband question for question. “You know I’ve seen worse.”

A small smile curled her mouth, the faintest gesture that Diggle mirrored, as if in recognition. Old comrades, veterans from a war, now fighting shoulder to shoulder again.

“All right then,” Diggle said finally, with a glance in Oliver’s direction. “About that plan.”

Lyla strode around the marble slab, replacing the empty space with black shockproof cases of gear and equipment — light, by ARGUS standards. There were laptops and weapons and armor, but Lyla reached for the map, pushing the screen to where they could all see. “Waller’s never going to cooperate,” she said, slipping effortlessly into strategy. “Especially not now. I was in Coast City, but I came as soon as I heard that Slade Wilson’s army got loose — because Amanda always has a backup plan. A failsafe, and when that fails, there’s another, and one more, and on and on after that. She _never_ loses.”

“But Starling will,” Oliver concluded. “What’s she planning?”

“My guess?” Lyla said, briefly locking eyes with Diggle. “She’ll strike from a distance at Slade’s base of operations, eliminate him and his lieutenants in one go.”

Diggle exhaled. “That’s Queen Consolidated, and Felicity’s right there with him.”

Oliver slammed his fist into the marble, and they both looked at him. “I’m not letting that happen.”

“The three of us breaking into ARGUS won’t be enough to change Amanda’s mind. Even if we get the Suicide Squad on our side — which is insane, by the way — we’ll need something more.”

“Like what?” Diggle said, as Oliver reached silently into the pocket of his suit.

The vial made a soft _clink_ as it touched the icy marble, and everyone’s eyes were suddenly on it. “The cure,” he said. “And there’s a way to find out if it works.”

Roy’s breathing seemed suddenly amplified in the silence that followed. “Using it on Slade is one thing,” Diggle said quietly, “but we don't know if it’ll work. Turning Roy with the Mirakuru nearly killed him — what’s to say reversing the process won’t finish the job?”

“We don’t have a lot of options, Johnny,” Lyla said. “But we’re tossing a coin here. If we test the cure on Harper, and whatever you left behind at Queen Consolidated gets destroyed — we’ll lose our last chance at stopping Slade Wilson.”

Oliver looked at Diggle, because he trusted his friend, without question, to guard his back, to know his blind spots, his weaknesses. “I thought Felicity left this for me to face Slade,” he said. “You told me it wasn’t. Why?”

Diggle breathed out slowly, his gaze never wavering. “Because we both know her. If the rest of the cure were gone, and the last dose came down to Roy and Slade Wilson, she knows who you’d want to save.”

Roy Harper, even if it cost them their chance to neutralize Slade. Because Roy was someone Thea loved, someone Oliver had saved and trained, someone they’d seen, and still saw, as a friend —

“It’s your choice to make,” Diggle said. “She left it for you.”

As always, Diggle was right, and deep down, Oliver knew they’d reached the answer. There was a syringe in the medical kit Diggle had been using, and Oliver reached for it now, drawing up the contents of the vial until there was nothing left. It felt like even the walls were watching as he moved to stand in front of Roy, and let his hand rest on his heart, still beating inside his chest.

The last time Roy had been this still, this close to death, he’d been lying on the floor of an abandoned warehouse with blood crusted down the sides of his face, a trail of red tears from almost losing his fight with the Mirakuru. Oliver had saved him, forced his heart to start beating again, and now…their last and only dose of the cure was his chance to come back. The chance Slade Wilson never had five years ago.

Felicity trusted Oliver to make the choice he could live with, and saving a life, rather than destroying one, was in line with the hero she seemed to think he was.

Oliver shifted his hand to Roy’s forehead, over his closed eyes, thinking the prayer he couldn’t bring himself to say aloud. “Come back to us, Roy,” he whispered instead, and quietly sunk the needle into the vein, depressing the plunger as he did.

Nothing happened, not at first. But Oliver was measuring Roy’s pulse, waiting and watching, and he could feel the length between each weak thud, growing further and further apart. The IV and the venom were gone, and anything keeping him still and pale as marble was death, or the ever-present threat of it.

“Come on, Harper,” Diggle murmured, watching over him with Oliver. “Don’t give up now.”

“He’s dying,” Lyla said, the obvious truth that none of them wanted to say out loud. “He needs adrenaline, or epinephrine — something to get his heart going.”

Diggle was at the medical kits again, him and Lyla both working in unison to find what they needed for the emergency surgery, but Oliver threw out his arm to stop them. Roy’s heartbeat was fading fast, and Oliver pressed on his chest, ignoring the pain in his side, in his knee, because Roy wasn’t going to die like this.

“Come on, kid!” he shouted. “My sister needs you. Thea needs you, and so does Starling City. So get up and fight. _Fight!_ ”

The shout reverberated in the closed space, shivering the small, wavering circle of light that surrounded them, and two things happened at once. The first was Roy’s pulse, thudding sudden and strong against Oliver’s palms, and the second was a sharp gasp, from Roy Harper — the _real_ Roy Harper — rejoining the world again.

Roy jerked upright, coughing. “What the hell happened?” he choked, as Diggle hastily took over for Oliver, checking his pulse and breathing. “This — this isn’t Blüdhaven.”

Oliver leaned against the marble for support, letting his head dip forward in relief. “It’s a long story,” he said, breathing hard. “But welcome back, Roy.”

They looked at each other, and Roy hesitated, because Blüdhaven — and the blank space because of the Mirakuru taking over — had come long after he’d shouted at Oliver, at Tommy, at the whole team. They both remembered the words thrown out during the fight, and the very real punches, the near-misses…

Oliver shook his head, and stretched out his hand. Because Roy didn’t need to apologize, not here, not ever. “Welcome back,” he repeated.

Roy showed a flicker of surprise, but after a beat, he gripped Oliver’s arm, holding on tight. “Good to be back,” he answered. “Now what the hell is going on?”

* * *

“Boy, you kids picked the worst time to start a _Masks Only_ convention around here,” Quentin said, as Tommy and McKenna picked their way over the rubble blocking the staircase (oops, partially his bad) to get downstairs.

Questionable _modus operandi_ notwithstanding, the League of Assassins-style way of handling things had worked out pretty well this time. Judging by the number of arrows sticking out of the unmoving Mirakuru soldiers, they’d come with enough pit viper venom to buy everyone a fighting chance.

Tommy reached them first, and a half-dozen hooded assassins braced for his approach with loaded bows, but Sara cleared the distance in a rush and threw her arms around him, squeezing hard enough to make his ribs hurt for someone so tiny. “Thank god you’re okay,” she said in his ear.

The feeling was so, very much mutual. “You too,” he said, only glancing at the assassins when they pulled apart. “Along with…seven — no — _eight_ assassins. A part of me wants to say _you really shouldn’t have_ , but he’s still hiding under the bed in a onesie. Thanks for coming.”

Sara smiled at the flash of Tommy-humor, but she turned to the others as if they needed an introduction. Or a buffer. One of them stood out in particular, mostly because she hadn’t bothered to cover up with a hood, and her black eyes gleamed with the kind of challenge Tommy had a feeling would end with broken bones. His, definitely his. “Nyssa al Ghul,” she said imperiously. “Heir to the Demon.”

Tommy blinked, getting the distinct impression that Nyssa preferred anything with a Y-chromosome far, far away from Sara Lance. “Tommy Merlyn, childhood friend and neighborhood nightclub owner.”

Nyssa raised one eyebrow. “Charming.”

Quentin limped forward to hug his daughter, because McKenna was pretty much in on the secret now, so really — what was the point of wasting time trying to dance around secret identities?

“I’ve seen you somewhere,” McKenna said to Nyssa, one hand resting on her holstered gun. “I’m pretty sure you’re on the _Ten Most Wanted_ lists for a dozen states.”

“ _What?_ ” Tommy said, because he definitely would have paid more attention to police broadcasts if someone like Nyssa had been on screen.

Clearly, not a thought that anyone else had, because _priorities_.

“Seriously?” Quentin glared at Nyssa over Sara’s head. “You couldn’t have picked someone a little more… _normal?_ ”

Tommy snorted at that part, because in terms of dress and weapon choice, Quentin and McKenna were the odd ones out in the situation, hoods and bows being the preferred apparel of the night. “Yeah, like that’s an option,” he muttered.

“Dad,” Sara said. “Nyssa’s here to help, and I’m sorry we took so long, but Ra’s —”

“—my father did not see any reason to intervene in this conflict,” Nyssa finished for her, her fingertips drumming on the hilt of a carved dagger. “This is a petty squabble between the Arrow and the one who calls himself Deathstroke, and hardly the League’s concern.”

Sara gave her head the smallest shake, looking the same way Felicity did when Oliver said something particularly _Oliver_ -y. “Nyssa,” she said, and her tone broadcasted _play nice_.

“I wouldn’t exactly call it petty,” Tommy said anyway. “Or did you miss the citywide destruction? Would’ve thought you had an alert out for that kind of thing, you know, after you _missed_ Malcolm Merlyn tearing up the Glades last year?”

A gleam flashed in Nyssa’s eyes, like the flick of a drawn dagger. “Rather fortuitous that you should ask, because Ta-er al-Sahfer said the same thing to my father.”

“Ra’s wasn’t going to send his daughter or let me go to fight someone else’s war,” Sara said. “Until we found out who’s back in Starling.”

Tommy looked between her and Nyssa, a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, deep enough to form a whole sub-basement of its own. “Wait —”

“Malcolm Merlyn has returned to Starling City,” Nyssa said, before he could finish, her face alight with a savage challenge. “And as you can see, we have been sent to hunt the traitor down, and return him to Nanda Parbat to face my father’s wrath.”

Tommy shook his head, because of all the things he couldn’t face tonight, his dad — mass-murdering, lethal-assassin-trained and just all-around _dick_ to humankind dad — was pretty much at the top of that list. “I think I’m late for a checkup at the hospital,” he said.

* * *

The wind gusted past Oliver’s face, cold enough to make breathing in easy, filling his lungs with air like he was preparing to dive. It was almost true when it came to ARGUS, only this time, he was going in without Felicity.

“Think it was a good idea?” Diggle said in a low voice.

“You have to be more specific,” Oliver responded, with a gleam of dark humor. “Seeing as we’re in the middle of a few questionable choices.”

Diggle chuckled under his breath. “I meant the kid,” he said. “He was technically dead less than thirty minutes ago.”

Oliver glanced across the chopper at Roy, who was looking out the window at the city below, his face rendered stark pale by the glow of the fires in the distance. “Roy,” he said, over the roar of the chopper engine. “You all right?”

Roy shook his head, not taking his eyes from the city. “It doesn’t feel real,” he said. “While I was on the Mirakuru, I saw things. Things that looked and felt and sounded _real_ , but now that I’m awake…I’m not sure anymore.”

“Then find something that you know,” Oliver said. “Something that can’t be a lie.”

Roy made a skeptical noise. “After everything you told me I did, I’m the last person she wants to see right now,” he said, and hesitated. “Sorry. Your sister — off-limits, I know.”

Oliver shook his head, because he was the last person who could give advice when it came to choices like that. “She was looking for you after what happened at the mansion, and she wanted to take you with her — before all this started — but she couldn’t leave the hospital.”

“Your mom.” It wasn’t the point Oliver had been trying to make, not at all, but Roy’s blue gaze was on Oliver’s face anyway, and it was bright with conflict. “I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” Oliver said quietly. “I failed you, and it won’t happen again. I promise.”

“You didn’t,” Roy answered. “Those things I said — while I was… _under_ — I didn’t mean them.”

_I used to look up to you._

_I’m done._

“I know,” Oliver said, too quickly. “But you don’t have anything to apologize for.”

A silence fell, and it was the kind of silence left behind because Felicity wasn’t there to fill it. She had an instinct for it, a single light remark that would have told Roy that there was nothing to forgive, nothing to feel guilty for. Because he was back with the team and that was all that mattered.

But she wasn’t here, and there was a part of Oliver that was out of its mind with fear, bracing for the unthinkable, and what it would leave behind.

Afraid that maybe, just maybe, the person it left behind would be another dark reflection of Slade. The same mistakes, the same anger. The fury, the revenge — because he’d lost the woman he loved.

Oliver never wanted to find out.

“I see where the kid gets it from, Oliver,” said Diggle, interrupting his thoughts. “Always apologizing for something that’s not his fault.”

Roy was the first to crack a smile, ducking his head as if to hide it, and Oliver returned Diggle’s knowing look with a nod. Still a team, and they’d keep fighting, no matter what.

Lyla clambered into the back from the front seat, pushing the pair of headphones back from her ears. “We’re at the drop zone,” she said. “It’s now or never; any closer and we’ll get picked up by the sensors. You boys sure about this?”

Oliver reached for the door handle, and yanked the panel aside with a blast of icy night air. It wasn’t his plan, but he could sure as hell see it through. “Move out.”

* * *

Felicity came to slowly, gradually. There was water against her lips, a shock of cold, and she coughed, spilling it down her front. In the second before she managed to open her eyes, she wondered if they’d finally gotten to the _Torture Horribly_ stage of her captivity.

Spoiler alert — they hadn’t.

“Shh,” Sebastian whispered, hastily setting aside the glass of water he’d been holding to her mouth. Why he thought it was a good idea to try and make an unconscious person drink, she wasn’t sure. But she was awake now, so maybe that had been the point, to wake her semi-quietly in a way that didn’t involve a huge, loud bang next to her ear.

Felicity wiped her mouth on her sleeve, keeping one eye on Sebastian the whole time. She was still in her office, but something was different. The shadows through the glass walls were gone, and apart from the sentries posted at the door to make sure she didn’t go anywhere, Felicity swore that most of the Mirakuru soldiers had cleared out.

 _North._ To…whatever, wherever they were supposed to be going to next, in the big evil pawn chess game between Team Good Guys and Bad.

“What’s going on?” she said, dropping the part where she went _Hitchcock Blonde_ and stayed as tight-lipped as a clam. “Why are you here?”

Sebastian didn’t answer immediately. His eyes flicked towards the windows, drawn to the dull red sweep splattered across the horizon, as if the city was bleeding into the sky. He licked his lips, a nervous tell, choosing what words he wanted to use.

“They’re moving,” he said with difficulty, like a tenacious instinct to fear Slade and Isabel was keeping him from spilling the proverbial beans. “They have a plan, and I can’t stop them.”

“Yeah, they want to burn Starling City to the ground via super-enhanced zombie army,” Felicity snapped. “And guess what? You helped them get there.”

Sebastian winced, like the truth had landed like a whip-crack. “I know I’ve given you no reason to believe a word I’m saying, Miss Smoak, but this isn’t…this isn’t what I wanted.”

“What did you think was going to happen when you made a deal with the devil?” Felicity asked quietly. “Did you think he was going to keep his promise?”

Sweat gleamed on Sebastian’s forehead as he shifted a little closer to her chair, half-crouched on the marble floor. “You don’t understand. Slade Wilson found me, and he promised to change things. To bring a new world. One where the rich start on the same footing as the poor, no more looking down from their ivory towers. A world where the people in power aren’t the same corrupt despots who break things, over and over again because the cycle never stops. He said he knew how to make it happen. He said that tearing down the old order was a necessary step towards the new world — but he promised that he’d stop his army. He promised to make them stop.”

Felicity didn’t say anything, because she wanted to feel sorry for that kid, the one Sebastian Blood used to be, just like Isabel. But he was long gone, and it was a grown man who’d shaken Slade’s hand and helped him rain destruction down on a city over a personal vendetta.

Sebastian jerked his head, unsurprised by her dead silence. “Oliver warned me that Slade wouldn’t keep his promises, but I — I’d gotten the Mayor’s seat — I thought —”

“— you thought having a dream justified cold-blooded assassination,” Felicity said at last, because Moira Queen was a scar that Sebastian deserved never to forget. “You knew better. Slade doesn’t care about what he promised you. He only cares about hurting Oliver, and we’re both just pawns in that game.”

“I...I know,” Sebastian said, glancing over his shoulder at the door like he was worried he’d be overheard. “Oliver Queen was right. I can’t take back the things I’ve done, but I can try and stop what comes next. Give your team a fighting chance.”

“With what?” Felicity said, well aware that the briefcase was missing from her desk. “The cure’s gone — you destroyed it.”

Sebastian shook his head, a faint gleam in his eye, and reached into his pocket. A screen caught a passing flicker of light, and Felicity recognized her phone, the one she must have dropped sometime during Slade’s ambush.

“Fear tends to make people underestimate the capacity for resistance,” he said quietly. “I’m guessing you know that better than anyone, Miss Smoak, because I hear you can do a hell of a lot with a microchip and spare parts.”

In spite of herself, and all Sebastian Blood was, Felicity felt a grudging sense of recognition. Even cowards could be brave, when it mattered. But he was still wavering, a reed with a cracked stem, a glass teetering on the edge, about to break. All he needed was the right push.

“So can you,” she said. “With or without a psychopath in a mask.”

Sebastian hesitated. “I want to help,” he said urgently, “but I…I need to know…I need to know that I’m doing it for something. That the work I did as Alderman Blood, the people I helped and the things I built, they’ll stay…apart from everything else I’ve done.”

Felicity watched him, not saying a word. She knew what he was asking, and it was the kind of promise she wouldn’t make, because it wasn’t her place to make it, and to pretend she could…

She’d be no better than Slade, when he’d convinced a dreamer like Sebastian Blood to sell his soul.

“I can’t promise that,” she said, barely above a whisper. “But I shouldn’t have to. Because if you meant what you said — about saving Starling City — about a new world, you’ll help get that cure to the Arrow. You’ll tip the scales. Because it’s the right thing to do, and you know it is. Making a new world doesn’t come from destroying the old one, and you know that Slade only cares about making sure there’s nothing left.”

Sometimes Felicity thought words had a deliberate way of not cooperating with her when she needed them to the most, but now, facing Sebastian Blood, Felicity wondered if _this_ , not the keyboards and the comm-links, was her superpower.

It was a moment stretched to its breaking point, the two of them looking at each other without speaking, a clash of conscience and pure, stubborn will. Sebastian’s eyes were a clear gray, and without the harsh light cutting deep into the lines on his skin, he looked exactly as he was supposed to be. A young man, someone who could have — in another life — been an ally for the Arrow, saving the same city they cared about.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor, and Sebastian turned away from her. Felicity felt a lead weight sink into her stomach, because she’d lost him.

Until she felt the cool brush of her phone's screen, sliding into her sleeve, and Sebastian tapping her wrist in silent reassurance as he straightened up.

“Slade,” Sebastian said, inclining his head in deference.

Slade silently took in the scene, and Felicity was momentarily relieved that her expression looked the complete opposite of friendly, as though Sebastian had pulled an _Isabel_ and sidled up to taunt her.

“You’re dismissed,” he said to Sebastian, who nodded and stepped back.

Sebastian vanished without a sound, leaving Felicity alone with Slade. The sight of him reminded her where she’d been struck on her face, and the bruise that was probably already there. Her blood throbbed in her ears, and the chair creaked when she jerked back, because Slade’s hand was on her arm.

“You must be tired of sitting,” he said, and the false courtesy in his voice sent a chill up Felicity’s spine. “Won’t you join me? It would be a shame to enjoy the view alone.”

The last thing Felicity wanted to do was go anywhere near a glass window with Slade, after he’d kicked Oliver straight through the one on the floor below, but her mouth was too dry to spit and the alternative was having her arm snapped at the elbow by his Mirakuru-enhanced strength. So she reluctantly got to her feet and approached the windows with Slade, her jaw clenched painfully with all the things she was fighting the urge to say, true to _inconvenient death wish_ -form.

But as soon as she’d joined him, Slade let go, turning instead to survey the view. He inhaled deeply, as if it was a moment to be savored, the smoke and blood tasting of victory instead of pure insanity.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” he said under his breath. “If only Shado were here to see it.”

Felicity looked silently over her shoulder. Sebastian had vanished, and apart from the same two Mirakuru sentries standing watch, they were eerily, silently alone. But the way Slade talked made it sound as though she was right there with them.

“Burning a city to the ground,” Felicity said, her tone flat. “That sounds like something Shado might have liked. Kind and beautiful, and _gentle_ …of course she wouldn’t have minded the innocent people caught in the crosshairs of a personal vendetta.”

“We are who they make us,” Slade answered, with a roughness to his voice that rang as dangerous as bared steel. “Oliver Queen knows that to be true. After all, he became the vigilante after watching his father put a bullet through his skull, did he not?”

Felicity felt a surge of anger inside her chest, because all Slade wanted to do was twist, and twist, every single thing that was good about Oliver Queen until it was as blackened and corrupted as something the Mirakuru might have made.

“Oliver put on the hood to help people,” she said. “And I’d try to explain the difference to you if I thought you’d understand it.”

Slade laughed slowly under his breath. “I can see what drew Oliver to you in the first place,” he remarked. “At first, I didn’t quite understand it. The Lance sisters, Shado…they weren’t like you. They never needed Oliver’s protection, and you looked like someone who might break at the slightest push. So…delicate. I thought Oliver had mistaken protectiveness for affection, but after we spoke at the museum — no, you’re the one who protects him, aren’t you?”

Felicity didn’t answer, not that Slade needed her to. Her stillness was telling, and the status quo with her and Oliver was the kind of obvious that made it pointless to hide.

“I suppose the pretense at the mansion was Oliver’s idea,” Slade continued, unfazed by her silence. “Play-acting lacked the subtlety of someone with your intelligence, and Oliver’s never been capable of stepping back when the people he loves are in danger.”

A smirk crossed Slade’s face, half in shadow, and Felicity tensed. Because that couldn’t be good.

“I suppose it counts for something,” he said, still smiling in a way that gave each word the bite of a stab wound, “that Oliver couldn’t bring himself to say he didn’t love you, even as a ruse.”

“Like I said,” Felicity answered, “I’d try to explain it to you if I thought you’d understand.”

Slade’s smile turned wickedly sharp, and Felicity heard her heel echo against the floor — a single, reflexive sound — as she took a backward step, in response to Slade reaching for her. But she wasn’t fast enough, and his fingers were already on her throat, curling around her chin to hold her in place. Pressing just hard enough to hurt.

“The woman Oliver Queen loves,” he breathed, as Felicity gripped Slade’s wrist, still trying to twist away. “Strange, isn’t it? How the women loved by Oliver Queen — they have a strange way of meeting unfortunate ends.”

“Go to hell,” she said, through her teeth.

Slade turned her face towards the fiery glow, as though she was some kind of exhibit, to be moved around at will. “There’s something different about you,” he said, close to her ear. “I think your death might hurt Oliver Queen the most.”

Felicity’s jaw was starting to ache in protest when there was a quiet _click_.

“Let her go,” said a voice.

Felicity turned her head with difficulty, still held in place by Slade. For a second, she thought she was hallucinating. Because Sebastian Blood was standing in the middle of the room, and there was a gun in his hand, pointed straight at Slade.

The sentries were on the floor, motionless. Felicity hadn’t even heard them hit the ground, but now she saw the empty syringes fall from Sebastian’s free hand, and his fingers curl tight around the gun.

Decision, made.

“Let her go, Slade,” he repeated. “I won’t ask again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PSA: There's a part two after this. Feel free to read on :)


	44. Unconventional Allies (Streets of Fire, Part IV)

Oliver dropped an unconscious ARGUS guard to the ground, next to another that Roy was currently binding with a set of zip-ties. “Nice work,” he said to Roy.

“Nice to know I still have my sea legs,” Roy answered, leaning the unconscious guards carefully against the wall. His tone was guarded, but Oliver knew the Mirakuru and everything he’d done — out of his control — was still a shadow that lingered.

There wasn’t a lot that Oliver could say to dispel those doubts. It was the kind of doubt that could only be chased away with real, tangible proof, and the lack of bloodshed accompanying them sneaking into ARGUS spoke for itself, along with their plan to halt the Mirakuru army’s advance without killing anyone, brainwashed or not.

“I’ve got you,” Oliver said. “I promise, I won’t let you lose control again.”

Roy’s hood was pulled low to hide his face, but he smiled, just a little. “I know,” he answered. “Where’d Mr and Mrs Smith go?”

“Funny,” Diggle said, rounding the corner with Lyla. “We went ahead to make sure the way’s clear. Suffice it to say having Felicity watching over us on comms made things a lot easier.”

“Well, we’re about to get her back,” Oliver said, without a trace of hesitation. “We have a direct path to the cell block?”

Lyla nodded. “And we won’t be disturbed. I patched into the surveillance system with my access codes and replaced it with dummy footage from the last time you guys broke into ARGUS. Which we _are_ going to discuss, by the way,” she added, with a pointed look in Diggle’s direction.

“Believe it or not, it was Oliver’s idea,” Diggle muttered, and jerked his head towards the door. “Let’s move.”

The cell block was deserted, the guards meant to be standing sentry now slumped in the alcoves with zip-ties around their wrists and ankles. Oliver was impressed; for all their supposed disagreements, Lyla and Diggle in the field together was a combination to be reckoned with.

“You sure about this?” Lyla said, as Oliver looked from one door to the next, wondering the exact same thing.

Diggle stepped forward, standing shoulder to shoulder with Oliver, his eye on one cell in particular. The look on his face was mask-like, detached, and only the people who knew him like Oliver did — like Lyla — knew that it was because Diggle was fighting his instincts, instincts for justice and family, tangled up together in one hell of a Gordian knot.

“Deadshot killed my brother,” Diggle said quietly. “But Slade has one of my best friends hostage, and he’s going to kill every single person in this city, if Amanda Waller doesn’t do something worse. If working with my brother’s killer is the price to pay for stopping that, it’s not a choice. Not to me.”

Oliver glanced at Lyla, who gave a small nod of her head. “All right then,” she said, and swiped her fingers across the security panel, turning red to green.

The cells sprang open with a sonorous rumble, automated doors swinging outward with a hiss of escaping air. Lyla’s expression was still and silent, even as shadows began to emerge from the individual doorways, her gaze fixed calmly on the unprecedented situation like it was just another day for her.

“Fall in,” she said coolly. “Task Force X, you have a new mission.”

* * *

“Just can’t stay away, can ‘ya, John?” Lawton drawled, as they went around with an ARGUS-issue decryption device, deprogramming the wrist restraints that snapped together as soon as any Suicide Squad member left the cells.

Oliver had intentionally taken Lawton, leaving Diggle on the other side of the group with Bronze Tiger and the others. “Don’t push your luck,” Oliver growled, as the activation signal on the restraints turned green and freed Lawton’s hands. “You’re only here because we need you.”

“ _Brrr_ ,” Lawton said sarcastically, his eye still fixed mockingly on Diggle’s back.

Bronze Tiger narrowed his eyes at Roy, the latter’s face half-hidden by the red hood. The same red hood Roy had been wearing when they’d last seen each other, when Roy had been struggling to control himself under the Mirakuru, necessitating Oliver’s intervention to stop Roy from beating Ben Turner to death with his bare fists. “I remember you,” said Turner. “You almost smashed my skull in.”

“Yeah, well,” Roy answered, disengaging the restraints without blinking an eye. “Consider this an overdue apology.”

By intention or by predictably bad luck, the last member of the Suicide Squad was waiting for Oliver, and she stretched out her wrists towards him with a slow smile. “Just like old times, huh?” said Helena Bertinelli. “Orange isn’t really my color, but then again — I’m not sure green always did suit you.”

Helena looked the same, with no trace of the leg injury he’d left her with the last time they fought. It was no surprise that she’d healed well, a fighter through and through, and Oliver was grudgingly relieved to know that much hadn’t changed. Even so, he’d known this conversation with Helena was coming, but it was another thing to have it while Felicity was clear across the city, very much in danger. Felicity at risk always turned his temper short, and Oliver was more than sure that he didn’t have the patience to play Helena’s games.

“Don’t get any ideas,” he warned. “You’re here because of the mission. That’s all.”

Helena’s dark gaze roved over his face, the gray in them turned almost black in stark contrast to the paleness of her skin. Always the same hunger, uncompromising and elemental. It drove her to seek revenge for Michael, to assume a mask in the daytime while she learned, and trained, and turned herself into a weapon. To pursue a twisted form of justice that meant Frank Bertinelli dead at her feet, and at the heart of it, wanting someone who understood her darkness and would have stood by her through all of it.

Oliver wasn’t that person, and the last time they’d seen each other, before Helena had been taken in by the police, that hunger had been driven by a painful loneliness. Because even though Oliver understood her, he couldn’t stand by her while she traded kills for her soul, pursued revenge as if it was a life worth living. Now there was no one left with her in the darkness, and even after becoming part of the Suicide Squad, Helena was still searching.

“Where’s your IT girl?” she said, and Oliver wasn’t quick enough to avert his gaze.

Helena had always been good at sensing danger, even if she took the risks anyway, her neck be damned, and she must have seen the anger there, simmering beneath the surface. “So that’s the mission,” she said, her voice suddenly flat. “To save the pretty blonde princess.”

Another thing Helena had been good at was putting her finger precisely over the pressure point, and Oliver yanked the restraints from her wrists as soon as they were deactivated, harder than probably necessary, and they dropped with a clatter that echoed.

Oliver sensed Diggle looking over, concerned that he’d lost control, and Oliver reined himself in. If only just.

“It’s to save Starling City,” he said, through gritted teeth. “And in spite of everything you’ve done — and what you’ve tried to do — I still believe there’s a part of you that cares. Unless you’re about to prove me wrong. Again.”

Helena’s strong suit had never been backing down, and she challenged where others would have flinched. “You stopped me from killing my father,” she answered. “You left one hell of a scar with that arrow, but you didn’t kill me. Why?”

Oliver sensed she was pushing him, pushing on a pressure point like the truth only came with one hand twisted behind his back. “Because there was another way,” he said, simply. “There’s always another way, and I’m taking it right now, to save the person who showed me how to see beyond the darkness. Believe it or not, this was Felicity’s plan. I’m just seeing it through.”

Unguarded surprise crossed Helena’s face — just an instant — before the hard, unforgiving shell snapped back into place, hiding her moment of vulnerability. That someone like Felicity, who she’d very nearly killed to get to her father, would choose to believe that Helena cared, that she _could_ care about doing what was right.

Between Oliver and Helena, faith had never been either of their strong suits, but there was a pretty good reason to think that things might be different. This time.

“Oliver,” Diggle said from behind him, a gentle reminder that they had a plan to stick to.

They were handing out gear and equipment from ARGUS stock, all ready for use by the Suicide Squad as though they were expected to ship out at a moment’s notice. Helena’s crossbow was somewhere in there, but neither Helena nor Oliver moved a muscle to retrieve it, locked in a strange, silent battle.

Helena moved first.

“I’m sorry about your mother,” she said, so quietly that only Oliver heard her. “She was kind to me.”

Oliver nodded, because Helena had been in secure ARGUS lockup, and he was willing to bet that it included a complete blackout over news from the outside world. So the only way Helena could have known about his mother was if she’d asked.

“I didn’t know you’d end up in ARGUS,” Oliver answered. “I’m sorry, and after all this is over — I’ll try to speak to Waller. See if they’ll transfer you somewhere else.”

Helena glanced over his shoulder, at the concrete walls and reinforced steel doors, her expression very nearly playful. “It’s not so bad here,” she said. “It’s not exactly taking on the scum of the city in my free time, but I was never the hero type, was I?”

Oliver didn’t say anything, but that didn’t stop Helena from reading his answer anyway.

“Look,” she said, suddenly sharp and businesslike again. “You and I are even, but not me and her. I don’t like debts, especially not to blonde IT girls who annoy the hell out of me. So if I help you…if I help _her_...my debt’s paid. Agreed?”

Oliver nodded. “Agreed.”

* * *

The control room at ARGUS was predictably well-guarded, and Oliver stopped them before they released the doors, before the fighting started.

“No bodies,” he said, and meant it. “We’re not here to kill anyone. We just want Waller to stand down.”

Lawton exchanged a look with Helena, and sarcastically snapped a catch on his gauntlets that set them to stun. “You ain’t never met the Wall if you think talking to her’s gonna get her to change her mind,” he said. “Some kinds only respond to deadly force, and you’re already going in with one hand tied behind your back.”

“Trust me,” Helena said, with a slight smile in Oliver’s direction. “One hand’s plenty.”

“Not that it’s stopping anybody,” Roy said. “But I really don’t have a good feeling about this.”

“Noted,” Oliver answered, and nodded at Lyla to let them through. “Move out.”

The first guard they met went down with an arrow and crossbow bolt in either shoulder, and the next wave crumpled in the face of Diggle and Lyla’s expert aim. Oliver sighted a moving shadow and had an arrow nocked in his bow, braced to fire, when a stun dart took out another ARGUS agent rounding the corner.

“You’re welcome,” said Lawton.

Diggle elbowed his way past Lawton. “Yeah, because not killing someone out of human decency deserves a _thank you_ ,” he muttered.

“Careful Johnny-boy, lots of people still think your friend in the green’s a cold-blooded killer,” Lawton answered, with a slow smirk that Oliver ignored.

Diggle rolled his eyes as Lyla let them through the main doors to the control room, and Oliver dove past the gunfire that slammed into the bulletproof glass at his back, firing arrows from the ground that dropped the bodyguards surrounding the figure in front of the computers. The rest were taken out by the team, and Oliver got to his feet to find Waller with a gun in either hand, an unspoken threat somewhat dampened by the fact that everyone else had their weapons trained on her.

Still, she looked more angry than afraid. “Before all this started, it occurred to me that your team might do something stupid,” she said, in a low voice that thrummed with ice-cold menace. “But _this_ is a completely new level of idiotic, even for you.”

Oliver looked at the computers, covering dozens of angles of Starling City, all from afar. There were handlers and technicians sitting at the screens, but none of them were armed, and all of them looked terrified at the sudden intrusion.

“I know you, Amanda,” Oliver said. “You always have a contingency.”

“You knew that long before you and your team went below the city to try and blow Slade’s men to hell,” Amanda answered, nearly a sneer. “And you still chose to fail. What’s more, you’ve lost your most valuable assets to Deathstroke. The cure…and Felicity Smoak.”

The arrow in Oliver’s bow was pointed at Amanda’s throat.

“What’s that about not dropping bodies?” Lawton asked sarcastically. “Told you she has a way of making you choose the violent option.”

“Not helping, Deadshot,” Diggle said. “Amanda, what have you done?”

“What’s necessary,” Amanda sniped back. “I should have thought you understood that, Mr Diggle, Agent Michaels. This is treason.”

“Better treason than mass murder.” Lyla had crossed over to the computers, and judging by the look on her face, she recognized the programming. “She’s rigged up a drone strike. GBU-43s, six of them. Target downtown. That’s enough firepower to wipe out every building in Starling City, including —”

“— Queen Consolidated,” Amanda said. “And Starling General. Seeing as how your friends are currently headed there to help a certain paraplegic patient and her caring daughter, I’d be very careful about my next words.”

Roy shifted beside Oliver, a single telling gesture, and Amanda’s smile grew knowing. “Congratulations on your return to sanity, Mr Harper, but keeping you under the Mirakuru might have been a mercy, in light of what’s about to happen.”

Oliver sensed the question coming. He turned to Roy, who had gone white. “I have to go,” Roy said. “I can’t — not without —”

_Thea._

Oliver nodded. “Go.”

Amanda’s eyes followed Roy mockingly as he departed, headed towards Starling General. “Let’s hope he makes it, shall we? It’d be an unbelievable stroke of bad luck to lose your whole family in another collapsed building.”

“Call off the drone strike,” Oliver said. “That’s not a request.”

Amanda didn’t flinch. “In case it’s escaped your notice, I don’t take orders from the Arrow. Or rogue ARGUS agents.”

“Sounds like she needs some enhanced persuasion,” Helena suggested, with the familiar note of a cat and prey.

“We blocked the kill signal to the implants,” Lyla said, as if she’d sensed what Amanda was thinking. “That’s another card you can’t play, Amanda.”

“Trust me, I have plenty more,” Amanda snapped. “Including the fact that the drone strike is out of my hands. The UAV control is in a black site outside of Starling, and they _will_ pull the trigger as soon as Deathstroke crosses the line.”

“What line?” Oliver demanded. “They’re killing innocent people in the city. What else is there?”

Amanda rolled her eyes. “Calling Miss Smoak an asset is a clear understatement,” she said, and gestured for the agent behind her to change the feeds. “If you had been watching Slade’s men, you’d have realized that mayhem and destruction was only a prelude to their real intention. They’re moving north.”

Oliver exchanged glances with Diggle, because that didn’t sound like Slade’s plan. Moving away from Starling before he’d even razed it to the ground — it didn’t make sense.

“The tunnels out of Starling are east or south,” Diggle said. “Why north?”

“There’s nothing there,” Lyla said slowly. “Except…ARGUS.”

Amanda inclined her head. “What better way to expand his reach with an armory of hi-tech weapons and remote control over ballistic missiles located in secure silos across the country?” she said. “His soldiers will be slowed down by ARGUS defenses, but they _will_ smash their way through, one way or another. That cannot be allowed to happen, so the second they cross that boundary line — that drone will bury them — just like you and your team should have buried them before they made it out of the tunnels. Call it the ultimate failsafe.”

“And since ARGUS bunkers were built to stand nuclear blasts,” Lyla said sarcastically. “It’s a city of collateral damage, but you escape without a scratch.”

Waller narrowed her eyes slightly. “ARGUS is always prepared for the worst-case scenario, Agent Michaels,” she said. “You should know that best of all.”

“Amanda, you saw what happened to Harper,” Oliver snarled. “There’s a cure.”

“Which you _lost_ to Slade Wilson,” Amanda retorted. “It’s my job to make the hard choices, and I had to choose between Starling City and the rest of the world. I’m sorry, but Slade Wilson cannot be allowed to continue.”

One step ahead of them, always. Even now, Slade was still manipulating them at a distance.

Oliver looked at the screens. “You’re doing exactly what he wants, Amanda,” he said. “He wants Starling destroyed, and you’ll do it for him. All he has to do is send his men to attack ARGUS.”

“Be that as it may, Starling City will be a crater the second a Mirakuru soldier steps across the line. I’d say your goodbyes now —” Amanda flicked her eyes towards the screen “— but I don’t think there’s much left to be said, is there?”

* * *

“Let her go, Slade,” said Sebastian. “I won’t ask again.”

Felicity’s throat was literally in Slade’s hands, but as the shock faded, she twisted her wrist behind her back, feeling the phone wedged into her sleeve slide straight to the base of her palm. Now — if she could only remember exactly where she’d left it — they had a shot in hell of getting out of here against an ill-advised death threat and Mirakuru soldiers standing guard.

Slade cocked his head slightly, unperturbed by the gun aimed directly at him. “Oliver Queen stabbed me through the eye with an arrow, and I still survived,” he said, a rasp of metal and cold purpose. “Do you think I fear death…least of all from someone like you?”

“No,” Sebastian said, as Felicity’s fingers swiped silently over the screen of her phone. “But you fear _hers_.”

She froze, briefly, at the realization that the gun was trained on her skull now, with Sebastian — a person she literally knew zilch about and had no reason to trust — in position to pull the trigger and leave her _very_ non-Mirakuru enhanced self dead. Permanently.

Talk about one hell of a trust exercise.

But Slade didn’t move, and Felicity briefly reconsidered the merits of thinking like a ruthless politician. Right on the pressure point, which — oddly enough — was exactly what someone like Moira Queen would have done.

“You want Oliver to watch her die,” Sebastian said, clearly sensing that his bluff had worked. “How’s that going to work if someone else kills her first?”

Slade released his grip on Felicity’s neck, and she gasped, dropping to her knees and pretending to struggle for breath while she primed her phone for the distraction. Slade was between her and Sebastian now, more for insurance instead of protection, and the sword slid silently from its sheath with a ring of steel.

“Mr Blood,” he said, barely above a whisper. “I believe you’ve made your final mistake.”

Sebastian didn’t back down, and Felicity silently rose from her crouch behind Slade. “Funny,” she said, and Slade turned to face her. “I was about to say the same thing.”

Slade’s expression shifted at the sight of the phone in her hands, but Felicity swiped her thumb across the screen, and thanks to the amount of glass she had in her office, everything — and she _did_ mean everything — exploded from the force of a sonic scream.

A modified Canary Cry, used the last time they’d needed a distraction for a homicidal Isabel, but _unlike_ the last time, where Diggle was the one to rappel down like a hero and swing the knockout punch — Felicity was subbing in. Summoning all the strength in her five-foot-something frame, along with every single thing Diggle, Sara, and Oliver had ever taught her about self-defense, Felicity drew back her arm and punched Slade Wilson in the face.

He dropped to one knee ( _fine_ , having his ears splitting open from a sonic-frequency scream probably helped), and Felicity, knuckles stinging epically from the force of impact, seized her chance. Scrambling momentarily for balance, she skidded through a hail of broken glass as the scream reverberated against the walls, doubling and re-doubling again. It was a fine line between destroying their eardrums from a close-proximity sonic blast, and priming it _just_ enough to leave Sebastian and herself functional, but anyone else with a Mirakuru-enhanced sense of hearing writhing on the ground. Sure, the healing factor probably helped with busted eardrums, but that was predicated on the scream actually _stopping_ long enough to let that happen.

The perks of being gravely, painfully underestimated.

“ _Go!_ ” Felicity shouted, grabbing Sebastian by his sleeve and breaking into a run.

The glass walls had imploded from the force of the scream, and Felicity took a shortcut by throwing herself through the frame, dislodging a shower of jagged fragments left behind. There was still the problem of Mirakuru soldiers between them and the elevators, lured in by the commotion, but the scream was blaring through the PA system now, following their path through the Queen Consolidated office, and there was a trail of bodies in their wake by the time she slammed into the waiting elevator with Sebastian.

Not a second too soon, the doors shut and they began to sink downward. Felicity let herself sag against the wall, her forehead pressed to the steel. Her ears were ringing, but the worst side-effect was feeling a little off-balance, nothing close to what anyone with Mirakuru hearing had to be going through right now. Sebastian was staring at the lighting panels in the ceiling, his eyes slightly narrowed as though he was wondering why he could still hear the scream echoing through the elevator shaft, or if it was just his ears.

“QC runs on the same central mainframe as the computers,” Felicity explained, breathing heavily from a combination of the full-speed sprint and adrenaline thrumming through her veins. “Hacked it using my phone, uploaded the sonic scream like a virus. Or — actually — maybe I triggered an immune system response, since white blood cells _help_ against viruses — and Mirakuru zombies seem more like viral infections — _god_ , that’s so not the point —”

“I don’t know what I expected when I gave you that phone,” Sebastian said, shaking his head. “But it wasn’t that.”

In the absence of any breath to answer, Felicity decided to take it as a compliment. They were halfway back to the lobby when Sebastian got up, holding out his hand to Felicity. “I know there’s a hell of a lot I have to apologize for, but I’ll start with saying sorry for underestimating you,” he said. “I think you just blew up your boyfriend’s office building.”

Felicity grabbed his forearm and let him pull her to her feet. “I’m sure he’ll understand once I tell him I gave Slade one hell of a hearing problem,” she muttered. “Where’d you stash the cure?”

“Car,” Sebastian said. “It’s outside, but beyond that — I’m not sure how to find Oliver and your friends. Even Slade doesn’t know where they are.”

“Don’t worry.” Felicity was practically flexing her fingers, itching to find herself a keyboard. “I have a pretty good idea where they’re headed.”

The elevator doors opened to the ground floor, which was a mess of broken glass and warped metal. The latter was from the Mirakuru soldiers not being a big fan of doors or security partitions, but the former should have had something to do with the speakers and the broadcasting sonic scream.

Only the lobby was silent, and Felicity took in the crushed remains of the speakers on the wall just as a sharpened bite of air at the back of her neck drove the split-second choice to dive out of the way.

Felicity landed hard, a flash of heat and pain cutting into her side, but that paled in comparison to the piece of torn steel that went whizzing over her head like a highly illegal frisbee, smashing into one of the marble columns hard enough to leave a cannonball-sized dent.

She turned, and saw Isabel stalking across the ground. There was blood on the side of her face, a dark line running from one eardrum like the scream had well and truly done its work, but that definitely wasn’t stopping her from drawing the twin swords from behind her back in a wordless threat. “Did you really think…it was going to be that easy?” she snarled.

“Oh my _god_ ,” Felicity said in frustration, because she had definitely, definitely been here before.

Sebastian raised the gun, a weapon that looked worryingly ineffective in comparison to the vials of the Mirakuru cure that were out of reach, at least until they made it to the car. But that was time they didn’t have, and every millisecond brought a homicidal Isabel closer to setting Slade’s plan back on track.

It was the kind of math that Felicity hated to do, so it surprised her when Sebastian, of all people, got there first. “Get out of here,” he said to Felicity, not taking his eyes off Isabel. “Find your friends.”

“Sebastian,” Felicity said, but he fired a shot at Isabel that landed the same way a bullet landed in concrete, barely slowing her down.

His expression remained deathly calm, even as the light caught on the swords at her side. “Keys are in the ignition,” he said. “I’ll keep her busy.”

Felicity grabbed his elbow. “She’ll kill you,” she said, because now was _not_ the time for last-minute heroics. “Sebastian, if that happens, you won’t get to build that new world. This isn’t the way — just like Slade wasn’t the way. _Don’t do this_.”

Sebastian shot at Isabel again, bullets turned to sparks on the flashing metal, and he turned to Felicity with a ghost of a smile. “That’s why I’m trusting the Arrow to build it for me,” he said. “Because he never stops fighting. It’s why you love him, right?”

Felicity felt her insides twist, knowing what was going to happen next. Sebastian nodded, as though he’d understood. “Tell Oliver I’m sorry,” he said. “For his mother, his sister, for how things turned out. I never wanted _this_. I just wanted a better world. A better Starling.”

“Sebastian —”

“Goodbye, Miss Smoak,” he said, with finality.

Isabel launched herself at them and Sebastian twisted at the last minute, shoving Felicity clear. Blood splattered the floor in a single ruthless slash, and Isabel’s eyes gleamed, her swords embedded hilt-deep in Sebastian’s chest, the wickedly curved blades protruding from the other side, black with blood. Lips parted in surprise, Sebastian sank slowly, heavily, to the floor, but as Isabel tugged on her swords to get them free, his bloodstained grip wound tight around her wrists. “Go,” he hissed, the stain in his chest dark and spreading fast. “ _GO!_ ”

Felicity ran, and she’d just made it into the car when the body crashed through what remained of the main doors and slid slowly, grotesquely, to a stop on the steps. Sebastian’s face was vacant in death, his arms flung out at his sides, palms raised and open to the sky, blood running down his fingers and pooling like dark glass, all while his empty hands reached silently for something that wasn’t there.

Sebastian had trusted the Arrow, trusted _her_ , in his last breath, and Felicity was going to make sure that it wouldn’t be for nothing. That after all the ugliness, the hate, and the anger, _hope_ was what mattered. Her hands were almost shaking too hard to steer, but she hit the gas and tore out of the lot, driving until Queen Consolidated vanished into the smoke and she heard only the faintest echo of a shrill scream.

* * *

A drone strike, remote and untraceable, triggered the second ARGUS satellites detected a Mirakuru soldier past the invisible boundary line.

“This,” Diggle said, “is _not_ good.”

“It’s a stalemate, Mr Diggle,” Waller said, every word dripping with disdain. “A pointless one, considering how the alternative is releasing untold destruction over the country, which — if I recall correctly — goes against your objective of _saving people_. Making this standoff completely and utterly pointless.”

“We don’t save people at the cost of a few hundred thousand each time,” Diggle said. “What you’re doing is _murder_.”

“And what you’re suggesting in the alternative is cowardice,” Waller snapped. “You may lack the conviction to do what’s necessary, Mr Diggle, but I don’t. I assumed Agent Michaels and I had that in common, though I suppose impending motherhood has a way of softening a killer instinct. Doesn’t it, Agent Michaels?”

There was a prolonged, tense pause as the words sunk in. Diggle was already looking at Lyla, questioning and disbelieving all at once, because —

“Johnny,” Lyla said, and Diggle’s expression shifted to disbelief. “Now’s not the time.”

Lawton made a sarcastic noise behind them. “Yeah, I’d say _mazel tov_ , Johnny-boy, but I have a feeling we’re all gonna want to wait and see if Starling goes up in smoke before breaking out the champagne,” he drawled.

“John,” Oliver said, but his friend was still looking at Lyla.

“I was going to tell you,” Lyla said, very calmly despite Waller’s deliberate attempt to unsettle her. “But you and the Arrow were in trouble, so I —”

“— left out the wonderful news,” Waller suggested, her smile like ice. “Ill-advised, seeing as how easily doctor’s records are accessed by interested third parties. You should be careful, Agent Michaels. Someone might try to use that information against you.”

If Oliver had been close to killing Amanda Waller a second ago, he was now actively picturing the outcome of letting the arrow gripped between his fingers fly.

“Manipulative bitch,” Helena said, not quietly at all. “Takes one to know one.”

Oliver was thinking fast. Killing Waller or threatening her wouldn’t do a damned thing, not if the drone control was off-site and out of her direct command. The computers might have an answer somewhere, and maybe Lyla could find it, but that still didn’t address the very real possibility of ARGUS falling into Slade’s hands. If his Mirakuru army could tear down a city by dawn, they’d be able to breach ARGUS defenses as a matter of inevitability, not chance.

“You and Agent Michaels will never know your child if Slade Wilson’s army takes control of ARGUS,” Waller said, each word enunciated with biting precision. “They will kill every single one of us, and decimate the world as we know it. This is the only way to ensure the safety of the many.”

“At the expense of the few,” Oliver snarled, and Waller raised her eyebrow in challenge.

“Yes, Mr Arrow,” she said, managing to make the deliberate omission of his name sound like a threat. “Surprisingly easy, isn’t it? To detach from one’s conscience. Listening to that little voice at the back of your mind, telling you where to cut. Where to twist. How to push. Not everyone can do it, and I don’t remember having a more _promising_ student.”

“Amanda, that’s _enough_!” Diggle snapped, as though he’d sensed Oliver’s grip tightening dangerously around his bow.

Before anyone could move, the lights flickered, the electricity in the room stuttering visibly for a split-second, the monitors in front of them blinking briefly to black before resuming. A power surge, or something else.

“Director Waller,” said one of the techs. A warning appeared on her monitor and vanished just as soon as it came. “We have a problem.”

Amanda glanced over her shoulder. “What?” she said.

“We have a breach,” said another tech, tapping rapidly on the keyboards as more warnings popped up and extinguished themselves. “It’s external. Security doesn’t know how, but firewalls theta through gamma are down, beta’s 78.4% compromised, and —”

For a brief, breathtaking second, Oliver knew who it was.

“ _Felicity_ ,” he said, just as the speakers crackled and a voice echoed over the open channel.

“Sorry I missed the team meeting,” she said. “It’s hard to find an un-smashed CPU downtown, but I’m guessing you knew that, Director Waller, or you wouldn’t be doing some _very_ bad things with your computers down at ARGUS.”

Diggle was grinning like Christmas had come early. “Oh my god,” he said. “Felicity, are you okay?”

“A little — worse for wear — but peachy,” she answered, sounding like she was shifting positions, wherever she was. “You?”

She didn’t sound badly hurt, but Oliver felt a stab of worry, worse than what he’d already been feeling. Felicity, alone in the middle of a war zone and injured was an image he didn’t like at all, and it was taking every bit of his self-control not to ask where she was so he could come get her. Because there was a plan to stick to, _her_ plan, and Oliver had promised he’d see it through.

Oliver took a careful step forward. “We’re all here,” he said. “The cure worked.”

Felicity’s breath stuttered briefly, and Oliver could imagine that her reaction to hearing a familiar voice was about the same as his. “That’s good news,” she said. “Because I have the rest of it with me. Thanks to Sebastian Blood. He helped me escape from Slade.”

Diggle exchanged a sharp look with Oliver, but Waller beat them to the question. “And did Mayor Blood survive this daring maneuver?” she inquired.

There was a pause. “No,” Felicity said, quiet in contrast to the static fraying down the line. “It’s just me.”

Waller gave the slightest shrug of her shoulder. “One less problem to deal with. Well, Miss Smoak, was the point of hacking into ARGUS just to let your friends know you’re alive?” she said. “That’s a waste, even for you.”

“Actually, I had a sneaky feeling ARGUS was planning something along the lines of a morally bankrupt contingency,” Felicity sniped back, just as sharp as Amanda Waller. “Though secret ARGUS drone bunkers aren’t really black sites even if you have their locations hidden in a digital lockbox.”

Even Lyla was smiling now.

“Knowing where the black site is doesn’t matter if you can’t get to it in time,” Waller answered dismissively.

“No, but I do have my hands on a lot of ARGUS files. Proprietary information. Agent ledgers. Kill counts. I’m sure there’s a legion of people interested in the shady operations of a secret government organization, and I can release all that information with the push of a button.”

Waller’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Agent Michaels would be compromised too, you wouldn’t —”

“— Felicity,” Lyla interrupted. “You have her attention.”

“Excellent. Not to sound too cyberterrorist-y, but what I want is time,” she said. “Time for my friends to stop Slade from reaching ARGUS. Give us that, and I promise that ARGUS secrets stay exactly that — secret. Not plastered all over the AM news.”

Waller was silent. “I can’t sanction that without knowing you have a plan,” she said. “And bear in mind, your plan to bury the Mirakuru already failed spectacularly this evening.”

“Well, you know what they say about the third time being the charm,” Felicity answered. “Slade has to get through the city to get to ARGUS, specifically, the Lincoln tunnel heading north. If all his other options were to be suddenly and inexplicably blocked by electrical overloads in the grid — which I’m handling right now, just BTW — I’m sure there’s an advantage in funneling them into a tight underground space, don’t you?”

Oliver couldn’t fight the smile on his face at her incorruptible brilliance, even at the worst of times. Especially now, seeing Amanda Waller being grudgingly convinced into an alternate strategy.

“You and your team have until morning,” Waller said, finally. Her stare gleamed, far from being beaten, more like she was acknowledging an adversary of note. “It seems I underestimated you, Miss Smoak.”

“You wouldn’t be the first,” said Felicity. “And guys? Not to be a downer, but I think we have some work to do.”

* * *

Tommy’s phone was dead, which was — oddly enough — on the lesser side of his problems, even though it meant he couldn’t call Thea to check if she was okay, and to ask if there’d been any Malcolm sightings. In other words, he was about to storm a hospital in search of his half-sister, surrogate wheelchair-bound mom, and the psychopathic archer dad who apparently thought a citywide siege was a good time for a family reunion.

Oh, and Tommy’s backup was a detective/significant other (since Quentin had stayed behind to coordinate the police perimeter), an old family friend with a habit for sonic shrieking, and a group of _bona fide_ , armed assassins all ready to tear the Mirakuru soldiers a whole new one.

“What the hell?” Tommy said under his breath.

Starling General, despite being _way_ off the rampaging Mirakuru soldier trajectory, looked like a war zone. The same kind of chaos that had swept a trail of overturned cars, smashed shop windows and blazing fires on the streets of Starling, it had rolled in with a vengeance, and Tommy wasn’t sure if stopping it was a remote possibility anymore.

Ambulances were parked at the front, doors hanging open, sides dented in the eerie — impossible — shape of footsteps. One of them was turned on its side, lights sparking feebly in red and blue, next to a spreading pool of water from a gushing pipe split through with a piece of street light, ripped clear of the ground. Someone had rammed a BMW into the front of the hospital, and anything north of the driver’s window was a sandwich of crushed steel. The car was empty, which was a minor relief, except for the blood smeared on the splintered windshield. No paramedics, no nurses, doctors…

Just screams, crashing, and the sound of Mirakuru soldiers tearing their way through a hospital of innocent people.

“That’s it, we’re going in there,” Tommy said. “Shoot at anything in a mask, ask questions later. Sound good to everyone?”

Sara nodded in agreement. “Slade’s trying to create maximum chaos,” she said, her staff braced at her side. “I say we make things difficult for him.”

Nyssa raised her chin. “Malcolm Merlyn is our only concern, Ta-er al-Sahfer.”

“Then protecting Thea Queen should be the priority,” McKenna said abruptly, undaunted by the look Nyssa shot at her. “Malcolm’s going after Thea. Which means it’s in everyone’s interests to make sure she’s safe.”

Tommy could have made out with her (McKenna, not Nyssa) on the spot for that, what with the cool _you-know-I’m-right_ logic and standing her ground in front of a freaking ninja assassin princess, but instead he settled for a supportive hand-raise. “What she said.”

Nyssa rolled her eyes like it was a minor inconvenience and said something in Arabic to her guards.

“Oh,” Tommy said, because this was the important part, “collateral damage, let’s keep it to a minimum, all right? No point in saving a city if there’s no one left in it.”

“Mr Merlyn, you do have a way of taking the fun out of everything,” Nyssa said.

“Call it a character defect,” Tommy muttered, as they approached the doors.

The lights in the emergency room were flickering like hell, shadows jumping across the walls alongside smears that looked nastily like blood, the smell of smoke sharp in his nose and crashes of heavy things being overturned, doors being smashed down —

Testament to how goddamn _strange_ the whole night had been that no one — out of all the terrified people racing past, nurses, doctors, security or whoever — looked around at the hooded assassins carrying swords and bows. Tommy didn’t know if that was a good or bad thing, but now was definitely not the time to psychoanalyze, what with the bunch of Mirakuru soldiers let loose in a hospital full of innocent people.

The League probably ran team drills, because everyone in armor moved seamlessly as one. Sara’s sonic emitter slid across the floor and flashed a blinding white, the scream echoing inside the closed space. Tommy grabbed McKenna and yanked her out of the way at the last second, shielding her from the worst of the exploding glass behind them.

Nyssa and her guard were already moving. Like sharks scenting blood in the water, the sound had drawn the Mirakuru soldiers towards them, silently appearing from rooms, corridors, and stairwells. At some unspoken signal, the soldiers started running, and Nyssa shouted an order that made Tommy reach for an arrow and McKenna raise her gun.

Sara somersaulted over the first one that came her way with a yell, Bo staff a dark blur, sweeping another’s feet straight from under him and twisting her staff to dislocate elbows and knees. While she fought, Nyssa swept in to guard Sara’s back, loosing black arrows with ruthless speed.

Clearly they were better at the _being lethal_ part, which left Tommy and McKenna (AKA the normal-ish ones) with fire and rescue. “Civilians at your seven!” he said, firing arrows at the Mirakuru soldiers to slow them down while McKenna got people out the door and sent them to the safe perimeter.

“Tommy!” McKenna tapped him on the shoulder and he turned, shooting in the same breath. His arrow found the Mirakuru thug’s shoulder, which slowed him down about zero percent, but then McKenna leaned past him to fire at the fluorescent panel hanging from the ceiling, shooting through the wires holding it up. The panel swung down like a wrecking ball and smashed head-on into the Mirakuru soldier, shorting out with a shower of white sparks and the smell of barbecue.

“You couldn’t have done that earlier?” Tommy said, and McKenna, sooty and smiling, pulled him in by the front of his jacket and kissed him.

It wasn’t exactly a collision, and it wasn’t exactly graceful, but Tommy kissed McKenna back in the middle of that hospital hallway, not entirely sure why she’d chosen to do it. Pretty much like the first time she’d surprised him with a kiss, a slow count to three to steady his nerves before Moira's trial. Granted, this was a few notches (or ten) higher than a murder trial and an _ass_ of a state prosecutor, but Oliver and Felicity were living, ridiculously cute proof that normalcy and timing was overrated.

Really, hugely overrated, because there was no such thing as a one-hundred-percent guarantee and if seeing his badass girlfriend take out a Mirakuru soldier and save his life wasn’t good enough, he didn’t know what was.

“I think I might love you,” Tommy said, despite the part of him yelling internally about homicidal maniacs and choosing the right moments for big stuff. L-word stuff. “I was planning to say it some other time — maybe without the city on fire? — but just in case, I wanted you to…hear it. From me.”

McKenna’s eyes had widened a little at the big L-word, and Tommy’s heart did a nervous kind of flip, but she erased those doubts when she leaned up and pressed her lips to his all over again, setting off a hundred lights behind his eyes. “I love you, Tommy Merlyn,” she murmured. “Now go and find your sister, but don’t you _dare_ forget to come back.”

Always thinking about saving the world. Tommy grinned and kissed her back, light and easy, because it was a weight off his shoulders to hear her say the words back. “Promise.”

Their hands slipped apart as McKenna let him go, and Tommy broke into a run. A Mirakuru soldier took a swing at him, but he skidded underneath the reach of his arm and skewered the back of his foot with an arrow. Achilles tendon, _maybe_. Tommy could hear McKenna firing her gun, cool and calm even in the middle of freaking chaos, right before he ducked into the stairwell and took the steps three at a time.

Moira’s hospital room was on the third floor, and Tommy was ready for a fight when he eased open the stairwell door. The hinges creaked, and just like a horror movie, shadows appeared instantly on the walls, like zombies triggered by the noise. “Goddammit,” he muttered, reaching for his quiver.

Tommy dropped to one knee and fired off an arrow that burst into smoke, engulfing the figures in the narrow corridor. He tackled the first one that came within punching distance and stabbed an arrow somewhere that _definitely_ had to hurt, breaking into a sprint because speed was the only way he was going to stay alive.

He skidded around a corner and there it was. Except for the a guy in a nightmare mask (who was about twice his size even before the psychopath serum) with his arm punched straight through the door like it was IKEA furniture, and Tommy forgot the part about being nice to brainwashed zombies when he heard Thea scream. “Hey, jackass!” he shouted, and the Mirakuru soldier whirled.

Just in time to intercept an electro-shock arrow to the gut.

Tommy left him sprawled on the ground to leap over the door wreckage and the makeshift furniture barricade, without thinking he needed a greeting (or a trumpeter to announce his presence). Until a heavy vase came flying towards his head and Tommy caught Thea by the wrist before she could fracture his skull like Humpty Dumpty. “Whoa kiddo, it’s _me_ ,” he said, yanking back the hood.

Thea dropped the vase and it shattered, just missing his toes. “Tommy?”

“ _Tommy_ ,” Moira said, sounding a lot like mom who’d just found out her kid was risking his life during a pretty dangerous citywide assault.

“Hey,” he said lamely, as Thea launched herself onto him in a hug, and her arms — how were they so skinny but _that_ painful? — threatened to squeeze the breath out of him. “So the city’s gone to hell, would’ve called sooner, but my phone died.”

“What are you doing here?” Moira seemed to forget that she couldn’t climb out of her hospital bed without assistance, and she grabbed at the nightstand for support. “I thought you and Oliver were —”

“Change of plan,” Tommy said, wishing he'd thought to prepare a handy bullet-point summary for handing out to all relevant parties. “Sara — you remember Sara, right? — well, she’s back in town, and the reason Ra’s-Demonhead-al-Ghul let her out of Tibet is because of a pesky rumor that their top _persona non grata_ — AKA my dad — is _also_ back in town. Long story short, there’s an assassin death squad looking for him, and we’re here because we think he’s headed your way.”

“Wait, _Malcolm_?” Thea said, which was a completely understandable double-take. “But why here?”

Moira shook her head. “Tommy’s right,” she said, her hands twisting together. “Malcolm wanted me to tell you the truth for a reason. He might have thought this was an opportunity to see that happen.”

“— oh, that’s old news,” Thea said, glaring pointedly at the pieces of broken vase on the ground. “And he’ll be seeing something a lot more painful if I ever get my hands on him.”

“Ditto,” Tommy said, scooping Moira off the bed before she could even try to suggest they leave her behind. “We’re getting the hell out of here. Mirakuru soldiers are a big no-no on Health & Safety for hospitals. We’ll get you to the SCPD; let me worry about Malcolm.”

Not having hands free for his bow definitely wasn’t an ideal situation for Tommy, what with the super-strength psychopaths possibly lurking around the next corner, but Thea couldn’t carry Moira on her own, and a wheelchair was out of the question with the debris on the ground. Which left Thea holding onto his bow as they exited into the hallway, with Tommy very, _very_ wary of unwelcome distractions. About two seconds later, they were rewarded with something worse. An MRI machine came hurtling towards them like a high-speed train on collision course, and Tommy tucked and rolled just in time, huddled over Moira to protect her from the debris when it smashed into the wall behind them. He felt a sharp edge cut into his back, and the arrows spill from his quiver from the sudden maneuver, rolling across the floor.

Thea had taken cover on the other side of the corridor, and she was still clutching the bow, staring at the Mirakuru soldier who’d locked onto them. “Tommy!”

“We’re okay!” he shouted back.

“Tommy, _go_ ,” Moira said to him, her hands on his shoulders, pushing. “Take Thea and go. I’m only a burden, just —”

Tommy stopped Moira with a hand on her face, because she’d been his mother for about two decades, and he wasn’t going to repay her by abandoning her in a life-or-death situation when there was still every chance to fight back. “Don’t even think about it,” he said, scanning the floor for something he could use.

Which was how Tommy saw a smaller hand snag one of the fallen arrows, fitting it into his bow. Then, Thea Dearden Queen — archery champion for about seven summers running since sixth grade — drew back the bowstring with an arrow pointed at the advancing Mirakuru soldier, standing straight and tall like she was born to be a badass.

“Not a chance, asshole,” she said, and fired.

In her defence, even Tommy could barely remember the color-coding on arrows, but the projectile exploded in the Mirakuru soldier’s face and sent him flying. Thea went white at the (awesome) show of violence, and Tommy whooped. Oliver probably would have throttled him for letting Thea anywhere near a bow, but he whooped anyway, because that was what brothers did when their little sisters did something completely and unexpectedly beyond the realm of spectacular.

“Look out!” Moira said, and Tommy caught a fist between his forearms, before it could punch a hole straight through him. Surprise, surprise, another Mirakuru zombie. They hit the floor with enough force to rattle Tommy’s teeth, a pair of concrete fists about two inches away from breaking his neck.

“Speedy!” Tommy shouted. “Bow!”

She slid it towards him and he kicked both feet into the Mirakuru soldier’s chest, giving himself the second he needed to snatch the bow off the ground. Tommy’s fingers found an arrow and he fired it at the soldier’s face without hesitation. It burst into a weighted wire that zipped tight around the thug’s throat, but that wouldn’t do much against super-strength.

A shadow appeared on the floor, and Tommy looked around just in time to see a dark shape smash straight through the window and roll across the floor in a blur of red.

It wasn’t human, definitely, definitely not —

Legs and arms spun out, along with an arrow or two in there, and Tommy didn’t realize what he was looking at until Roy-freaking-Harper somersaulted off the floor and dropkicked the Mirakuru soldier straight through the broken window.

Unnecessary and effortless gymnastics, definitely a Roy Harper signature. Except the last time Tommy checked, Roy was still supposed to be on the Mirakuru and — for lack of a better word — completely banana-balls crazy.

“Roy?” Thea croaked, but Tommy held out a hand to keep her back.

He approached Roy first, stepping carefully in front of Thea and Moira, just in case. “You in there?” Tommy said tentatively, braced for the worst, but still, in spite of everything, hoping.

Roy pushed back the hood, and the gaze that found Tommy’s was steady and sure, miles of blue and not a hint of crazy psycho in sight. It was Roy Harper all right, half firecracker and half wise-ass, all the way. “One hundred percent,” he answered. “Sorry I’m late.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, Felicity saved herself. Psh. As if it was going any other way.  
> I also changed Slade's plan, don't hate me. I do what I can.  
> I'm not gonna lie that listening to the Thor Ragnarok original soundtrack really helped things along, no clue why.  
> I was only half-kidding when I said Christmas. Here's hoping I'm still alive by then. Stay awesome, people! All the good vibes in the world, and cheers :)  
> \- ChronicOlicity


	45. All Hell (The Unthinkable, Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoop! Made it before Christmas, and with a non-bummer of a chapter (I may or may not have the next one written up and...uh...it's probably better to get the happy update first). Hope you guys have a great holiday, and freakin' finally Olicity's married on the show. About damn time.
> 
> Thanks for all the comments and positive vibes, and thank you for sticking with the story so far. Won't be long until the end :)

“Subway tunnel through Lawson Avenue just went down,” Diggle reported, his voice clear and steady over the comms. “Lyla says it wasn’t ARGUS.”

Oliver suppressed a smile. He was on a rooftop, and he fired an arrow into the base of a utility pole, sending it careening towards the bridge with a groan of bending metal, loose wires sparking from the live electricity. The zone was cleared of civilians, and now it was a matter of making sure the Mirakuru soldiers couldn’t pass through. “Just finishing up here,” he said, signaling at the water main.

Beside him, Helena armed her crossbow, and Oliver broke off from what he was doing to take her elbow and correct her aim, away from the ARGUS strike agents she’d surreptitiously slipped into her line of fire. He narrowed his eyes at her, and she responded with a shrug. “Oops,” she said. “No one mentioned their uniforms weren’t shockproof.”

“That’s not funny,” Oliver said.

Helena stared down the body of her crossbow, lithe and dangerous as a hunter. “Depends on how you look at it,” she breathed, with a slow smile.

They shot at the same time, and the pipe exploded, blasting a white waterfall across the bridge. The water hummed when it came into contact with the wires, forming a closed circuit and a surefire reason for Mirakuru soldiers not to use the bridge, not unless Slade wanted a few thousand volts in their systems, the same as Cyrus Gold.

“Property damage and electrocution,” Helena remarked, tilting her head to one side as she surveyed the scene below. “You always did know how to show a girl a good time.”

“This probably isn’t any of my business,” Diggle said, “but are you capable of making wisecracks that _don’t_ have anything to do with the fact that you two used to date?”

“What’s wrong, Diggle?” Helena answered. “Worried I’ll hurt Felicity’s feelings?”

“Actually, I think she’ll be fine,” Diggle said. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

Helena laughed, sliding a fresh round of bolts into her crossbow. “Now _that_ , I’d like to see.”

Oliver rolled his eyes. “Digg, can you handle Task Force X and the others?” he said. “I’m heading out.”

“Actually, I’m coming your way.”

Oliver paused, because he could just about pick up the sound of a helicopter getting closer. He lifted his head, his hand to his ear. “John, you don’t —”

“You didn’t really think I was letting you go at it alone, right?” Diggle said, as the searchlight cut through the clouds and Oliver shielded his eyes from the glare.

A line dropped down for him, and a few ARGUS agents rappelled down, giving him terse nods. Helena raised an eyebrow. “Babysitters, really?”

Oliver coiled the line around his fist and stepped back. “Really,” he answered, and swore he heard Diggle chuckle before they took off.

* * *

Felicity shifted the bunched-up t-shirt she’d pressed to her side, feeling one-handedly to check if the blood had soaked through the Tech Village blue. Given the extremely dubious traffic conditions in downtown Starling, what with the super-strong zombies chasing anything that moved, getting into a car at all was definitely taking a risk, much less lifting one hand off the wheel to check herself for internal bleeding.

A teeny bit melodramatic? Maybe. Especially since she hung out with people like Sara and Oliver, who taught the unofficial and highly unlicensed masterclass on beating up thugs while sporting cracked ribs and bruised spleens.

Felicity could handle this.

Her hand came away sticky instead of damp, which was probably a good thing. The bleeding had stopped, and the cut wasn’t deep. Felicity was pretty sure she’d gotten the glass fragments out clean, though without the help of some x-rays and a clinical willingness to poke around herself (ha, dirty), it was still a guessing game.

But she was officially off _Hostage_ duty, and Slade Wilson had another think coming if he thought getting to ARGUS was going to be a piece of cake. Felicity was following everyone’s progress on a tablet borrowed from the Tech Village store she’d maybe, slightly, broken into. Even though — and this was important — any breaking was completely, one-hundred-percent metaphorical, since all she’d done was patch through the security lock and let herself in. She’d also limited her borrowing to a first aid kit and the sturdiest tablet they had in stock, in exchange for a completely solemn promise to wire an anonymous donation back to the store once all this was over.

Granted, the business minds behind Tech Village probably envisioned their computers being used for _Call of Duty_ or _World of Warcraft_ , not satellite hacking and general firewall impropriety. Amanda Waller probably called it treason; Felicity called it a hobby. Another hobby was repurposing computers for her more specialized interests, and she’d been rewiring computers since she was old enough to grip a pair of pliers. There wasn’t a whole lot she could do outside of seriously pumping up the software, but then again, recently jailbroken hostages couldn’t be choosers.

Better to channel that anger against ( _ow_ ) Slade Wilson, which was the burning thought in Felicity’s mind when her hack into the municipal mainframe flooded chunks of the underground sewer system and electrified the subway tunnels that had been shut down since the crisis, an inch-by-inch effort to make sure that the only way left for the Mirakuru soldiers to reach ARGUS was through Lincoln tunnel.

“Felicity, it’s working,” Diggle said over the comms. “I have no idea what you’re doing, but keep doing it.”

Felicity grinned. “It’s the only time I get to do this without becoming a super-villain,” she said, while another one of her hacks went off with a small blip. “Or, y’know — Amanda Waller.”

Diggle made an appreciative noise. “Oh, she wishes,” he said. “But more importantly, you okay?”

Felicity immediately sat a little straighter, perking up to make sure he didn’t hear how much she wished she had a couple of aspirin, or something a little stronger. “All green here,” she said, squinting through the thick smog, tinted orange from the fires, that hung low over the road and buildings, leaving about ten feet of visibility either way. “Well, orange. Literally. But I’m en route to you guys with the cure, and I’m not gonna jinx it by saying the obvious. What about you and Lyla? _Mazel tov_ , by the way.”

She heard Diggle’s chuckle and smiled. “We’re good, thanks,” he said. “Though I’ll be honest, finding out through my girlfriend’s sociopathic boss wasn’t exactly how I imagined it.”

“Details,” Felicity said, and he chuckled again. “How’s Oliver? You’re keeping an eye on him, right? With his knee and everything, the schematics for the chip were back on my other tablet and I’m not sure how well they mesh on the one I have now —”

“Felicity,” Diggle said, sounding infinitely amused. “Do you really think that Oliver’s anywhere near Lincoln tunnel right now?”

“ _What?_ ”

Before Diggle could answer, Felicity saw a shape loom out of the smoke and yanked at the wheel, swerving hard to avoid it. She had her seatbelt on (of course), but the momentum still threw her against the side of the car, and her earpiece went bouncing somewhere into the backseat. The briefcase with the cure slammed against her knee, hard enough to bruise, and Felicity stared at the roadblock, her heart in her throat. It was a twisted streetlight and what looked like a whole corner torn straight off a building. No Mirakuru soldiers…

 _Yet_.

A dark figure landed silently on the heap of concrete and bricks. Another dropped onto the side of an overturned van, shattering the windows. Felicity let loose a string of bad words and stepped hard on the gas, laying about twenty feet of rubber to concrete as she raced out of the intersection. The car screeched down the street, and Felicity kept shooting glances in the rearview mirror as she drove. She didn’t know if Slade could program the Mirakuru soldiers like homing pigeons, or if this was just another unfortunate run-in tacked on to a _spectacular_ streak of good luck, but Felicity wasn’t going quietly. Not a chance in hell.

Felicity wasn’t the getaway driver in most situations; she was better behind a keyboard sounding out instructions with the aid of virtual maps and helpful CCTV access. _This_ was enough adrenaline to make her feel nauseous, and when the back bumper of a semi came whizzing towards her like a boomerang, Felicity instinctively jerked at the wheel and crashed side-first into something very, very solid, with enough force off the ricochet for the car to leave the ground. It was a second of sickening weightlessness before she hit the asphalt — hard — and spun, leaving a shower of sparks in her wake.

Her ears were ringing, and Felicity couldn’t breathe from the smoke, the seatbelt cutting into her chest, cutting off circulation.

Her first thought was _the cure_.

The second was _something’s definitely broken_.

Footfalls on concrete, over the debris, reminding her that there was every reason to get the hell out before she went straight back to square one.

Felicity’s fingers felt numb as they dug into the seatbelt and shoved at the jammed buckle until it finally let her loose, the small impact of landing upside-down on the roof of the overturned car setting off tiny lights inside her skull. The briefcase with the cure was inches from her fingertips, but pain radiated up her left arm when she tried to reach for it, and the footsteps were getting closer…

The door on the passenger’s side flew off with a shriek of metal, and the Mirakuru mask appeared in the gap, dead eyes and grating breath as his hand went for her throat. Felicity twisted away with a scream, grasping painfully at the briefcase for the cure —

“ _Hey!_ ”

She froze, because that sounded a _lot_ like John-middle-name-she’d-forgotten-in-the-panic-Diggle. Which wasn’t possible, because he was supposed to be at the Lincoln tunnel with Oliver, definitely not in downtown Starling, taking on a few Mirakuru soldiers.

There were a series of gunshots, rapid-fire and precision-aimed, followed by a near-silent _snick_ like a wire drawing tight around someone’s throat, and a faint grunt like it had shot the target straight from the ground. One soldier down. Metal thunked somewhere, and there was a pause, along with the familiar sound of a countdown trigger on an arrowhead she’d helped design. Three. Two.

 _One_.

Felicity ducked against the burst of white sparks, but she still heard the last Mirakuru soldier crash through what sounded like a very, very big window. A second later, someone dropped in front of the car, someone a hell of a lot better.

“Felicity?” Oliver said, and she made a sound — croaked it out, mostly relief and disbelief and _ow, that really hurts_ — and reached instinctively for him. It hurt worse than making a grab for the case, muscle and bone in her arm protesting at the strain, but all Felicity could see was Oliver’s outstretched hand in front of her. Their fingers caught and twisted tight, and Felicity didn’t regret it a single bit. She just wanted to make sure he was there, really, _really_ , and he was.

He didn’t seem keen on letting go anytime soon either.

“Oliver,” she said, and he held onto her hand while Diggle heaved at the overturned car, giving her a foot or two of extra crawlspace. Felicity hissed in pain when she put her weight on the wrong elbow, and Oliver immediately crouched behind her shoulders and eased her out of the wreck with painstaking gentleness.

“Don’t move,” he said, leaning her weight against his while he felt her arm for fractured bones. “I think something might be br—”

Yeah, that wasn’t happening. Felicity’s vision was still spinning, but as soon as she managed to stagger upright (fine, Oliver helped), she nearly knocked them both flat again by grabbing the front of his suit and yanking him down towards her.

Which wasn’t graceful, at all, but then Oliver’s mouth was on hers, reciprocating in kind, and Felicity pressed back, hard enough to hurt, until she couldn’t breathe and she was only mostly sure that it was to do with the car crash, not because she really should have been taking it easy with the making out.

But Felicity didn’t give a damn, because the last time she’d seen him had been right before a katana-swinging psychopath booted him out a thirty-something-floor-window, and judging by the amount of grime, explosive-tainted smoke and blood on the two of them, they’d been through hell. Even if they weren’t all the way done with the round-trip from said hell, _this_ — inclusive of her blowing up Queen Consolidated with a sonic scream and punching his psychopathic ex-mentor in the nose — deserved one whopper of a reward kiss.

Felicity finally let the both of them come up for air, her hands on his face. “You’re okay,” she breathed, a little redundantly.

Oliver nudged at her forehead. “I said I’d come back for you,” he murmured, his voice cracking just enough to make Felicity’s vision blur with tears.

“Came for you first,” she said back, leaning a little more heavily into him because everything was _really_ starting to hurt by now.

There was a discreet cough, and Felicity looked around. “I helped, you know,” Diggle said, pulling the QC briefcase from the car and brushing off the broken glass. “I’d kiss you too, but I already used up my free pass on Oliver.”

“ _Digg._ ” Felicity made a clumsy attempt at a hug, dampened by the fact that her limbs didn’t seem all that wiling to cooperate, and Oliver caught her before she fell straight over. “You guys shouldn’t have come all the way out here. That wasn’t part of the plan. What about the Huntress? And Deadshot?”

“Lyla’s got them,” Diggle said, inspecting her left wrist. “And I really don’t like the look of that. We need to get you to medical.”

Oliver nodded and bent to scoop Felicity up in his arms, who immediately saw a problem with that, because extra weight, a bad knee and maxed-out microchip equaled _bad_. “Oliver, I can walk on my own,” she protested, even though he was already swinging her up, his bow handed off to Diggle.

“Trust me, I offered,” Diggle said, leading the way with a resigned shake of his head.

“Sorry,” Oliver said, breathing a little faster like carrying her was putting more pressure on the chip in his knee…and/or whatever injuries he was pretending not to notice. “I know you hate it when we don’t listen to you.”

“Actually, I’m having mixed feelings about that one,” Felicity admitted, leaning her head on his shoulder.

Oliver smiled. “Later,” he said, like he knew what she was thinking.

* * *

Tommy coughed a little, just to make it extra obvious that Roy and Thea weren’t alone and free to express their relief, adolescent hormones — or anything else that involved mind-scarring amounts of physical affection. Because _gross_.

“Guys,” he said, as the phone he’d borrowed off Moira continued to try and get through to his asshat best friend, who _so_ owed him a call, by the way.

They were in the wrecked precinct, since cleared of Mirakuru soldiers and retaken for the purposes of a safe perimeter. Moira was in the break room with Quentin and McKenna and what felt like half of the non-Mirakuru population, while Tommy and Roy were hiding out in an office on the highest floor — because mingling with Starling City's finest while hooded up was pushing their luck, even if vigilantes were kinda the MVPs of the situation.

“So the super-strength, the creepy…appear-out-of-nowhere stuff — it’s all gone?” Thea said, chafing at the sleeve of Roy’s hoodie.

“Just the jumping around and the archery now,” Roy answered, looking unsure of himself, pretty much the only time he didn’t bother putting up a cocky pretense. “If you’re okay with that.”

“You forgot the snark,” Thea said, and pulled him into a hug.

Tommy was in the middle of making a grossed out face when the line suddenly connected. “Mom?” Oliver sounded worried, because Moira calling him out of nowhere was probably a bad sign, under the circumstances. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, thank god,” Tommy said, and switched the phone to speaker. “Okay, lightning round. Speedy and Roy are both here, we’re all at the 52nd precinct. Moira’s fine, she’s with Quentin downstairs, and no one’s missing any limbs, you _jackass_.”

“I’m a little busy, Tommy,” Oliver said, with his classic sensitivity. “Felicity’s hurt — Digg thinks her arm might be broken —”

There was a minor scuffle on the other end, like Felicity had heard. “I’m fine,” she insisted. “It’s nothing.”

“Wait, wait,” Tommy said, waving a hand even though no one on the other end could see him. “ _Hurt?_ What the hell happened?”

“We’ll explain later, but we’re setting up an ambush for Slade at Lincoln tunnel,” Diggle interrupted, because conference calls were apparently something they all did now. “Get your asses here and help.”

“Please,” Felicity added. “He meant _please_.”

“You guys can use my place,” Roy volunteered. “ARGUS is too far away, and I’ve got a ton of med stuff stashed away in the closet. Thea made me stock up when she thought I was still beating up muggers in the Glades.”

“Yeah, and you didn’t stop,” Thea muttered. “Ollie, there’s something else. Malcolm’s in Starling — that’s why Sara brought her girlfriend back, and a whole bunch of assassins. Like, _real_ ones. They’re here to hunt him down. Be careful.”

Oliver said a bad word that sounded like Russian, which Tommy empathized with on a highly personal level. “Language,” he muttered anyway, because big brothers and stuff.

“Speedy, stay at the precinct with mom, okay?” Oliver said. “I promise I’ll come get you when it’s over, but I can’t worry about you and stop Slade.”

“I understand,” Thea said, exchanging a glance with Roy. “Be careful, okay?”

“I will.”

Tommy nodded. “We’ll see you in a bit,” he said, and hung up.

Before he’d even opened his mouth for the inevitable goodbye, Thea walked over to hug him. “Gotta save the world, right?” she said, with a wry smile. “I kinda missed it when you were a deadbeat bartender.”

“Excuse me, I owned half of that bar,” Tommy said, and hugged her back. “Stay away from the windows, and keep an eye on McKenna for me. She’s never met a fight she couldn’t pick.”

“Yeah, I can tell,” Thea said, her face in his shoulder. “Picks her fights with you.”

“There’s probably a bow somewhere in the evidence room,” Tommy said. “But that’s a _break glass only in case of emergencies_ -type deal, got it?”

Thea squeezed a little tighter, and Tommy took that for a yes. “Love you, kiddo,” he said, resting his chin on top of her head.

“Love you too, big brother.”

Tommy started a belated second later, because if his memory served, Thea had never called him… _that_. It was always _hey_ , or some form of affectionate nickname synonymous with _moron_ , or — if she was feeling creative — his god-given name.

Then again, Thea hadn’t found out all that long ago, and complications had sort of hit the Queen-Merlyn side of the family like a runaway freight train on greased tracks.

It didn’t happen often, but it was Tommy’s turn to be speechless, and Thea, more like her brother than she realized, had an uncanny intuition for reading between the lines (or stunned silences). “I still need you and Ollie,” she murmured. “So come home, okay?”

Tommy dropped a kiss at the top of her head. “Cross my heart.”

* * *

“Roy’s place looked a lot — _ow_ — bigger the last time I was here,” Felicity said, as Oliver set her down on the sagging leather sofa that had probably seen better days at the local thrift store.

At least she _hoped_ Roy had paid for it. Not the other thing that he was pretty well-known for doing around these parts, something that rhymed with _schmealing_.

“Check for injuries,” Diggle said, brushing past them. His gun was out, and he swept the rooms with silent efficiency, checking every dark corner and slightly misshapen shadow like he fully expected Mirakuru soldiers to jump out at them.

In the meantime, Oliver eased the jacket from Felicity’s back, and he made a noise under his breath when the fabric unstuck against the cut in her side with a distinctly un-okay noise. “What happened?” he said, his voice taking on a growly edge that meant he was angry, but not at her. “Did Slade —?”

“No,” Felicity said, because she didn’t believe in apportioning false blame to someone already in the pit of seven-circled hell. “Isabel. While I was making a break for it, if you can believe that.”

Oliver bit down on the flashlight he carried with him (for some reason) and lifted the hem of her shirt, folding it back to get a better look at the cut. Felicity shivered at the brush of cold air against her exposed stomach, but the beam stayed steady on the wound. It definitely didn’t win any awards for impressiveness, the last time Felicity checked. A couple inches of cut flesh, a little ragged on the edges from the glass.

“It’s not bad,” she repeated, and he gave her a look, removing the flashlight from his teeth.

“When has that ever worked on you?” he asked, and Felicity gave him a look that matched his sarcasm down to the decimal point.

“Now you know how it feels to be me,” she said.

Diggle emerged from Roy’s bedroom with an armful of gauze and a first-aid kit. “Power’s out,” he said to them, peering over Oliver’s shoulder at the cut. “Doesn’t look like there’s any glass in there, but I’d feel better about double-checking.”

Times like these reminded Felicity that Diggle had gone from field medicine in Afghanistan to patching up a billionaire client more interested in getting between hostile gunfire than being safely bodyguarded, now doing emergency first-aid on his nerd friend in an unlit apartment on the worst side of town, in the middle of a genuine life-or-death crisis for the city they all lived in.

Jeez, things escalated fast around here.

“Knock yourself out,” Felicity grunted. “Actually, I meant me. Knock me out before you do any surgical rummaging, because I might ralph all over you if I see a pair of forceps anywhere near that cut.”

“Roy’s a little short on the pharmaceuticals,” Diggle said, passing her a handful of pills and a chipped mug of lukewarm water instead. “Power’s out. Water’s still going, but the pressure’s not going higher than a drip. Took me about five minutes to get that, so drink up.”

“We really need to give Roy a raise,” Felicity said, and Oliver shook his head at her, probably for the transparent attempt at lightening the situation.

Diggle’s steady hand felt the length of her bad arm and shoulder (Felicity tried very hard not to hiss between her teeth there). “Breathe,” he said, his fingertips pressing lightly on the inside of her forearm. There was a bruise starting to form near the base of her hand, pink and swollen underneath the skin. “Okay. It’s probably a broken wrist, but the good news is, I can’t feel any bones out of alignment. Which is good, because I was always terrible at setting broken legs back in Afghanistan. Right now we need to splint that arm, and a sling to stop you from moving it —”

Felicity nearly inhaled her mouthful of water, shaking her head at Diggle’s (very valid) medical advice. “Nope, not happening,” she said, sitting a little straighter despite Oliver attempting to keep her still. “I can’t hack with one arm in a sling. I say wrap it up really, _really_ tight and stick a tongue depressor in there — or a few chopsticks — whatever boy scouts use for emergency splints.”

“Felicity,” Oliver said, his eyes doing that pinpointed focus thing when he was extra-worried. “Your wrist is _broken_. You’re not supposed to move a broken wrist.”

“ _Tcha_. Double standard,” Felicity retorted. “You guys go back out into the field with cracked ribs. Why is me saying I can handle this any different?”

“Because,” Diggle said, even though he was already pulling out a fresh roll of gauze bandages for her arm, “we usually have a dose or two of lidocaine in our systems. But assuming you’re about twice as stubborn as Oliver on a bad day, I don’t see the point in putting you in a sling unless you’re gonna stay in it.”

“Ha,” Felicity said triumphantly, and popped the pills — ibuprofen, aspirin, unicorn dust, _whatever_ — into her mouth and swallowed. “Alright. Fix me up, doc.”

“I hate being you,” Oliver said, to nobody in particular. “I hate it.”

* * *

The cut wasn’t deep, about level with her lowest rib on the right side, and Oliver had checked — thoroughly — for glass fragments before he began to suture. The bleeding had stopped, but he had a feeling it would scar, about four inches across and a serrated edge.

Yet another reason why he had a score to settle with Isabel Rochev.

Felicity refused to put her fractured wrist in a sling when she needed both hands to use her computer, and the casing of bandages, splints, and tape was wrapped tight around her palm and forearm like a protective glove, keeping her from moving the bone as much as possible. It was curled against her chest now, but Oliver’s throat still got tight whenever he looked at it, even while his head was bent to finish the sutures.

“You know, when I imagined the big reunion — with you and me, I mean — pulling up my shirt did kinda figure into that equation, but I’m not sure about the blood and needles,” Felicity said, tapping the fingers of her good hand lightly on her exposed stomach while he stitched.

Oliver pressed on the skin above her hipbone to steady her, and felt Felicity shiver. Her bare skin against his fingertips was a hypersensitive combination, like those tense, unbearable hours of not knowing whether the other was alive had put them on a strange wavelength of being acutely aware of each other, now that they were face to face. It set off a multitude of possibilities he knew she had to be considering as well, even as a matter of instinct, but he tamped them down. They had a plan, they were together, and there were miles to go before they could think about anything else.

Felicity looked towards the door again. Diggle was on perimeter, or so he said. Oliver couldn’t rule it out completely, because Roy’s apartment had a front door that creaked and windows that looked like they’d been jimmied dozens of times from would-be burglars. But there was a decent chance that Diggle wanted the privacy. His, so that he could call Lyla (even though it was an established fact that she didn’t need to be checked up on, pregnancy or not), and maybe so his friends could have a minute alone too.

The power was still out, and turning on the lights would have been a risk anyway. Any illumination was confined to the small cluster of candles set on the table near the sofa and the floor so that Oliver could see what he was suturing.

The candlelight was softer, more forgiving. It made the warmth in Felicity’s skin show, which was an indescribable level of reassuring, after everything they’d been through. Oliver tied off the last suture and dabbed iodine around the site, just to be extra sure, before he pasted a sterile bandage in place. His hand followed the curve of Felicity’s waist as he smoothed down the gauze, and her breath hitched just a little.

Felicity brushed the inside of Oliver’s arm, and the palm of her good hand found his, their fingers threading together.

“I’m really glad you’re okay,” she said, and Oliver impulsively pressed a kiss to the back of her knuckles, holding tight.

“I always am,” he said, but the reassurance felt hollow, and Felicity’s gaze was darker than usual when it found his.

“Seemed like you wouldn’t be,” she whispered, and Oliver knew just how afraid she’d been. “For a second.”

Oliver felt his expression shift, and he rose slowly, pausing for a moment that wasn’t hesitation — but reverence, making sure it was really happening — before he kissed her, and Felicity reached up to cup his face in her hand, bringing him closer still. There was a tremor in her touch, and Oliver sensed the same in himself, and the kiss lingered, a warmth spreading that dulled the pain and aches into something a little better.

“You used the cure on Roy,” she said, and it felt like they were trading secrets again, whispers and smiles in the half-light. “You broke into ARGUS.”

“Your plan,” he said, helping Felicity shift so they could both sit on the couch. “I was just following my orders.”

Felicity curled up close to him, her legs across his lap and his arm behind her shoulders. “I didn’t even leave you a note,” she said, still sounding surprised. “I just left you a dose of the cure. No instructions, no concept art — which, note to self, we should totally and completely consider — and you still did all of it. I know it sounds like I’m high on pain meds, but I think I’m about to self-combust with pride. And also worried about my spot as _Second Most Mature in the Team_.”

Oliver didn’t need to ask who was the defending champion, given how much their mission at ARGUS owed to Diggle having the foresight to stay on target. “John and Lyla helped,” he said, because it was true. “I wanted to storm Queen Consolidated to get you back the second I woke up.”

Felicity’s palm ran up and down his sides, like she was looking for something, telltale signs of a bandage beneath his suit. She found it in less than ten seconds, a hint of sterile gauze from the tear in the leather, and her expression turned serious. “How bad?”

“Had worse,” Oliver told her, again with complete honesty. “And I would’ve traded anything if it meant you were safe.”

Felicity hit him lightly on the chest with her good arm, and her fingers curled in the front of his suit to give him a shake, gentle but firm. “Sometimes I wish you weren’t such a hero,” she whispered, because their faces were just inches apart.

“The feeling’s mutual,” he answered. “But I think I’ve gotten used to dating one. She’s a little too good at saving herself.”

Felicity’s smile felt like it could light the sky, or hang the stars — whatever the expression was. Either way, it made Oliver smile back, and he felt her fingertips brush the underside of his chin, tilting his mouth up to hers.

At the last second, Oliver remembered something he’d forgotten to say, even though it was very, very much implied. “I love you,” he whispered.

Felicity kissed him first, lingering there, savoring the breaths shared between them. “I love you too.”

* * *

Felicity was wearing a t-shirt she hoped was Thea Queen’s, because she’d found it during a rummage through Roy’s closet (someone was a secret fan of _Archie_ comics and strawberry yoghurt cereal bars) for something she could wear. It was the only thing her size that didn’t have cutouts in weird places or flimsy beaded straps to hold it up, making the simple v-neck and a tiny hole in the left sleeve a pretty great compromise, all things considered. Especially since the alternative was walking around in a top stained with blood that was and wasn’t hers.

“At least we match now,” Felicity said dryly, dropping the hem of the shirt to hide the bandage covering the cut, which was practically guaranteed to leave a mark after it scabbed up.

Oliver didn’t seem to find the understated humor all that amusing, what with the subject matter being Felicity’s growing collection of scars. He kept his arms folded as he stood in front of Roy’s bedroom door. “You don’t have to come with us,” he said seriously. “The cure’s plenty, and your arm —”

“— if you can do it with a hole punched in your side and a busted knee,” Felicity said, walking up to him. “I can too.”

Oliver’s gaze softened, and he let her drop a kiss on his forehead before they walked back out into the living room, where Diggle was working on transferring the Mirakuru cure to injector-tipped arrowheads and darts, the kind good for firing.

Felicity turned over one of the magazines, impressed. “Perks of having a spy girlfriend, I’m guessing,” she said, and Diggle gave a shrug of his shoulders, a proud smile on his face.

He also reached for a gun lying on the scuffed dining table and held it out, grip-first towards Felicity. “I know we didn’t exactly spend a lot of time on your shooting,” he said. “But just in case, you’d better hold onto one of these.”

Oliver’s hand was at Felicity’s back, but he didn’t say a word when she accepted the gun from Diggle, checking to make sure it was loaded like he’d taught her to. “Now that _I’m_ armed and super dangerous, what about you boys?” she said, and watched Oliver and Diggle smile.

“I haven’t said this enough,” Oliver began, “but I couldn’t be the Arrow without either of you. Thank you for staying by my side.”

Felicity leaned her cheek against Oliver’s shoulder. “Must be _Role Reversal_ night or something, because you’re making the motivational speeches, I got to be the action hero plus the crappy stunt driving, and Digg okay-ed breaking into ARGUS. I couldn’t be more proud.”

“Well, we probably wouldn’t have made it past the encryption on an ARGUS bike lock,” Diggle said, and Felicity reached for his hand.

“I guess there’s a reason the three of us make quite a team,” Oliver said quietly.

“And we’re gonna stay that way,” Diggle agreed.

Felicity nodded. “Go Team Arrow _._ ”

* * *

Not for the first time in one night, Tommy was on a roof. The bridge on top of the Lincoln tunnel, to be precise, surrounded by abandoned cars and trucks from people who’d evacuated during the crisis. Oh, and it was about two hours past his usual bedtime, and apparently there was some kind of clock on them before Amanda Waller — otherwise known as _The Absolute Worst_ — dropped enough explosives to turn the city to barbecue.

And Oliver, as usual, was _late_.

“So,” Tommy said, his arms folded in what he hoped was an intimidating way.

Helena turned her head, her attention briefly off Nyssa and the League of Assassins, which was a _whole_ other story that he was still processing. Some guy with a glowing red eyepiece like a sniper’s sight raised his eyebrow at her, the kind of look teammates would exchange if they were sizing up the competition. Or thought the competition was peanuts. “So,” she repeated, as if she’d just noticed he was there.

“You kicked me out a window,” Tommy said, because any lingering doubts about Helena’s involvement in a _Save the City_ plan was not him purely being petty.

Maybe a little, but that fall would have broken something important if Sara hadn’t jumped out and caught him at the last minute. Which reminded him —

“You again,” Helena said, directed at Sara this time, with one of those annoyingly flirtatious finger-waves that Tommy couldn’t do without coming off as a total creep. Even to his girlfriend.

The end of Sara’s Bo staff sparked on the concrete at her feet, a needless reminder that the reinforced metal had knocked out a few superhuman soldiers in its time, and would probably, most definitely, leave one hell of a mark if she took a swing at Helena Bertinelli.

 _Wow_ , this plan had not been thought all the way through.

“Your time away from Nanda Parbat seems to have been rather eventful,” Nyssa remarked, looking Helena up and down with vaguely insulting disinterest. “Another one from this MIT?”

Tommy snorted so loudly that a few birds took wing from the nearby rooftop. “Not unless the _M_ stands for _Murder_.”

“The Arrow trained her,” Sara said, with a distinctly cool look behind the black mask that made her eyes look like chips of ice. “And she tried to kill me.”

Helena shrugged. “It wasn’t personal.”

“Because you’re an A-grade professional,” Roy muttered under his breath, hands in the pockets of his red hoodie.

He’d been bouncing on his feet, raring to go since they’d gotten there. It practically gave Tommy ADHD, and it definitely didn’t help the awkward, hostility-packed waiting time to have a hothead pacing around looking like he wanted to hit something. Because that was just inspiration nobody needed.

“All right,” said Lyla, pushing off the guardrail she’d been leaning against, observer-style. “We didn’t come here to fight each other.”

In other news, she seemed very nice. Granted, Tommy had only ever met her that time the team broke into a Russian gulag to bail her out, but anyone with the kind of authority Lyla had in a single stare was good with Tommy. Also, and this was patently none of Tommy’s business, he didn’t see Diggle being the dominant one in that relationship ( _not_ that Diggle seemed to be complaining).

“We came here on a suicide mission, Chief,” said Eyepiece, drawling the words into the freezing night air. “It’s either die in a cell, or die fighting an army of super-zombies who can’t be stopped.”

“Risking your life to fight for a cause you believe in,” Lyla returned, without batting an eye. “That’s why you’re here. But ARGUS still has a cell waiting for you, if that’s what you want, Deadshot.”

 _Deadshot_. The guy — Diggle’s brother — sniper — _oh_.

Wow, this plan was sounding worse by the minute.

The tension was reaching _Thin Ice_ levels when Sara looked up suddenly, hearing something they hadn’t. “Here they come,” she said.

Lyla and the others looked in the direction she’d turned, just in time for the first gust of wind to sweep across their faces. Tommy raised a hand to shield his eyes, catching a glimpse of the zip-line blowing in the backdraft from the ARGUS chopper. Diggle slid down first, packs as big as army rucksacks on either shoulder, and he went towards Lyla without a moment’s hesitation. The latter was already walking out to meet him, and they were smiling at each other, saying things drowned out by the sound of the rotors. Oliver and Felicity dropped together next, the latter holding onto Oliver’s shoulders until they hit solid ground, and it was Tommy’s turn to move without thinking, as soon as he saw his best friend’s stupid face.

“Thank god,” he said, grabbing the both of them in a giant bearhug. “Correction — thank god that Felicity’s a genius. You moron, getting yourself kicked out a window. I should be mad, but you’re alive, and it would _totally_ defeat the purpose if I killed you—”

“— I’m glad you’re okay too,” Oliver interrupted, because the guy was nothing if not touchy-feely.

Felicity looked a little paler than before, and Oliver was definitely sticking closer and more protectively, not that she really needed it. Tommy noticed she was clutching one arm to her chest like she’d injured it somehow, but before he could ask —

“Hey,” Roy said, and Felicity ducked under Tommy’s arm to hug the scrawny kid, patting him on the head and shoulders like she expected him to be dented somewhere.

“ _Felicity_ ,” Roy muttered, like a kid getting hugged on the first day of school by an overly enthusiastic parent. A totally half-assed response from someone who totally liked hugs, but was just insecure about getting them because of his shining and cactus-like personality.

“I’m allowed,” she said into his shoulder. “You’re okay, and you kicked _ass_ out there.”

Roy reached up to pat her awkwardly on the back. “Heard you did too.”

Which was nice and all, except all the greetings and _you’re-not-dead_ stuff had to go on the back-burner, because they were all short on time. Felicity was wearing one of Oliver’s leather jackets and was probably the least armed out of them all, but when she pulled her tablet from a satchel and held it at her side, Tommy felt a little shiver of recognition. Least armed — definitely not the least dangerous.

“Okay,” she said, and even Oliver had stepped back, because this was her plan. “Thanks for coming, everyone.”

* * *

League of Assassins. ARGUS. Suicide Squad. Team Arrow.

Felicity’s fingers might have been shaking if she didn’t have them at her sides and out of sight, but she looked around the group assembled above the Lincoln tunnel, taking in faces rather than numbers, because one was more important than the other, and to use probability stats to try and predict what each of them would do —

Well, Felicity knew Waller’s mistake.

“Thanks for coming, everyone,” she said, and it definitely didn’t come out high and squeaky. Good start.

Sara smiled at her, pointing with her chin at the thigh holster Diggle had given her for emergencies. “I like the look,” she said, and Felicity glanced down.

Long story short, a shoulder holster was one limb-flailing accident waiting to happen, ditto with the back-of-belt option (worse to get at with a broken wrist), so thigh holster. Gun with Mirakuru cure darts. Tablet with satellite access and the capacity to be any cybersecurity engineer’s worst nightmare.

“Lost my _computer geek_ outfit at the dry cleaner’s,” Felicity said, and they exchanged a smile.

Sara Lance’s approval. Double-score.

Helena Bertinelli was there too, and Felicity knew that. Armored up and as lethal-looking as the last time they’d seen each other, when she’d most definitely tried to kill Felicity. Multiple times. Suffice it to say that they weren’t friends, and they definitely didn’t do mutually encouraging looks, but Felicity hadn’t backed down from Isabel Rochev, and she sure as well wasn’t going to start with Helena. So she looked the Huntress in the eye, and didn’t look away until Helena smiled to herself, always the sphinx.

Fair enough. Everyone had their Thing.

“So you’ve probably heard that Slade Wilson’s on the march, and thanks to some hacking and to you, the only way his army’s getting to ARGUS is through this tunnel,” she began. “They’ve all been enhanced with the Mirakuru, which makes them stronger, faster, and better at killing than us. But here’s the good news — we made a cure.”

Right on cue, Diggle opened one of the rucksacks to show everyone the injector-tipped arrows, crossbow bolts and darts. “We agreed to do this the right way,” he said. “Without killing. Behind every mask is someone who’s been forced to do a lot of things they don’t want to do, and we’re not giving up on them without a fight. We cure them, not kill them. There’s been enough of that tonight already.”

“Even this Slade Wilson?” Nyssa inquired, in the kind of voice that suggested she couldn’t care less.

Disinterested or not, it still had enough of a steely bite to get Oliver’s attention. “Even Slade Wilson,” he said slowly. “He’ll have to answer for what he’s done.”

Sara nodded silently. Nyssa didn’t miss the gesture, and she shrugged, turning her sword as if to check whether it needed sharpening. “As you know, the League’s priority tonight is returning Malcolm Merlyn to Nanda Parbat to face justice.”

Tommy rolled his eyes. “You don’t have to keep saying that,” he said. “No one’s going to rat you out to your dad. Maybe one of your assassin buddies, but speaking for us kinda-normal people, none of us have Ra’s al Ghul on speed dial.”

Having been separated from the _Hoods and Assassins Team Up_ side of things, Felicity wasn’t sure if Tommy and Nyssa had established a rapport over the course of not-dying, but somehow the way Nyssa twirled her dagger — threateningly, by the way — made her think, _probably not_.

“It’ll be a close quarters fight,” Oliver interjected, clearly sensing where things were headed. “The cure works instantaneously, but it doesn’t mean the Mirakuru soldiers won’t fight like hell before you get the chance to use it. Don’t underestimate them. Keep your distance, pick off as many as you can before they breach the tunnel, but we don’t let them cross to the other side. That line means the difference between saving Starling and ending it, and we are not going to be the reason why Amanda Waller obliterates a city full of innocent people.”

They hadn’t exactly coordinated their speeches, but Oliver had tactical experience, Diggle knew the gear and the ethics, and Felicity was the tech.

Judging by the brief pause, apparently she was also the person to round off the big pre-battle strategy session.

Felicity raised her chin, looking them all in the eye from where she stood, between Oliver and Diggle. “Now I guess…we save the city,” she finished. “Move out.”

* * *

Guns were being loaded and quivers were being stocked, arrowheads primed for sharpness and armor being double-checked. Last minute checks, for one hell of a show.

“Quite the speech,” said a voice, while Felicity was focused on tracking Slade’s army using her tablet, using her cast as a handy flat surface while she typed one-handedly. “Not what I expected, from an IT girl.”

Felicity had the sneaky feeling that Oliver was close by and watching, probably out of earshot but close enough to deflect Helena if she didn’t want to do it herself.

But since there was a chance they were all about to die, what the hell.

“People can do unexpected things, you know,” she said, turning to face Helena, who was all dark leather armor, sleek crossbow at her side. “Give the occasional speech…or suit up to save a city they say they don’t give a damn about.”

“You try that one on Oliver?” Helena said, unfazed by the crystal-clear reference. “Different crowd, honey.”

“I don’t think so,” Felicity answered. “You’re a lot alike, and I think you know that. But he met people willing to push him to do better, to _want_ better, and to be there for him, every step of the way. I know you’ll find that. Someday.”

Helena exhaled in a rush. “I don’t need saving,” she said tightly. “I’m fine where I am. Task Force X gives me a purpose, and since I can’t kill my father — I’d rather go on black-ops missions and change the world behind a mask.”

“What about Waller?” Felicity asked. “You can’t be happy working for someone like her.”

Helena shrugged. “I know a conniving bitch when I see one,” she said. “But I don’t need saving.”

Felicity was well aware that the conversation had been going on long enough for Diggle and Tommy to both be paying attention to them now, in addition to Oliver. “One of the few things we have in common,” she said, and Helena _hm_ -ed in amusement under her breath.

Helena flipped a catch on her crossbow, tipping her head to give Felicity an appraising look. “No hard feelings for trying to kill you?”

“Save the city,” Felicity said, “and we’ll call it even.”

Helena’s smile was feral and dangerous. “Deal.”

* * *

It was almost time. The sky was paler than it had been an hour ago. Dawn was coming, and they were running down the minutes left on their second chance. Felicity had them all on comms, and everything she’d need to monitor the fight was in the tablet clutched to her chest, full of live CCTV camera footage and hacked satellite imaging, courtesy of ARGUS. Granted, that was about all the Big Brother-esque agency had contributed to the fight (Lyla didn’t count, being a rogue operative and all), because Waller had pulled her agents back from the fighting. Clearly, she had one eye on the explosive failsafe, and having ARGUS personnel back in the underground blast-safe HQ was her idea of showing support.

Just fantastic.

As far as team assignments went, Lyla and Diggle were with the Suicide Squad on one rooftop, while Tommy and Felicity would be on another. Roy, Sara, the League, and Oliver would be inside the tunnel, defending the invisible line the Mirakuru soldiers couldn’t cross. That was the extent of their numbers, and Felicity — despite being more or less responsible for the plan — wondered if it was too late to call for a time-out and distribute a few _Volunteer Now_ flyers. Not that she said any of it out loud, because _unhelpful_.

“You’d better come back alive or I’ll be pissed,” she said to Diggle, who had his rifle on one shoulder and a worrying lack of armored kevlar.

Diggle smiled at the affectionate threat and she stood on tiptoes to receive his bearhug. “Whatever happens, I’m proud of you, Felicity,” he said. “Stay safe, and keep an eye on Tommy.”

Felicity felt her throat tighten when he brushed a hand affectionately against her cheek, but she nodded, and Diggle took off with a last look, slipping his hand into Lyla’s as they went to take up their position.

Sara hugged Felicity for real, smelling like _Sara_ instead of leather and metal. “I remember what you said to me before I left,” Sara whispered. “Maybe I’m getting optimistic in my old age, but I think I’ve tracked her down.”

Felicity laughed, because she remembered exactly what their last conversation had been. About Sara’s doubts, her struggle with the instinct to kill, and the good that was still incontrovertibly inside of her, whatever the darkness might have tried to take away. The hero that Tommy and her father saw, the one Nyssa had followed halfway across the world to fight a battle that wasn’t even hers, and the one Laurel would have loved, if she’d been alive to see it. Felicity had always known Sara would be all right, but Sara being sure of it herself — that made all the difference in the world. ’“I’m glad,” she answered. “Thanks for coming back.”

Sara pulled back to smile at Felicity. “I’ll watch Ollie’s back down there,” she promised.

“Counting on you,” Felicity said, and Sara walked towards the guardrail where Nyssa was waiting for her.

Nyssa gave Felicity a solemn nod, and the two assassins swung off the bridge together without a sound. Just Oliver and Tommy were left now, and Felicity watched the two best friends stand together in the half-light, almost identical with their hoods and bows, risking their lives for something bigger than the both of them. Despite all the turns their paths had taken, roads diverging and choices that took them further apart, they’d somehow ended up in the same place. Two peas in a pod, always.

For all Oliver grumbled about when it came to hugs, he never turned them down if they came from Tommy. Felicity was smiling when she met Tommy’s eyes over Oliver’s shoulder, and Tommy smiled back before turning to say something in a low voice to his friend.

Oliver looked around, and he nodded at Tommy before he walked towards Felicity, his gaze steady on her face. She met him in the middle of the bridge, and without saying a word, Felicity curled her fingers into the front of his suit, feeling Oliver’s hand on the small of her back, the two of them pressing close to each other. His mask was already in place, the hood shrouding his features in shadow, but Felicity already had them committed to memory when she traced the curve of his jaw, his throat…down to his heart.

The green hood meant something, remembrance and honor and friendship, something that Slade had tried to corrupt with his rage, memories poisoned by the Mirakuru. Oliver was about to go to war, and Felicity wanted to make sure that he heard something to drown that stubborn voice out at the back of his head, so that when he faced Slade Wilson, one last time, he’d remember what he was fighting for.

“Slade thinks he knows you, and maybe he does. He knows how you’ll fight, and he knows you’ll protect the people closest to your heart, no matter what. To him, that’s a weakness, but it’s not,” she said quietly. “You kept going even when Slade separated the two of us, and we’re still here fighting because we have each other’s backs — you, me, and the team. Because we _trust_ each other. That’s something Slade doesn’t do, and that’s what he won’t see coming.”

Oliver inhaled, deep and slow. “That’s why we won’t lose,” he said. “Right?”

Felicity smiled, recognizing it for the promise it was. “Right.”

Oliver’s mouth was on hers now, and Felicity kissed him underneath the hood, holding on tight. Definitively _not_ a goodbye, because if the last few hours had shown them anything, it was that whatever the obstacle, whatever the risk, they’d fight their way back to see each other again, and _that_ was something powerful, something palpable and true and bright with possibility. Something real that nobody, no matter what weapons they had in their arsenal — whether it was super-soldiers, super-strength, or plain, diabolical strategy — could touch.

It was hope, and Felicity kissed Oliver in the shadow of the city rooftops, under the night sky, until they were short on breath and there was nothing else they needed to say. Except —

“End this,” she said, each word heavy with meaning. “So we can go home.”

Oliver nodded, and she let him slip through her fingers as he backed towards the edge of the bridge. At the last moment, he smiled, and Felicity watched him fall out of sight, knowing this time — like every time — he’d land on his feet.

“Ready to do this?” Tommy said.

Felicity took his outstretched hand. “Ready.”

* * *

The tunnel echoed. Water dripping from leaking pipes, the hiss of steam vents, the hum of electrical wires running through the walls like veins in a living body. Every sound was amplified, bouncing off the slick concrete curving above their heads in a half-moon. The lights were dark orange, lengthening shadows and blurring their shapes as they stood in one line across the tunnel, waiting for the enemy.

The stretch of tunnel behind them was littered with abandoned cars, but open. At least, that was the assumption Slade was meant to make. All traps needed bait, and Oliver had every faith that this would work.

Then —

“Incoming,” Diggle said, and his rifle clicked, ready to fire.

Everyone reached for arrows. Roy was at Oliver’s right, Sara on his left, and he nodded at them. This was Roy’s first real fight, and he was right to be nervous, even though Oliver had faith in his training. That, and his instincts, they would keep him alive.

“Now might not be the best time to bring this up,” Sara said casually, “but I’m sorry about pointing a gun at you, Roy.”

Roy made a noise under his breath. “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “I have a feeling I threw you guys around while I was on the Mirakuru.”

Sara laughed, twirling her staff. “Take you for a rematch sometime and we’ll see.”

Roy cracked a smile. “You’re on.”

Oliver gave Sara a grateful look for distracting Roy from his nerves. “When the fighting starts, stay close to me,” he said to Roy. “You’ll be fine.”

“An unusual training strategy,” Nyssa said, her black eyes gleaming over the blood-red silk hiding the lower half of her face. “The League prefers to see its recruits rise and fall on their own strengths. Or weaknesses.”

“He’s not the League,” Sara answered. “Claws in, Nyssa. Remember who the enemy is.”

In response, Nyssa hissed a word in Arabic that made the League assassins draw their bows as one. “Merely making an observation,” she said silkily, as the rhythmic stamp of a marching army began to echo off the walls. “Fighting alongside friend and foe, inside a closed underground space, with time as your enemy. Has it ever occurred to you that the next part of the plan might be distinctly unwise?”

Oliver shut his eyes briefly. He remembered the weight of Felicity’s forehead against his, breathing out a slow sigh that felt long overdue, relief and assent and bone-deep tiredness from fighting a war in the span of a single night. But fatigue hadn’t taken over, and instead of the lead-heavy sensation in his limbs that meant Oliver was about to collapse, there was a hum in his veins and a deep focus in his vision, now on the light at the end of the tunnel, and the shapes in the distance that threatened to blot it dark.

Because he was ready, and so was she.

“Maybe,” he said. “But I have faith.”

“You’re a fool, Oliver Queen,” Nyssa declared, but instead of condemnation in her tone, it was the spark of a challenge. “At the very least, this _will_ be interesting.”

“That means she’s impressed,” Sara translated, without taking her eyes off the end of the tunnel. “Any last-minute doubts?”

“Felicity,” Oliver said, by way of an answer. “Count us down.”

“Steady,” she said. “Impact in three. Two. _One_.”

At her signal, the concrete at the end of the tunnel detonated with a flash, and all hell proceeded to break loose.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know the Crossover's been over for a couple of weeks, but did anyone else LOVE the fact that Alex and Sara had a thing????  
> Also, Earth-X Prometheus. Hahahaha as if there was any doubt that the writers are evil.
> 
> Speaking of evil, next update's probably gonna be a two-parter to wrap up episode 23 (not counting the epilogue and stuff). I'm still tinkering with it, and oh boy. Apologies in advance, I think.
> 
> Happy holidays!!! :)))


	46. Twist (The Unthinkable, Part II)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, hope everyone's holidays went well! So this is the big two-parter to wrap up the last episode in season 2. Granted, everyone's usually pretty awesome about my writing choices, but juuuuust in case, let's refrain from shouting, eh? 
> 
> Happy reading :)

A tremor ran through the ground from the blast, rattling the windows beneath their rooftop, and even though Felicity didn’t doubt her math, she still put a hand to her ear, checking thermal imaging on her tablet to make sure.

Due to a few less-than-positive experiences with concrete and C4, the charges she and Diggle had been responsible for rigging were calculated to collapse just the crucial infrastructure around the far end of the tunnel, causing debris to block the exit Slade’s men needed to reach ARGUS. In theory, anyway.

“Everyone okay?” she said, holding her breath until the static interference on the comms cleared.

“We’re okay,” Oliver answered, and the knot in her chest loosened. “What’s going on out there?”

“Um,” Tommy said, peering over the edge of the roof.

Dust billowed out of the tunnel entrance, along with smoke, and they could just about see the outlines of the Mirakuru soldiers. They’d halted their steady march, as if their animal instincts had told them to proceed with caution. Which was a good thing, not having a whole army of enhanced soldiers sprinting full-speed at their much smaller team.

Then the dust cleared, and they started to run.

“Aw crud,” Tommy said, reaching for an arrow.

“ _Now!_ ” Diggle shouted, and the first volley of shots vanished into the Mirakuru army. They were mostly bullets, but she saw one of the soldiers fall with a crossbow bolt in his shoulder.

Tommy was firing arrows like a sniper, taking each shot with precision, his eyes narrowed in concentration. Most of the army had vanished into the tunnel, and Felicity saw Diggle and the others begin to rappel down from their rooftop to join the ground offensive.

Felicity was about to suggest they do the same when she heard the roar of a chopper. The sleek streamlined shape that appeared from the clouds made her think ARGUS, but that wasn’t possible, because ARGUS had pulled back to HQ. Which meant —

“Guys, take cover!” she yelled, just before the chopper opened fire.

* * *

“You want me to do _what_?” Roy said, ducking under a Mirakuru soldier’s punch. It smashed through the concrete behind him, denting a pipe and sending water spraying between them. “It’s a little loud in here!”

“You’re dropping your wrist again!” Oliver twisted his arms around a second Mirakuru soldier’s neck and stabbed the injector arrow down into his chest. “It’s skewing your aim.”

Roy kicked off the ground and slammed both feet into his opponent. “Oh — my — god,” he answered, still avoiding punches. “You are such a _nag_.”

Oliver seized a zip-line arrow and fired it at the charging Mirakuru soldier’s throat, pinning him to the busted pipe. “What did you call me?”

Roy snagged an electro-shock arrow that crackled and sent it flying. The water hummed as soon as the current went live, and the Mirakuru soldier went limp, sliding down against the wall. “Wrist straight enough?” Roy said pointedly.

Oliver jerked his head towards the fight, smothering a smile in response to Roy’s. “Fine,” he said. “But don’t get cocky.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Roy said, racing into the fray.

Sensing movement behind him, Oliver ducked and rolled over the hood of a car, narrowly avoiding a piece of steel beam. It impaled the windshield, exactly where his head had been just seconds before, but Oliver whirled smoothly and fired off an arrow into the Mirakuru soldier’s chest. He dropped without a sound, the injector arrowhead rapidly dispersing its contents into his bloodstream, and Oliver turned, surveying the fight around him.

Most of the smoke had cleared from the initial blast; for a close quarters fight full of archers, compromised visibility was the last thing they’d needed. The charges placed strategically around the far exit had detonated as planned, leaving a wall of debris instead of an unobstructed path to ARGUS. Reinforcements from the outside were meant to drop down as soon as enough Mirakuru soldiers were inside the tunnel, but Oliver couldn’t see any sign of Task Force X, which meant they’d run into a problem.

Metal screeched behind him, but Oliver’s knee throbbed when he tried to move, slowing his reaction long enough for the Mirakuru soldier to grab him by the front of his suit. Before he could think about a counter-measure, Oliver was flying backwards, slamming into a car window hard enough to shatter it. Fragments were falling like rain, but he forced himself to move, throwing himself to one side. The arrow he’d been reaching for rolled across the asphalt, and his fingers closed around it just in time. Oliver blocked the fist reaching for his throat with one hand and stabbed the injector arrow into the Mirakuru soldier’s chest with the other, but he’d already gone limp, proceeding to crumple like a puppet without strings.

There was a crossbow bolt in his back, and Oliver looked up to see Helena standing over the unconscious soldier. “Before you ask,” she said, “I was aiming for him.”

Oliver got to his feet, suppressing a wince when his knee twinged. “I didn’t,” he answered. “But thanks.”

“Anytime.” Helena reloaded her crossbow and they turned back to face the incoming soldiers. “I could get used to this.”

“Where’s Diggle?” Oliver said, stabbing a Mirakuru soldier through the thigh and ducking under the swing of another. “They were supposed to be here —”

“— minor issue,” Helena said, still firing her crossbow into the horde. “Unexpected aerial support.”

“ _What?_ ”

Before he could press for an answer, Oliver sighted movement and shoved Helena to the other side of the tunnel, avoiding the Range Rover suddenly hurtling forward like a freight train, pushed by someone with inhuman strength. A figure landed on the roof of the car, wearing black armor and a two-toned cowl, and Oliver recognized the elongated shadows of twin swords.

“About time we had a rematch,” said Isabel, looking down at him. “Wouldn’t you say?”

Helena blew a strand of hair off her face. “Another angry ex of yours?” she asked.

Oliver had no doubt whatsoever that she’d catch an injector arrow fired at her from a distance, so he yanked a fresh arrow from his quiver, choosing the next best option. The head crackled with electricity, because he didn’t plan on underestimating Isabel Rochev anytime soon.

“Stay back,” he growled. “She’s mine.”

Isabel’s smile gleamed as wicked as the swords at her sides, and she leaped off the car just as Oliver raised his bow to block, and their weapons met with a crash.

* * *

Diggle’s team scattered, diving behind abandoned vehicles when the chopper opened fire. The rounds smashed rapid-fire into the road below, raising clouds of gray dust where they landed. Tommy grabbed Felicity and pulled her down to the ground as well, shielding them from being spotted by whoever was behind the controls. Very much appreciated, except the impact went all the way up her bad arm, making her hiss involuntarily at the pain.

“Sorry!” Tommy said, scrambling back up again. “You okay?”

“No worries,” Felicity grunted. “Digg, what’s your status?”

“We’re fine,” Diggle said, over the sound of bullets hammering something _very_ close by. “But we’re pinned down, and bullets don’t exactly stop Mirakuru soldiers.”

“Sounds like Slade’s idea of a plot twist,” Felicity muttered, pulling herself up against the side of the roof, her tablet on her knees.

The screen was scratched from the rough landing, but Felicity swiped to bring up the coding interface she used for patching into remote systems. “Guys, I think I can ground that chopper,” she said, starting to type. “But I need a little time.”

“Distraction?” Tommy guessed, pulling an arrow from his quiver. “I gotcha.”

“You heard her,” Lyla said to the others. “Keep your cover, but —”

Before Lyla could finish, one of the cars on the road exploded like someone had tossed a grenade underneath it, flipping head over tail like a pancake and landing on top of some un-cured Mirakuru soldiers, _Wicked Witch of the East_ style.

“What the hell, Lawton?” Diggle snapped. “Two feet south and that would have been murder.”

“Hey, just following orders,” came the laconic answer. “You said distract ‘em.”

“I can’t believe I’m the one saying this, but can we _please_ try to focus?” Tommy shouted, shooting arrows at the helicopter that sparked off the black, most likely bulletproofed exterior. The shots from the ground were having a similar effect, ricocheting off the armored underbelly of the chopper instead. “Because this distraction thing is _so_ not working.”

“Two seconds!” Felicity answered, typing furiously despite the building protest in her left arm, which was extremely disinterested in playing nice with the painkillers in her system. “I’m almost through the firewall — I just need —”

“ _Felicity_ ,” Tommy said, because the chopper was changing course, a result of the pilot realizing that arrows were being fired at them from a very unreinforced rooftop location. “Any minute now.”

“Get out of there!” Diggle said, his tone leaving no room for argument.

“I’m in!” Felicity shouted back, her eyes flicking through the lines of code across the screen. _Engine. Throttle. Emergency shutdown._

“ _Yes_ ,” she breathed, and swiped to execute the command.

“Yes?” Tommy said, an explosive arrow nocked in his bow. He turned, facing the glassy tinted windows of the chopper, and the mechanical whine of the rotor blades stuttering mid-flight, due to a sudden and _very_ unexpected malfunction. “Oh my god, you’re a genius.”

“Don’t miss,” Felicity said, and Tommy — quick as always on the uptake — fired straight for the main rotor.

The arrow made contact with a blinding flash of light, and they dived for cover when the pieces of smoking metal pelted their rooftop. The helicopter careened towards the ground with a deafening groan, black fumes streaming behind it like a comet trail. It landed with a deafening screech of ripping metal, sending a plume of orange fire into the sky.

“Digg? Lyla?” Felicity said.

Static crackled down the line, and she breathed a sigh of relief when she heard the reply. “We’re good,” Diggle answered. “Thanks for the save.”

“Oh, that was all Lancelot,” Felicity said, grabbing onto Tommy’s shoulders as he nocked a zip-line arrow, the vigilante’s version of a shortcut that didn’t involve elevators. “Catch you in a sec.”

Tommy stepped up onto the roof ledge and paused, the wire hooked onto his belt. “Hey, aren’t you afraid of heights?” he said, as though Felicity hiding her face in his hood and thinking of nice things wasn’t enough of a clue.

“Don’t remind me,” she said, and he _definitely_ chuckled before they jumped.

* * *

Oliver landed hard on his bad knee, and the impact sent a nauseating shiver of pain up his leg. But he had other concerns, and hurtled out of the way to avoid the crisscrossing swords that slashed furrows into the concrete like it was soft mud.

“Is that all you can do?” Isabel called, as he rolled behind a car and fired at her through a broken window.

She slashed through the injector arrow with a contemptuous flick of her sword, smashing the syringe to pieces beneath her stride. Oliver went for cover again, but she planted her foot in the car’s front bumper and kicked, and he only narrowly avoided getting his legs crushed against the wall by jumping. He dropped onto the roof and swung a kick at Isabel’s head, catching the side of her skull in a blow that should have knocked her out cold.

Isabel landed on her hands, bleeding from the corner of her mouth, but she only laughed, looking over her shoulder at him. “Even Sebastian Blood put up more of a fight than that,” she taunted.

“You and me are just getting started,” Oliver said, and lunged.

Isabel was off the ground in a blur of limbs and metal; Oliver deflected the bulk of her slashes with his bow and arched backwards at the last second, letting the scissoring blades pass by a hairline margin over his throat. His hood dropped back from his face, but Oliver shot back upright and knocked her next swing aside with his bow, firing an arrow in the same motion.

It streaked past her guard like a bullet and slashed a deep cut into her cheek, leaving a tear in her black and orange cowl. Isabel landed in a crouch, and instead of staunching the flow of blood down her cheek, she twisted her fingers into the material and wrenched the ruined mask clear. The bloodstained fabric fell in shreds to the ground, and there was a new kind of ugliness in her face when she looked Oliver in the eye.

“Where’s Slade Wilson?” he demanded.

There was a battle raging on around them, gunfire and smoke and blood, but they’d been here before, and they both knew it. The last time, it had been to find Thea, and Oliver had realized who Isabel Rochev really was. Hating his family might have been justified, but that didn’t sanction her part in a plan to execute Oliver’s mother and level an entire city for one man’s vendetta, for what she’d done to Felicity.

Isabel made a derisive sound. “Threatening someone generally works better if they don’t know you have a rule that stops you from killing,” she said. “Felicity Smoak already tried appealing to my conscience — so where does that leave you?”

“Trying to end a war,” Oliver answered. “You won’t win, Isabel. We have a cure, and without Slade, your army’s losing.”

“ _Losing_ is a subjective term,” she snapped. “We’ve destroyed your city. Your family’s legacy. Slade keeps his promises, and Felicity Smoak might have escaped for now, but he’s going to find her, and when that happens —”

Oliver reached for an arrow at the same time Isabel went for her sword. He twisted to avoid her slash and fired an electro-shock arrow, but not directly at her. It latched onto the blade, and electricity crackled all along the steel, up the grip and into her body. Oliver slammed a punch into Isabel’s middle, winding her, and knocked the swords out of her grip. They went spinning into the dark, and Isabel was still convulsing when Oliver drove the injector arrow straight into her jugular. The blue vanished into her bloodstream, and her eyes widened in shock as the cure began to take effect.

Oliver stamped on her leg in the exact same place where Slade Wilson had incapacitated him, and Isabel went on her knees with a shriek, her breathing strained as the enhanced healing failed to kick in.

It was a threat more potent than anything Oliver could accomplish with words, so he silently drew his bow, making sure the arrow was pointed at her eye. He was breathing heavily too, adrenaline surging through his veins, all those moments he’d thought about killing Isabel — that he’d wished he had — flashing through his head in a sickening rush. Because Isabel was on her knees, and all it would take to kill her was for Oliver to let go.

Their gazes met, and Isabel jerked her chin. “Well?” she snapped. “What are you waiting for?”

Oliver didn’t answer at first, because a careless word was still close — too close — to upsetting the fragile balance that kept his fingers tight on the bowstring. “I should kill you for what you helped do to my mother,” he said through his teeth. “To my sister. Roy. Tommy. Felicity.”

Oliver’s hands should have been shaking, but they were steady when he lowered his bow. Slow as a first step on unfamiliar terrain, testing the uncertain ground. He could hear his pulse thudding in his ears, and there was a bitter taste in his mouth at the realization — the resolve — that he wouldn’t kill her.

Isabel was one person, and Slade Wilson was still in the wind. Hundreds of thousands of lives hung in the balance, and it all depended on getting Slade. Isabel was just one.

“The only reason I’m sparing you because of them,” he said, slow and deliberate. “Now where is Slade Wilson?”

Disbelief flickered in Isabel’s eyes, but it was gone a second later, replaced by icy defiance. “Then Slade’s already won,” she said, reaching behind her back. “Because you lack the _spine_ to do the one thing that can stop him. Let me save you the p—”

Blood spurted without warning from her mouth, and she choked for breath, but no words came, just the same, strangled noise from her throat. Dark red splattered the concrete again, oozing down the front of her armor, until her arms gave out like they couldn’t support her weight. Isabel sprawled on her side, her stare glassy in death, a dagger embedded squarely in her back.

Despite the shock, Oliver recognized it in an instant. “ _Nyssa_ —”

Nyssa appeared from the shadows and kicked the gun clear of Isabel’s limp fingers. “You may thank me for saving your life after the battle,” she said imperiously, bending gracefully to retrieve her dagger.

“She had information on Slade Wilson,” Oliver snarled. “Now she’s dead, and —”

Nyssa rounded on Oliver with palpable ferocity. “Have a care for how you speak, Oliver Queen,” she spat. “I am the Heir to the Demon, and you do not command me. Now as for your mistake, the Mirakuru may impact reason, but this Slade Wilson is no fool. He sent the woman here with the clear knowledge that you would defeat her, meaning there was no strategic value in allowing her to have any information of worth, including his current whereabouts.”

Oliver was dangerously close to losing his temper. “You don’t know that for sure,” he said, enunciating the words with deliberate care. “Because you killed her.”

Nyssa’s black eyes flashed. “She may have been a pawn, but she was not mistaken in what she said to you,” she continued. “You lack the conviction to do what is necessary, and _that_ is why Slade Wilson has you by the throat. If it weren’t for a promise I made to my beloved, I’d send you to him myself.”

She sheathed her dagger with a slam and turned on her heel, rejoining the battle again. Oliver looked back at Isabel’s body, the bitter taste strong in his mouth. He reached for his phone, opening the direct line to ARGUS control. “Amanda,” he said. “Slade’s army is no longer a threat. Call off the strike.”

There were cameras in the tunnel and surrounding the perimeter, and Oliver had no doubt that Waller was watching them from whatever satellite or surveillance feed she could access to verify the claim. Still, her response was a reproving tut. “I’m not that naive, Oliver,” she answered. “Get me Slade Wilson, then we’ll talk.”

“Goddammit Amanda,” he swore. “Your concern was an army of Mirakuru soldiers storming ARGUS. We’ve taken them off the board. Slade Wilson won’t come at ARGUS alone.”

“Even so,” she said. “Call me when he’s in handcuffs.”

The line went dead, and Oliver cursed under his breath. He put a hand to his ear, reopening the comms. “Felicity,” he said. “Where are you?”

* * *

Detonation? All systems go.

Plan to trap Mirakuru soldiers inside tunnel? Off without a hitch.

Mirakuru cure? Working like a dream.

Pinpointing the head of supreme evil for the final takedown? Not going so well.

“Where is he?” Tommy said, scanning the mess around the tunnel entrance. There were a few dropped Mirakuru soldiers in sight, but no one in the distinctive armor and mask of Slade Wilson. “Don’t tell me he decided to take a vacation.”

“I don’t know,” Felicity said, scanning the CCTV cameras — the functional ones — all along the length of the tunnel. It was slower going than usual, because she was also multitasking to check that all her friends were still alive and very much kicking. “I’m looking. Digg, do you see him?”

There was a brief pause, punctuated by grunts and yells and a visceral-sounding _squelch_ that probably meant another cured Mirakuru soldier. “No sign of Wilson,” Diggle reported, sounding out of breath. “We knew there was a chance he’d hang back.”

“He can’t take ARGUS on his own,” Tommy said incredulously. “That’s suicide, no pun intended.”

Felicity gave Tommy a look, but broke off because she was being hailed. _Oliver_.

“Where are you?” he asked.

Felicity tensed. Even though she could barely hear Oliver over the chaos, she could tell something was wrong from how quiet he was. Tommy was sweeping the car wrecks for signs of life now, his bow at the ready. Felicity let him move ahead, crouching behind an overturned bus. “I’m outside with Tommy. What happened?” she said urgently, imagining broken bones and bleeding, lots of it. “Are you okay?”

“Isabel’s dead,” he said shortly.

Felicity paused, shutting her eyes. Not in regret for Isabel, because that had stopped being an option about twenty kills and fifty morally reprehensible choices ago. Her concern right now was Oliver, and what it meant for everyone else. “You didn’t kill her,” she said, and it wasn’t a question.

“No,” he answered. “Nyssa. I wanted her to tell me where Slade was.”

“She wouldn’t have told you anyway,” Felicity said, and she wasn’t lying just to ease any lingering doubts. “Isabel would’ve let the world burn down if it meant getting revenge on you and your family.”

“Now Slade’s in the wind,” Oliver said, his frustration plain. “We took down his army, but he’s still out there.”

Felicity looked over her shoulder, towards the plume of black smoke in the distance. The chopper had crashed a distance away from the tunnel, the wreckage spewing fumes and probably scalding hot to the touch. But it was still close enough to inspect, maybe comb through for the remains of the onboard computer…which included coordinates of previous flight routes and points of origin.

“Hold that thought,” she said. “Slade sent a chopper to try and take Digg’s team down from the air. I hacked into the system before I crashed it, but if the memory’s intact I might be able to find out where it’s been. It might take longer than we have — can you buy us some time with Waller?”

Oliver made a noise like she’d hit the nail right on the head. “I tried. She didn’t take the bait. We need Slade Wilson in restraints, or she won’t call off the strike. As long as the Mirakuru’s still in his system, he can make more soldiers. It’s only a matter of when.”

“He also might have skipped town once he saw he’d lost,” Felicity said. “Supreme Evil could blow Starling to a crater and it’d do zilch to stop the real threat.”

Oliver exhaled. “You’ve met Amanda — did she strike you as the kind of person to take chances?”

“Well, neither am I,” Felicity said, bringing up the interface on her tablet that showed the uplink to the ARGUS network. “I mean, I’m all for having faith in the human race and all, but when it came to Amanda Waller, I thought I’d make a minor exception in case she decided to pull something on us. Y’know, short of releasing all of their files — including Digg’s baby mama’s — onto the internet.”

“What did you do?” Oliver said warily.

Felicity drummed out a command on the screen and hit _Execute_. “A little virus in the ARGUS mainframe,” she said, signaling to get Tommy’s attention. “While I was in there, I noticed that the whole building runs on their secure network — environmental controls, security and all. Hit the mainframe, and the whole building’s a playhouse. It’ll put up enough digital roadblocks to stop Amanda from issuing the strike command on Starling, along with enough communications interference to make sure she can’t contact anyone further than the lobby — including the drone pilots in her black site. I didn’t tell anyone because as far as burning bridges goes, it’s the equivalent of setting the Golden Gate Bridge on fire.”

“Felicity,” Oliver said, “you’re a genius.”

Felicity smiled. “I do have my moments,” she answered. “But don’t get your hopes up. I said _might_.”

“Might what?” Tommy said, jogging over. “Did Ollie call you and not me? _Rude_.”

“Finish clean-up, and meet me outside the tunnel,” Felicity said to Oliver, reaching up to pat Tommy’s cheek in consolation. “C’mon, handsome. We’re not done yet.”

* * *

Tommy had seen a lot of movies. Yes, a lot of them had been terrible, CGI-heavy smudge tests with glowing sky doohickies and mystical, alien MacGuffin thingamajigs, because he had a Netflix account, a bottomless liquor cabinet and a functioning microwave for popcorn-making. Oh, and a compunction for making bad life choices.

But he knew for a _fact_ that when the characters shot things out of the sky, they usually crash-landed with a cool-looking explosion, and said character would walk off into the distance like a badass. Cut to black, next scene.

Characters did _not_ go digging through the smoking wreckage for a CPU.

“But we’re not _in_ a Michael Bay movie,” Felicity said, like it was the end of the story.

“I swear you’ve been spending too much time with Ollie,” Tommy muttered, approaching the wreckage.

The doors were still intact, which meant that the unlucky Mirakuru drones Slade had sent to pilot his aerial support were either very dead from the crash or knocked out by the smoke. Tommy had mixed feelings about either option, to be painfully honest.

He could see himself and Felicity reflected in the cracked windows, but not much else. “What are we looking for?” he asked.

Felicity frowned at the wreckage. “This is a military-grade rotorcraft,” she said, tapping on her tablet for the specs. “They have consoles built to withstand high-velocity impacts and pretty much anything you can throw at it. The computer should still be in there.”

Tommy sighed, shouldering his bow and reaching for an arrow. The high-explosive ones were out of the question, and since Ollie didn’t have the imagination to invest in laser beam arrows (did those exist?), a flash-bang one would have to sub in. “All right, let’s get this over with,” he said, and drew his arm back to stab it into the door hinge.

The arrow never made contact, because a hand smashed straight through the window from the inside, closing around Tommy’s throat with Mirakuru-level strength. Felicity screamed, and Tommy might have done the equivalent, if he wasn’t already choking from the fist cutting off his oxygen supply. The flash-bang arrow slipped through his fingertips and exploded underneath the wreckage, sending it tipping further back, dragging Tommy along with it.

A dart ricocheted off the metal panel near Tommy’s face, which meant that Felicity had pulled her gun, but the windows were meant to be bulletproof and the Mirakuru cure darts were more likely to end up at the back of his skull than in the soldiers. Glass smashed somewhere to his left, and Felicity’s gun went off, once, twice — he heard her yelp in pain — then, silence.

Dark spots appeared in Tommy’s vision, and somewhere between his brain being on fire and struggling for breath, he remembered something. A nightmare turned reality, Oliver’s reality. A clearing in the forest, Moira and Thea on their knees, Slade stalking through the grass like a predator, his sword whispering against the dry leaves at his feet.

_Choose._

“Fe—Feli—”

Before Tommy could say her name — warn Oliver — do _anything_ — the lights went out, and he was gone.

* * *

“You all right?” Oliver said, extending a hand to Diggle.

There was a smear of blood down the side of his friend’s face, but Diggle nodded, grabbing Oliver’s forearm to get back on his feet. “Thought they’d hit harder,” he said. “You?”

Oliver was acutely aware of how every bone in his body hurt from repeated impact, along with the fact that the exertion had almost definitely drained the bio-implant in his knee, to the point that he could feel a dull grinding in his leg whenever he moved.

“Fine,” he said, and Diggle snorted.

“Liar,” he answered. “What’s the plan now? Wilson didn’t show.”

“Felicity might have something.”

The fatigue in Diggle’s face vanished when he smiled, recognition and relief and most of all — pride. “Of course she does.”

“You won’t find them,” said a voice.

Oliver whirled, an arrow ready to fire. Diggle also had his rifle pointed in the same direction, but neither of them were prepared to see a familiar face walk out of the shadows. “Son of a bitch,” Diggle said. “What the hell are you doing back here?”

Malcolm had his hands raised, a gesture as disingenuous as it was sarcastic. “Sorry, but am I supposed to be intimidated by arrows and darts that _aren’t_ meant to kill their targets?” he said, eyeing the Mirakuru cure arrow in Oliver’s bow.

“Where are they?” Oliver snarled. “Where are Felicity and Tommy?”

“I don’t —”

Oliver fired, and the arrow grazed Malcolm’s cheek, close enough to leave a hairline scratch that welled blood. Diggle cocked his weapon. “The next one goes between your eyes.”

Malcolm inhaled deeply, like they were trying his patience. “I didn’t take them,” he finished. “But I saw who did, so I’d save some of those cure arrows, if I were you. Because Slade Wilson has two hostages, and he still has enough Mirakuru soldiers to snap both Tommy and Felicity’s necks while you’re busy fighting him.”

“Why the hell didn’t you stop them?” Diggle demanded. “Tommy’s your son!”

“Thank you for restating the obvious,” Malcolm answered, his tone dripping with sarcasm. “But intervening prematurely would only have gotten me killed, and in case you haven’t noticed, I still have plans to reunite my family.”

“Not if we tell Nyssa al Ghul and the rest of the assassins she brought with her that you’re here,” Oliver said. “Now where — are — they?”

Malcolm narrowed his eyes slightly. “I was following the chopper from the moment it took off,” he said. “It came from Ferris airfield, where Slade Wilson also has a private plane waiting. I took the liberty of retrieving the flight manifest, and vague as it was, I’m assuming you’ll know where Slade Wilson means for you to have your final showdown.”

“You’re saying Wilson’s taking Tommy and Felicity somewhere?” Diggle said suspiciously.

“I don’t presume to understand the inner workings of the Mirakuru, I’m just interested in getting my son back,” Malcolm said, and shot Oliver a look. “ _Without_ getting any unnecessary arrow wounds.”

There was rage, there was wrath, and there was the ice-cold steel that came with knowing the next step in Slade’s plan, that in spite of defeat, he was still far, far from being done. Because all that mattered to him in the end was revenge, and attacking ARGUS was only a move on the chessboard to force Amanda’s hand. This wasn’t any different, just another move that put Slade closer to checkmate, and Oliver already knew what he had planned.

Tommy, his best friend since before he could remember.

Felicity, the love of his life.

Neither of them were people Oliver could stand to lose, and Slade’s plan was to force him to choose.

“Malcolm, where are they?” he said.

“The flight manifest specified a route over the North China sea,” Malcolm answered coolly, and Oliver shut his eyes.

“Lian Yu,” Diggle said, and cursed. “Oliver, we only have until dawn. Amanda’s going to blow Starling City to hell unless we have Slade and his army neutralized.”

Oliver shook his head. “No, she isn’t.” He was thinking hard, forcing himself through the haze of panic that was as much Slade’s plan as having his army lose as a distraction. “Felicity put in a failsafe. Amanda can’t issue the strike commands, but I wouldn’t put it past her to try something worse. Get Lyla, get Task Force X. Take them to ARGUS. They can buy us more time, but John —”

“— Lyla can handle Amanda just fine on her own,” Diggle said, cutting him off before he could finish. “It’s you I’m worried about. Of course I’m coming.”

Oliver hesitated, because he remembered Lian Yu as if it was only yesterday. The harsh terrain, black mud and miles of buried landmines, with nothing but the rocky shoreline and steep mountains looming forebodingly from above. More than that, he didn’t want Diggle to be implicated at all in the choice — _this_ choice — that he’d have to make. In case he didn’t see a way clear of it, and right now, Oliver didn’t. If there was going to be any kind of guilt, any kind of responsibility above and beyond what he already had to bear, it _had_ to be Oliver’s. No one else’s.

Diggle was going to be a _father_ , and Oliver was done with his family’s legacy of mistakes, done with letting them weigh down on a generation that didn’t deserve it.

“John…” Oliver began, but Diggle’s hand was on his shoulder, his stare level and measured like he knew what Oliver had been about to say.

“That son of a bitch has Tommy and Felicity,” he said. “And I’m not letting my brother go into war alone.”

Slade had planned for Lian Yu to be the end for a reason. Because Oliver’s instincts were to come alone, to face a problem he’d created by himself.

 _We’re still here fighting because we trust each other. That’s something Slade doesn’t do, and that’s what he won’t see coming_.

Oliver remembered the last thing Felicity had said to him, and she wasn’t wrong. Slade had left Isabel to die, just like he’d left the rest of his army to fight a battle that was only — and had only ever been — a distraction. The last fight with Slade was coming, and the last thing Oliver meant to do was tread the same path.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s move.”

“Well, that’s awkward,” Malcolm said acidly. “I thought it was just going to be Oliver and myself.”

Diggle shouldered his rifle and gave Malcolm a look that Oliver had only rarely seen, one based on a shared history that veered decidedly towards the unpleasant, and one that promised a whole world of consequences if Malcolm made the mistake of crossing Diggle again. “Deal with it,” he said. “And if you try anything, I swear to god they’ll never find your body.”

Malcolm lifted his eyebrows, nodding at Oliver. “I don’t remember your bodyguard being this interesting.”

“He’s not my bodyguard,” Oliver said shortly. “He’s my partner.”

* * *

Felicity had never been a huge fan of narcotics. But the first thing that came to mind when she resurfaced was _ow_ , and _pain meds, fast_. Her wrist was definitely stinging from the inadequacy of her self-medication and subsequent hacking-related exertions, and it didn’t help that she was upside down — or half of her was, anyway. She was being carried in a fireman’s lift, and it took a second for her senses to register that something wasn’t right.

First off, the person carrying her smelled like explosives, and was dressed in clothes peppered with bullet holes, like they’d bounced off with no effect.

Second, the sound the person’s footsteps — scratch that, multiple footsteps — made was full of crunching leaves, dry underbrush and snapped twigs.

Third, Tommy was hanging off a Mirakuru soldier’s back in exactly the same position as she was, except there was a bruise around his throat and blood down the side of his face, and only the hiss of breath escaping through his teeth whenever he got jostled told her that he was still alive.

Felicity had definitely been here before, and she didn’t mean in the _kidnapping_ sense, which was so, incredibly played out. She smelled pine and the faint salty scent of the sea, along with a kind of decay — not body-related, human or animal — but the decay of a place that was more ruin than whole, a place open to the harsh elements and left to rot, abandoned by the known world.

_What the hell?_

Felicity was back on Lian Yu, and she knew who’d brought her there.

“You’re awake,” said Slade, and in spite of her upside-down status, Felicity still gave him a look of deepest loathing.

“What part of the punch in the face and the busted eardrums did you _not_ take as a sign that I don’t respond well to being kidnapped?” she spat, her voice echoing in the space.

Slade smirked. He’d lost the creepy Deathstroke mask, though she was pretty sure he had it on him somewhere, and even in the gray-tinged daylight, he still looked sinister in his black armor, the long sword sheathed behind his back. “I very much appreciated your escape in hindsight,” he said, as though they were having a normal conversation. “Sebastian Blood was another loose end to be tied, and I’m sure your friends owe it to you that their resistance against my army was a fair fight.”

Felicity’s response was something along the lines of _eat crap_ , in less polite English terms and what Yiddish she’d learned from her mom’s phone conversations with some of the worst boyfriends in the collective history of dating.

Slade showed her the phones in his hand — hers and Tommy’s, still live — and Felicity knew why. Oliver’s first response would be to track them, and with the security of a generous head start, Slade wanted him to find his way to Lian Yu…after everything in the diabolical evil showdown had been set up in his favor.

“I’m afraid I can’t allow you to intervene this time,” Slade said. “It’s time Oliver and I settled our differences, and I made good on my promise to him, the one I made five years ago.”

The Mirakuru soldiers slowed to a stop, and Felicity’s vision lurched as she was dropped unceremoniously — and very painfully — onto the ground, landing on her side. There was a Mirakuru soldier standing over her, in the unlikely event that she experienced a reckless impulse to try and make a break for it, but Felicity didn’t care about that part for now. She turned, reaching over despite the pain in her broken wrist to make sure Tommy was okay. _Then_ she scanned their surroundings, trying to decipher where exactly Slade had brought them. The sea was visible through the clearing in the trees, the same slate gray as the overcast skies, crashing against the rocks with the kind of ferocity that made her wince. The ground beneath Felicity’s hands sloped gently down towards the beach, a sight that stirred her memory. Four identical mounds, covered with grass and marked with weathered driftwood, facing the shore.

Felicity couldn’t see them, but she remembered standing there nearly a year before, on another cold, overcast day. Side by side with Tommy, in the shadow of the pines, reading the driftwood markers set on the graves, carved by the same person. _Robert. Yao Fei. Shado._ Names that had been more mystery than answer at the time, when the secrets hadn’t seemed so…present. Crushing. When they’d thought Malcolm Merlyn and the Undertaking was the extent of the past’s ability to affect their future.

They couldn’t have been more wrong.

Because Slade Wilson was alive in their present, and he’d brought her and Tommy to Shado’s grave, and just like the last time Oliver had been on Lian Yu, he was going to have to choose. Felicity looked at Tommy, still unconscious, and she knew it would break Oliver either way.

Felicity willed herself not to shake as she cupped a hand protectively over Tommy’s head, like she could shield him from what was coming. “You’re fond of him,” Slade observed, watching her shift so that he was resting on her lap, instead of the hard dirt. “The son of the mass murderer.”

“I don’t believe in sins of the father,” Felicity said. “I believe in seeing people for who they really are, and the good they’ve tried to do.”

Slade’s mouth curled. “Even if it comes from guilt?”

“It’s more,” she said, because guilt mattered to both Oliver and Tommy, and so did the legacies left behind by their fathers. It may have been why they started on the paths that led them to where they were now — but it sure as hell wasn’t why they kept doing it.

They did it because they believed in doing the right thing.

“It’s because they were goddamn heroes,” she said fiercely. “And there’s nothing you can do to change that.”

Slade’s low laugh echoed in the clearing, and his single eye was fixed on Felicity again, unwavering. “I watched your goodbyes,” he said. “You, Mr Merlyn, Oliver. Of course, it was from a distance, but they were…heartfelt. I was caught between taking Mr Diggle or Oliver’s protege, but when I saw the way Oliver entrusted your safety to the young Mr Merlyn here, I realized there couldn’t be anyone else. It had always been Tommy Merlyn — the one Oliver trusted with his life. The one who saved _his_.”

Felicity was silent, waiting for the proverbial axe to drop. The knife-twist.

“I wonder who Oliver can’t bear to live without,” Slade said slowly, leveling his sword with the side of her throat. “But I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?”

Much like the kidnapping thing, Slade’s threats had run their course, and instead of a chill running up the length of her spine, Felicity was thinking, hard. Her tech was gone, along with the cure, but her superpower had never been either of those things. Computers, science…they were to her what the bow and arrow was to Oliver. Just tools, because the real weapons, the real weapons were incorrigible, incorruptible strengths that no one — not Slade, not the dozens of other psychopaths they’d faced before — could take away. _Them_.

Felicity set her jaw. “Am I supposed to believe you won’t rig the game, so whatever Oliver chooses, he loses us both?”

“No,” Slade said, shaking his head like she’d made an obvious mistake. “To kill you both would be a mercy to Oliver, one I don’t intend to grant. If you and Mr Merlyn were to die here on the island, Oliver would have to wrestle with the guilt…a skill at which he _excels_. Yet, he would forget. Even for a moment each day, the thought of your deaths would fail to weigh on his conscience. He would be spared. But to return home and see every day, the life he saved at the cost of another, someone so precious to him…the pain would be immeasurable, and it would never, _never_ be forgotten. That would be the ultimate pain, the kind I suffer every day at the loss of Shado. Because Oliver made his choice.”

Slade breathed in, as if the words were a taste he wanted to savor on his tongue. “Then,” he said, “and only then, will Oliver Queen have gotten what he deserves.”

Slade’s sword was still resting lightly at her throat, and Felicity felt a cut open at the side of her neck — a hairline scratch that stung and bled — when she leaned forward to look him in the eye. Because she hated him, she hated who he’d let himself become, and she hated his capacity to make Oliver hurt. “You’re a monster,” she said.

Slade crouched beside her, appearing to be considering her statement. “A monster made by Oliver Queen,” he agreed. “Now let’s see how long it takes for him to join us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, I mean. It's not like you didn't see this coming.  
> PSA: NEXT PART IS UPLOADED TOO.


	47. The Island (The Unthinkable, Part III)

Tommy’s whole body hurt. A sentiment he’d definitely thought before, but _this_ — right now — took it to a whole new level. He’d felt like a herd of stampeding elephants had danced the conga on top of his back.

Why did this keep _happening_?

He groaned, and despite the ringing in his ears, he picked up something else. A voice, distant at first, but getting closer by the second. “What?” he croaked.

“ _Tommy_.” It was definitely Felicity’s hands that were on his face, so cold that he felt himself snap back into alertness. “Are you okay?”

Right. Mirakuru soldier. Kidnapped. Probably. Bad taste in his mouth. Sedatives.

The story Oliver told him about the island, having to choose. Shado or Sara, the gun to their heads. But that was different. That was a different Ollie, a different psycho, different place. No reason to panic.

Still, Tommy groaned again, because he was _so_ over the hostage thing, and gave himself a heave. He ended up sliding off Felicity’s lap instead, getting a faceful of dry leaves. He coughed, puffing a nasty-tasting piece of dried aspen — or oak, or whatever — off his tongue. “I’m great,” he said. “You?”

Felicity nodded, but judging by the way she was holding her broken wrist close to her chest, she’d probably shelved her personal wellbeing for later just like he had. “Where are we?” he said, blinking hard to try and clear the spots in his vision. “Forest?”

“Kind of,” she said, sounding very, very worried. _Uh-oh_. “They knocked us out with something. I think you might have gotten a bigger dose.”

“Sexist of them,” Tommy muttered, pressing the heel of his hand into a persistently throbbing vein on his forehead. “I smell the sea. Why do I smell the sea?”

Steel sank into the forest floor with a sound that made Tommy wince. Slade Wilson stood over them, flanked by two masked Mirakuru soldiers, alerting Tommy to the fact that he was very much missing his bow and quiver of cure arrows, in contrast to the very sharp-looking sword just inches from Slade’s hands. Which meant Felicity was probably missing her phone and tablet too. Not that this looked like the place to get a whole lot of cell reception, but it was the same concept as a security blanket, and they had exactly zilch.

“Good of you to join us, Mr Merlyn,” said Slade, looking disgustingly pleased with himself, like everything was all going according to his plan, decimated Mirakuru army or not. “I hope you enjoyed your flight.”

“Listen, you insane son of a bitch,” Tommy snarled, “pull all the _super villain_ -y stuff you want, but Felicity’s already kicked your ass once for kidnapping her, Oliver’s _going_ to kick your ass, and d’you wanna maybe guess what I have planned for your smug face after he’s done?”

“You’ve certainly gotten better at threats,” Slade said lightly. “But I imagine you’ll be more concerned about what happens once Oliver sets foot on this island.”

“Island,” Tommy said, glancing at Felicity — whose look of pure loathing was a thing of beauty. “What, you took us to Hawaii?”

Slade smiled, but his gaze remained as cold and black as before. “Somewhere closer to Oliver’s heart,” he said, and Tommy’s stomach did a twenty-thousand-foot plummet because deep down, he already knew the answer. “Lian Yu.”

“You sick, twisted bastard,” Tommy said, because it was the only thing he could think to say. “You’re a goddamned psychopath —”

Slade’s sword left the grass with a flash of steel and was at Tommy’s throat before he’d done more than gotten to his knees.

“ _Tommy._ ” Felicity’s fingers were twisted into his arm, but Tommy didn’t shift aside, keeping himself between her and Slade.

“I may not be the one to kill you, Mr Merlyn,” Slade said, almost gently, and Tommy felt his skin crawl as the blade slid past his neck, down to the exact point that joined shoulder and arm. “But do not misinterpret that as an obligation to keep you in one piece until Oliver sets foot on this island.”

Translated: _shut up, or lose an arm_. That being said (or technically not said), the only thing Tommy disliked more than being drugged against his will was being the damsel in distress, which meant that pigs sprouting fairy wings was more likely to happen than Tommy making himself less annoying to Slade-freaking-Wilson.

Like now.

“I’m not afraid of you,” Tommy said, shaking his head. “You know why? Because you’re a coward, and Ollie’s the ten times the man you are. And I haven’t exactly been doing this for very long, but guys like you? They don’t win.”

Again, Slade looked more intrigued by Tommy than intimidated, as though it defied logic why he and Felicity would stand up for someone like Oliver. “Your bravery does you justice, Mr Merlyn,” Slade said, lowering his sword like a sign of respect. “But it won’t save you now.”

“Oliver will,” Felicity said firmly.

Slade turned away with a smile, and the Mirakuru soldiers closed ranks. “Just one,” he said, over the rustling leaves. “Take them.”

For a moment, Tommy didn’t understand. _Where?_

Tommy was shoved roughly to his feet, arms pinned behind his back by two Mirakuru soldiers who clearly had no concept of _Handle with Care_ , evidenced by the way Felicity gasped in pain when she got the same treatment.

“Hey — don’t touch her!” he shouted, because Felicity’s face had gone dead white. “Get away from her!”

Felicity shook her head at him in warning, but no one else seemed to care. Instead of heading inland, Slade’s men were dragging them towards the beach, which was the same kind of desolate and unwelcoming as the first time he’d been on the island, and as far as he could tell because of the thick fog — empty.

But there was no way things were that simple, if Slade had taken the trouble to fly all the way to Lian Yu with two hostages as his carry-on. So far he’d made a point to lay the groundwork with meticulous, steely care so that everything — every last, painful image — would be a twist of a knife to Oliver’s heart.

That still didn’t explain why Tommy was standing knee-deep in the glacial water, as if they were waiting for something. Slade seemed undaunted by the fog, his stare faced straight ahead like he knew something they didn’t. Of _course_ he did.

The wind made it hard to be sure, but Tommy’s senses were in overdrive, and he could have sworn that he heard…echoing. Metallic, hollow, like some kind of…

_Hull._

A ship clearly meant to mirror the one that sunk to the bottom of the North China sea five years ago, the stage set for Oliver’s choice. Felicity turned to Tommy at the realization, a shared moment of silence before the plunge. Summoning up a ghost of a smile, Tommy nodded, and they both faced forward again.

 _Ready or not_.

* * *

“We’re close to the island,” Malcolm said, striding down the aisle of the small plane. “The pilot’s been given instructions to land on the north beach once we’ve parachuted down. So we won’t have to wait for Chinese fishing vessels to pass by, assuming we’re still alive afterwards, that is.”

Neither Diggle nor Oliver acknowledged his statement directly. Oliver was silent, sitting forward with his bow level across his knees, chin resting on his clasped hands. Diggle had been disassembling and re-assembling his rifle, though it was more for the benefit of warning Malcolm not to try anything he’d regret.

Oliver was thinking. He hadn’t slept, not a wink. Not in hours. Running through his head were memories, some so old that he’d nearly forgotten they existed — some so achingly new, so unfinished, that he couldn’t fathom the possibility that it was the end.

“What’s in it for you, Malcolm?” Diggle said, eyeing him from across the plane. “Are we supposed to believe you’re suddenly Father of the Year? Or did you think Tommy would be a pretty good human shield against the League of Assassins?”

Malcolm sat across from Diggle and folded his arms. “I don’t recall my son ever becoming your business, Mr Diggle,” he said. “Though I can’t say I blame you for wanting to get some practice at being a father before it’s official.”

Oliver’s first reaction was to glance over at Diggle, gauging his reaction at Malcolm joining Amanda Waller in the short list of people who currently knew about the new development in Diggle’s home life.

It wasn’t pleasant.

“Malcolm,” Oliver said, “shut up.”

While Tommy had the tendency to meddle despite anyone’s misgivings (or verbal warnings), Oliver generally never stopped him, or felt the need to. It came from a place of affection with Tommy, from a shared history of growing up together, the same games, same schools, getting into the same kinds of trouble…and Tommy never used what he knew against anyone. That had never been who he was.

Malcolm was another story. Knowledge became a weapon with him, secrets a twist of the knife, and it would be a cold day in hell before Oliver told Malcolm anything of his own volition.

“Apparently my son’s an archer now,” Malcolm said, flicking a piece of lint off his knee like needling Diggle was an exercise that didn’t much matter. “I suppose I have you to thank for his abysmal form, Oliver. I was surprised he’d managed to hit anything, let alone bring down a helicopter.”

“Tommy didn’t become who he is for revenge, or because he needs your approval,” Diggle said flatly. “He is who he is because he’s the exact opposite of you, Merlyn. We’re his family, and we’ll make damn near sure you get as close to him as he wants you to.”

“I’m starting to think you were using me for my resources, Mr Diggle,” Malcolm said, gesturing sarcastically at the plane they were in. “Not that I’m insulted; I appreciate the effort.”

Diggle grunted and sat back, looking out the window at the clouds streaming past. The seas below were getting rougher, the turbulence more pronounced, and Oliver knew what that meant. They were closing in on Lian Yu.

“When we get to the island, stick to the satellite tracker,” Oliver said, indicating the two handheld consoles lying on one of the tables. “The place is rigged with traps, and the last thing we want to do is give away our positions.”

Diggle made a face like he couldn’t believe what he was hearing — or thinking. “Spike pits, vine nets, and landmines,” he said. “Anything else I should know about? Were you keeping a trained wolf handy for surprise attacks?”

Oliver shook his head. “Slade has a handful of Mirakuru soldiers left, and two hostages. He’ll conserve manpower by making sure they have a reason not to try and escape. Landmines accomplish that objective.”

“And what makes you so sure of that?” Malcolm asked, with a tilt of his head.

“Because it’s what I would do,” Oliver said, simply.

His response was met with silence, if only for the moment. “I suppose you’ve given some thought to the endgame of Slade Wilson’s plan, haven’t you?” Malcolm said. “ _Your_ counter-measures notwithstanding, he’s manufactured a situation where there’s no winning scenario, where there’s a loss at every turn. Of course, taking the childhood best friend makes sense, but girlfriend of three months? That seems like a weak option —”

Oliver was out of his seat before Diggle could stop him, if he’d even been inclined to, and he had Malcolm’s throat underneath his fingers, crushing him steadily against the shaking walls of the plane with one hand.

For once, Malcolm looked surprised.

“Maybe…not…” he said, with what little leeway he could use to draw breath.

Oliver didn’t move, his grip still tight around Malcolm’s windpipe, his eyes never leaving Malcolm’s bulging ones. “I’d think very carefully about your next words,” he said, his voice flat and very, very quiet. “You’re here because of Tommy, because he deserves the chance to tell you to go to hell in person, but if you talk about Felicity like that again, I will throw you out of this plane without a parachute, and not one person — not even Tommy — will disagree. The plan is to save _both_ of them, and if you dare try anything to skew those odds, there is nothing on this earth that will stop me from making you pay. Dearly. Do you understand me, Malcolm?”

Oliver had been crushing his airway for too long, and Malcolm nodded in lieu of words, his face scarlet. Oliver dropped him without a second thought, and returned to his seat. Malcolm was massaging his throat, inhaling rapidly. “At the risk…of having my throat bruised again,” he said, “you should think carefully about the kind of life choices you make, Oliver. Because your reaction just then told me everything I need to know about hurting you. Love — friendship — attachments, they’re all weaknesses that become weapons in the hands of a knowing enemy. You love Felicity. You love Tommy. Moira. Thea. Family, friends, lovers…they’re nothing but ways to hit the Arrow right where it hurts.”

“That’s what the mask is for,” Oliver said, but it sounded hollow, even to his ears.

With his unerring sense for vulnerabilities and pressure points, Malcolm knew it, because he shrugged, his stare accusatory. “And yet, here we are,” he said. “My point, Oliver, is that the mask, the hood…they’re all meaningless unless you _become_ what they are meant to embody. Darkness, justice, death — _fear_. The symbol means nothing if the man behind it refuses to take more than half-measures, to wear the mask only when it suits him, because thinks he can have a life outside of his crusade. If you want to save the City, that’s a sacrifice you’ll have to make. Your weakness for sentiment, your _arrogance_ , in thinking the hood made you untouchable. If you’d been my son, I’d have eradicated that mistake before it ever had the chance to take root.”

Everything Malcolm said had a ring of truth to it, truths that Oliver had thought at least once, reasons that went through his head in justifying why it was better to work alone, to remain at arm’s length with the people he cared about, to _lie_. Why Diggle was better off not being his friend, why Tommy should never have learned his secret, the same as Thea, his mother, Roy…and Felicity. Why those three months with her — only _three_ , when it felt longer in the best way possible — should never have happened.

No. Malcolm was wrong, because Oliver wouldn’t be where he was today, if it weren’t for the people he’d met and the love in his life that made him who he was. Strong. Brave. _Sure_.

So Oliver lifted his head, turning away from the cold gray sky flitting past the windows to look Malcolm in the eye. “I suppose it’s lucky that you were barely Tommy’s father,” he said coolly. “Because he’s nothing like you.”

Malcolm smiled tightly, though the coldness in his eyes remained. “For now.”

A light blinked green in the wall above the cockpit door, and Oliver shouldered his bow, reaching for the parachute pack by his feet. “When we get to the island,” he said. “Stick to the plan.”

* * *

Felicity shivered. Her stomach was too wired with adrenaline to feel anything except a dull churning, but her hands were icy from a combination of exhaustion and exposure to the elements. Even though they’d since been hauled indoors (a ship, to be precise), an unseen breeze still tugged at her hair and clothes, sending shivers across her skin. The air was damp, heavy with the same condensation that beaded the walls and dripped steadily from the ceiling, as steady as the seconds ticking down on a clock.

The only blessing in disguise was the Mirakuru soldiers vanishing to whatever dark corner Slade had assigned them to patrol, and Slade himself being nowhere to be seen, though she was still wary of him appearing from the copious amount of shadow like he was prone to do, ninja-style. Super-enhanced zombies running around on a ghost ship in the middle of godforsaken nowhere; suffice it to say Felicity was never watching another horror movie ever again.

She found herself breathing in time to the throbbing in her wrist, which — after being selectively ignored for rapid-fire hacking and the opposite of taking it easy — was straying close to unbearable. The fingers in her left hand were almost too stiff to move, not to mention the slightest brush of outside contact radiating in painful shivers up and down her forearm.

“Are you okay?” Tommy said.

She nodded, not trusting herself to talk. They were on a cargo ship, one that clearly had been in use until very recently, judging by the lack of decay and the fresh coat of paint, albeit with some strange stains that looked eerily like blood in the low light. Cargo ship was a deduction based on the sturdy iron grating above their heads and around them, dividing the vast space into partitions that had clearly been meant by less diabolical minds to separate crates and breakables, or whatever the hijacked freighter used to haul on its route.

But since it’d been taken over by a single-minded psychopath, the cargo hold on the lowest level had been converted for hostage imprisonment, with Tommy and Felicity stashed in adjacent and equally locked cells. The ceilings were made high to accommodate stacked cargo, but if she stood on her toes, she could peer through the gaps in the grating to see the rows of ascending floors above, all overlooking the central space in a way that made her feel constantly watched. It didn’t take a whole lot to guess that the windows were high and out of reach, that there wasn’t a single microchip or hackable platform within a two-mile radius, and there were plenty of hostiles lurking out of sight.

While Felicity’s response to the overall creepiness was to think — quick calculations that were mentally crossed out because of the threadbare arsenal of things they had to go on — Tommy hadn’t stopped moving around his cell since he’d been dumped there, pushing and prying at corners and surfaces in search of a way out. The gray light filtering in through the rusted grates wasn’t the best source of illumination, so she didn’t blame him for cursing every few seconds when another possibility exhausted itself. Or maybe that was from getting tripped up by the canvas netting underfoot, which was useful in the context of stopping heavy crates from sliding around during transport, not so much to the active hostage looking for an escape hatch.

Felicity had her knees drawn up to her chest. “Oliver should be here soon,” she said quietly. “Assuming he left once he realized we were gone, flight time’s almost run out.”

Tommy turned, and she shifted closer to their shared cell wall when he sat down, cross-legged and breathing hard. “Thought of any escape plans?” he asked.

Felicity made a face. “Escape plans…not so much,” she said, keeping her voice calm. “Have I thought of about twenty-four different ways Slade — or the island — could kill us? Prefer not to say.”

“Well…you never know,” Tommy said gamely, his cheer still infallibly present. “Maybe talking it out might help.”

Felicity tried very hard not to think: _your funeral_. Especially when the both of them were active prospects for a brand new casket by the end of the day. “We’re in the lowest part of the ship,” she said, hastily pushing away the unhelpful thought, “and Slade doesn’t have a lot of guards. Chances are, he’s using cameras to watch what we do, and if he realizes Oliver didn’t just teach you how to shoot arrows —”

“— I think _Lock Picking 101_ was for next semester,” Tommy muttered.

“— there’s probably a way to seal up the cargo level, and maybe — possibly — blast the hull and sink the ship. Even if we managed to get out and head inland, there’s about a seventy-to-one chance that a stray mine’ll blow us sky high. That’s also if we don’t get dragged under by the currents…and if hypothermia doesn’t get us first.”

“Maybe _don’t_ talk it out,” Tommy suggested mildly. “Not talking about that is good.”

Silence fell, and Felicity let it stretch. She closed her eyes, just for a second, thinking of the last phone conversation with her mom. The things they’d talked about, the things they hadn’t. Work — hers and Felicity’s — the way the grocery store kept stocking the wrong kind of potatoes, that nasty customer down at the Grand casino…

Donna wanted to meet Oliver, which to be fair was a weekly request from even before she found out that he was _boyfriend_ , instead of just _boss_. Felicity had turned her down, because everything on their plate meant that a motherly visit and pretending to be normal in a house she’d barely seen for weeks was just — _not_ on the cards.

Felicity regretted that, even though she also didn’t. She didn’t regret how her mom was safe and half a country away, but she regretted not getting another hug, to get the life half-squeezed out of her by arms who used to wrestle her out of the house for a little bit of sunshine, especially if she’d been on a multi-week hack-a-thon and was getting slightly north of pale. Felicity regretted not saying _thank you_ , and not enough apologies. Not enough _I love you_ -s, and god, did Felicity wish she had something to make that better. A message to her mom, something, anything.

Just in case.

Felicity looked up, because in the vein of _just in case_ , there was something else she needed to say. She rapped gently on Tommy’s cell wall, and he looked up. “So I have a bit of a history in dealing with self-sacrificial tendencies, and my dubious experience in that area is telling me you might be planning something along those lines inside that cute head of yours,” she said, choosing each word with care. “Don’t. I know Oliver, and we’re getting out of this together. We all are.”

A part of Felicity had been uncharacteristically hoping she guessed wrong, but Tommy’s face told her everything she needed to know about that possibility.

“No cure. No tech. No bow.” He shook his head slightly, hands open in front of him, grimy and blackened from pushing his way around the cell. “Something stupidly self-sacrificial is all I’ve got. Slade wants Ollie to make a choice, and either way, it kills him. I can’t just sit on my hands and wait for that to happen, Felicity. He’s my best friend. I have to protect him, because he’s protected _me_. Those times I got myself in trouble, he always came after me, no question. I owe him that much, which is why —”

“—Tommy,” Felicity said, closing her eyes.

“— and I _swear_ , this is just a hypothetical,” he continued. “But if only one of us made it out alive, it has to be you, Felicity. You…you make Ollie happy. You make him _want_ to be happy. Stupidly happy, but also — kinda smarter happy, like he’d finally be able to do algebra, or stop tripping over himself in a rush to save everyone else. He wants a _life_ because of you, not just going through the motions of being a CEO or a rich moron so he can beat up criminals at night. You don’t just make him smile like I haven’t seen him smile since Lian Yu, you’re the reason he has to come home, no matter what, and I want…I want him to come home, always.”

Felicity listened in silence, because she knew Tommy would have fought tooth and nail to say exactly that anyway, even if she’d tried to interrupt. But he had another think coming if he thought she was just going to accept it, even in a hypothetical _either-or_ situation, because one of the things her overactive brain had strayed to was the _what if_ , and she had her answer. An answer that involved the wrong-on-all-levels, mathematically impossible task of explaining why Tommy mattered to Oliver.

Why losing him was unthinkable.

“ _Hypothetically_ ,” she said, and Tommy didn’t resist when she reached up to touch his hand where it was clenched around the cell bars, her fingers holding on like it would ease the bad news she was about to drop. “I don’t agree. Because you’re his best friend, Tommy Merlyn. You’re his brother. You know him better than anyone else. When he came back from the island, he had you. When he disappeared after the Undertaking — after Laurel — you were the one who brought him back. He stopped dropping bodies because of you, and for months now, the reason he went out there every night was to fight for a city he loves, for his family. Tommy, you’re Thea’s brother too. Moira’s son. You’re family to Sara and Sergeant Lance. You and McKenna — I mean, I couldn’t —”

She pressed her lips together before she could give voice to the thought that no one needed to hear. “Tommy, we can’t lose you.”

They stared at each other, two people having an unthinkable conversation in _what-ifs_ that were increasingly sounding like reality snowballing in, and Felicity read it on Tommy’s face, probably just as he could read it on hers.

It made Felicity’s heart twist to say the words, but it was about choices, about choosing, and she wasn’t saying that Oliver would have to make that decision, because she _knew_ he was coming after them with the plan to save both, not one.

But just in case. Just in case Slade had one more twist they didn’t see coming, Felicity knew who could pull Oliver back from the guilt, from the darkness.

It was Tommy Merlyn. Of course it was. Oliver’s oldest friend, his brother, someone he’d known all his life, and someone who would take care of him, no matter what. Felicity could live with that (terrible choice of words), and she wanted to make sure he understood.

Felicity blinked hard. “I want us to promise each other something,” she said, and Tommy squeezed her fingers in recognition. “Nothing’s for sure, and if one of us makes it out alive, it’s not that person’s fault. It’s not Oliver’s either, and I want…I want you to promise me you’ll make sure he remembers. But I want you to remember it too.”

Tommy’s face twisted with confusion, with the _wrongness_ of what they were saying to each other, balanced against the need to get things out in the open, the absolution of guilt in a nightmare none of them — not Oliver, Felicity, or Tommy — had created. It wasn’t Slade’s victory; it was a friend caring about what was left behind in their wake, and wanting them to be okay.

Felicity knew Tommy understood it too, maybe better than anyone. “I promise,” he said, and the raw emotion in his voice made her eyes sting with tears. “Felicity —”

They both turned at the sound of rumbling, almost thunder, but not quite. Echoing inside the vast empty ship.

“A plane,” Felicity said, her insides a conflicted jumble of relief, love, and fear. Because Oliver was here, and that meant one thing.

Felicity couldn’t hug Tommy, but she reached for his hand again, gripping tight. She and Tommy had a role to play in Slade’s twisted creation, and all they could do was trust. Trust in each other, and in Oliver. “Tommy, listen to me,” she said quickly, as footsteps rattled on the metal around them, a reminder that time was running short. “Oliver’s coming for us, and he’ll find a way. So promise me — no hypotheticals.”

Tommy nodded, and Felicity found herself desperately trying to hold back tears. “Hey, you have my idiot best friend to move in with,” he said. “There’s no way I’m missing that housewarming party.”

Felicity brushed his cheek through the bars. “And the world’s most embarrassing toast,” she answered, smiling. “A _Tommy Merlyn_ specialty.”

Tommy grinned. “Save me a glass of champagne, and I’m there.”

* * *

Oliver took a step forward, his boot soundless against the forest floor. Setting foot on Lian Yu always felt like walking into another time, another version of himself, a steady loss of innocence in favor of something grittier, unforgiving, and dangerous.

He might have been learning to shoot from Yao Fei, being taught to keep his footfalls silent, not to let the forest surprise him, because _he_ was meant to be the ghost. Fingertips resting lightly on the shaft of an arrow, the weight of the bow in his hands, the draw in one fluid motion, the snap and whistle of the shaft flying through the air…

The forest was filled with whispers, voices that only he was meant to hear. From learning how to hunt from Shado, how to hone his reflexes with Slade, to evade his enemies and lay traps for them in the hostile terrain, how to fight and keep fighting even if he was on his last limb, his last iota of strength. How never to give in. To _survive_.

“I’m starting to understand how you achieved your stunning personality traits, post-return from Lian Yu,” Malcolm said, walking alongside Oliver with his bow casually at the ready. “This place is a hellhole.”

“Keep talking, and we’ll leave you stranded on it,” Diggle said. His rifle was at his shoulder, and he was scanning the forest in front of them for threats. “We’ve passed the fuselage, and the old camp. How do you know Slade’s not keeping them there?”

“I just do,” Oliver said, keeping his voice low despite the steady current of agitation underneath his skin. “This is the final step. He’ll want to make sure he kills one of them in a place that reminds him of her.”

Malcolm rolled his eyes. “What I could do with all that power in my veins,” he said, sounding almost awed at the thought of the Mirakuru. “Wasted on revenge…and sentiment. Underneath all the volatility from the Mirakuru, Slade’s affection for the dead girl is what makes him predictable.”

“That’s interesting,” Diggle commented bitingly. “Because if my memory serves, the Undertaking was you leveling the city for payback.”

“I never claimed to be faultless, Mr Diggle,” Malcolm answered. “But I do know a monster when I see one, and Slade Wilson is no longer the man he once was. He’s been consumed by the Mirakuru, and monsters like him are meant to be destroyed by self-proclaimed heroes like you. Which begs the question, _Oliver_ , as to what it means that you’ve thrown in your lot with me.”

“It means,” said a voice that made Malcolm’s face turn the color of ash, “that Oliver Queen is less of a fool than I thought he was.”

Malcolm’s arrow glanced off the flat of a blade and vanished into the carpet of fallen leaves, trodden to pieces a second later when Nyssa landed soundlessly in the clearing, her black eyes gleaming underneath her hood.

If Malcolm had planned to run, the blunt end of a metal Bo staff jutted underneath his chin as soon as he turned, neatly blocking his way. Sara cocked her head to one side, showing no sign whatsoever that she was remotely outmatched, despite Malcolm’s seniority in the League of Assassins. “Going somewhere?” she said, her stare glacial behind the black mask.

“Thank you for coming,” Oliver said, ignoring Malcolm’s look of indignant betrayal. “Did you find it?”

“Your instincts were sound,” Nyssa informed him. “Northeast of the island. A cargo ship, with no crew. They’re most likely dead, and their vessel commandeered. A similar one vanished on its way from Odessa two weeks ago.”

“I’d ask how you knew,” Diggle said to Oliver, “but I have a feeling I know the answer.”

“This wasn’t part of our arrangement,” Malcolm interjected, Sara’s weapon still flat against his throat in an unmistakable threat. “In the unlikely event it’s escaped your notice, the League of Assassins wants my head on a spike!”

“That’s Ra’s al Ghul,” Sara corrected. “The rest of us don’t have strong feelings about it either way. Unless they’ve met you, in which case…”

“How adorable,” Malcolm said icily. “But falling in line with your beloved’s convictions won’t stop Ra’s al Ghul from exiling you under some false pretense. If I recall, he was quite the traditionalist, and given what you’ve been up to with his daughter —”

There was a slash of steel and Nyssa’s knife was now pressed to Malcolm’s jugular, point first. “Be very careful of your next words, Al Sa-Her,” she warned, twisting the hilt of her knife as she spoke. “Queen asked for our assistance in the safe return of his best friend and his beloved, and I agreed. But do not mistake this for absolution, because I have every intent to make the fight between you and I a fair one, and having you distracted by thoughts of your kidnapped son will make your defeat an empty victory.”

Malcolm’s gaze flicked over to Oliver, but the latter remained impassive. “And if I refuse?” Malcolm asked.

“I wouldn’t,” Sara said, with dangerous calm. “Because we both know you killed my sister.”

Malcolm bristled with defiance. “If you think —”

Oliver stepped forward, because they didn’t have the time for this. “Malcolm, you came back to Starling City with the League of Assassins chasing you halfway around the world,” he snapped. “You should have realized that I wouldn’t go after Tommy without insurance, which means you’re making the exact same mistake as Slade. Sentiment. You came back for Tommy, and that means I’m trusting you to get him out of this alive.”

“Slade Wilson is more than a monster,” Malcolm retorted. “He’s become the unthinkable, and Ra’s al Ghul once told me that in order to defeat the unthinkable evils of the world, we must be willing to do whatever it takes. We have to be willing to _do_ the unthinkable ourselves. Now where does that leave you, Oliver?”

Oliver pressed lightly on Sara’s Bo staff to get her to lower it, and Nyssa did the same with her knife, albeit more reluctantly. They were all allies here, however uneasy those alliances were. But their core objectives were the same — to save their friends. That was enough.

“Like I said.” Oliver looked at Malcolm. “I’m trusting you to get Tommy out of this alive.”

Malcolm’s smile was a sharp-edged thing, but he looked almost proud. “That’s more like it.”

* * *

Oliver dropped onto the deck of the ship, crouched low as he made it to cover, ready to shoot on sight. A thick white fog blanketed the deck, reducing visibility to a stone’s throw and sounds to odd, disembodied echoes. The creaking of the steel deck beneath him, unnaturally silent when the engine should have been running, powering the ship through the water. It was anchored now, waves crashing furiously against the black hull, and Oliver felt like he had stepped back in time.

It wasn’t the _Amazo_ , but Slade had done his damn best to make it look the part.

“Starboard side,” Diggle said over comms. “No sign of them.”

“Engine room,” said Nyssa. “Still with the traitor, and no sign of your friends.”

Oliver didn’t need visual to imagine Malcolm’s eye-roll, being the aforementioned traitor. As he scouted the surroundings, Sara appeared in his peripheral vision without a sound, scanning the murky deck for signs of life. “Just like old times,” she said, and he knew what she was remembering.

_Queen’s Gambit._

_The Amazo._

Queens and Lances didn’t have the best luck with boats, but then again, neither Oliver nor Sara had been those people for a very, very long time.

“It’s different now,” Oliver answered, meaning it more than he’d expected. “We’re not the same people we used to be.”

“Better, or worse?” Sara asked, with the same neutral tone that made it impossible to tell if she was serious.

“Stronger,” he said. “Now let’s finish this.”

The pale ghostliness of the ship was suddenly awash with color, from alarm lights flaring red and shrieking _danger_ at them from all sides. Oliver looked at Sara, and without another word, they both broke into a run.

* * *

The alarm was still going off, the swooping wail reverberating off the metal corridors as Oliver made his way beneath the deck. The noise was meant to create a sense of panic, confusion, but Oliver knew better than to let that stop him.

Besides, he already knew how it was meant to end.

There were steps beneath his feet now, leading him further into the bowels of the ship, and Oliver was starting to hear things.

“I remember when I came across a scared kid on a deserted island, all those years ago,” said Slade, his voice echoing strangely from the corners, even though it shouldn’t have been possible. “Untrained, and unprepared. I had my blade to his neck, and like many times to come, I could have killed him. Yet I remember sparing him, even killing mercenaries, soldiers — enemies — to save his life.”

Sara slipped into the shadows, her silvery hair gleaming as she slid through the gap in the staircase and vanished. Oliver continued to walk, letting the voice guide him. The others were all on comms, including Diggle, and Oliver’s overriding priority was to make sure that Tommy and Felicity were still alive.

Emerging into open space made Oliver’s senses prickle in warning, and he searched his surroundings for signs of movement. The light filtered in through a grimy skylight, gray and uneven, illuminating an interior deck nearly three floors below him, overlooked by identical balconies and steel watertight doors.

“I should’ve killed you then,” Slade rasped, his voice coming from below. “I should’ve killed you before you killed Shado and took her from me.”

Oliver tethered a grappling arrow to one of the wall pipes and stepped carefully onto the ledge. His jump was soundless, but pain shot up his knee at the landing, and Oliver forced himself to breathe in deep. It was still throbbing when he straightened up slowly from a crouch, his bow at his side.

The floors were made of heavy iron grating, crisscrossing over empty black space, and it briefly occurred to Oliver that it might be a trap before he glimpsed movement beneath him.

“Ollie!”

Tommy’s face appeared between the gaps, pale under the colorless light. The last time they’d seen each other was before Lincoln tunnel, and within a second, Oliver had spotted the fresh injuries — some too fresh to have been from the fight — and the shadows under Tommy’s eyes that meant he was running on fumes.

Oliver crouched, giving the grate an experimental tug. Too heavy to shift without some kind of leverage, and Tommy was too far below to reach it on his own. “Are you okay?” he asked quietly.

“I’m fine,” Tommy said, his gaze darting to the side of his cell. “Felicity’s okay too, but I can’t see her, they moved us —”

“I’ll find her,” Oliver said, and hesitated. “I’m sorry, Tommy. I never — I never meant for this to happen.”

“Don’t,” Tommy said fiercely. “You hear me? Don’t let him get into your head now.”

They both knew Slade was listening, so Oliver let his hand rest briefly on top of Tommy’s cell. “I’ll be back for you,” he said, and his best friend nodded grimly.

“Be careful.”

Oliver was conscious now of the silence; Slade had stopped taunting him, which was all the more reason to be wary as he advanced along the deck, scanning the dark cells beneath him for signs of movement.

“Felicity,” Oliver whispered, because he wasn’t seeing her. “ _Felicity_.”

“Oliver!”

He raced towards the sound, and his bow rattled against the floor where he dropped it. Felicity reached up to him with a wordless sound of relief, her skin white against the dark cell. The pain from her arm showed on her face as clearly as a bruise, and Oliver had both hands on the bars before he could stop himself, his fingers curling into them in spite of the knowledge that the metal was too heavy to lift. “I’m here,” he said. “Are you okay? Your arm —”

“— takes tenth place to everything else going on,” she said stubbornly. “Thank god you’re okay, and not that I’m _not_ happy to see you, but please tell me you didn’t come alone, because the big takeaway of tonight — or last night, I’m losing track — was that teamwork equals big, _big_ plus.”

The rush of words was so, characteristically Felicity that Oliver nearly smiled, in spite of their circumstances. “I remember what you told me,” he said. “On the bridge, before everything went to hell.”

Felicity smiled for real, in recognition of something meant just for them. Her hand reached up again, resting instead on the walls of her cell, and Oliver knew she wanted to touch him, feeling the absence of it like a physical ache. “I love you,” she said, answering his question. “But Slade —”

Oliver sensed movement before he actually saw it, and only his reflexes saved him from the sword slash that sparked off the metal floor, leaving a deep scratch where his hands had been just seconds before.

“Oliver!” Felicity shrieked, and he reached for his quiver before Slade could try again.

The arrowhead smashed into the ground and smoke exploded between them, filling the air with white. Oliver rolled away and fired again, but Slade backed into the swirling clouds and vanished, leaving his arrow to skitter uselessly across the floor.

“Deception,” Slade said, the words echoing strange and disembodied in the murk. “Misdirection. Did you forget who taught you, kid?”

Slade wasn’t alone, and one by one, Oliver heard the Mirakuru soldiers jump, sensing their landing from the reverberations on metal.

Oliver turned slowly, his bow at the ready, because the teaching went both ways, and he remembered Slade’s techniques too. “It’s over, Slade,” he said. “Your army’s finished. My city wasn’t destroyed. Your plan _failed_.”

The smoke to Oliver’s right parted, and he whirled, firing a cure arrow that Slade sliced to pieces, throwing up his bow to block the downward stab of the sword. Oliver grunted when Slade pushed, forcing his arms further behind his head with slow, deliberate force. “As always, you miss the point of the exercise,” Slade hissed, their faces close together. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have followed me back here, to hell on earth. Rest easily in the knowledge that before this night is over, _purgatory_ will take on a whole new meaning — when I take what is most precious to you, and leave you with their broken body, their blood wet against your skin.”

“Not — a — chance,” Oliver said through gritted teeth. “ _Now!_ ”

Realization flickered across Slade’s face, and he slammed Oliver away just in time to catch the arrow inches from his eye. It was flat and broad, unlike the ones Oliver used, and pure, jet black. Slade snapped the shaft with his bare hand and tossed it contemptuously to the ground, looking begrudgingly impressed.

“Your desperation shows,” he said, grinding the pieces to smaller fragments beneath his boot. “But not even the League of Assassins can save them.”

Oliver looked up with a faint smile. “I didn’t come with the League of Assassins.”

A shape hurtled down through the dissipating smoke and slammed a kick into Slade’s chest, landing easily in a crouch just a few feet away. The figure was hooded and holding a dark bow, the armor bearing a striking resemblance to a League assassin’s, though Oliver knew that the similarities ended there.

Malcolm pulled back his hood. “It wasn’t my intention to intrude on a personal matter,” he said, and the momentary surprise on Slade’s face was replaced with unreadable calm when Malcolm shifted to point an arrow at his throat. “But you took my son, and I’d like him back.”

The smoke had cleared, showing Oliver that he and Malcolm were surrounded by Mirakuru soldiers. Slade gleamed in triumph, until the skylight shattered, and glass rained down on them from above. Diggle rappelled down to the balcony as their sniper, and Nyssa flipped down on a length of black silk, landing at Oliver’s back. But it was Sara who jumped from the ledge above, rising in front of Slade with a twirl of her Bo staff, blazing with a challenge that came from unfinished history. “Slade,” she said, “stop this.”

“ _Sara_ ,” Slade answered, lengthening the sound of her name with mocking recognition. “The little golden bird. You should have let Oliver face his mistakes alone…or is it your guilt at betraying Shado that keeps you from abandoning another friend to die?”

“Ivo could’ve killed me or Shado, we both know that,” Sara said. “Ollie couldn’t have stopped him, and I’m not abandoning my friends because you forgot how to separate truth from delusions.”

Slade smirked. “You may have trained with Ra’s al Ghul, but the island already killed you once. You were left to your death on a ship much like this,” he said. “It would be unwise to tempt fate.”

“Ta-er al-Sahfer’s fate is not to be decided by a madman like you,” Nyssa said, her voice low and dangerous. “Surrender, or it is my promise that you will be shown no mercy.”

Slade was unfazed by the threat; his gaze found Oliver’s again, and he tilted his head to one side. “Your actions only delay the inevitable,” he said. “Did you really think you could catch me by surprise?”

“Stand down, Wilson,” Diggle said, his rifle trained on Slade. “The cure already leveled the playing field.”

Slade shook his head slightly. “You think that the Mirakuru in my veins makes me a threat,” he said, as one of his hands disappeared behind his back.

For a second, Oliver expected a gun, but Slade’s hand withdrew with a device that blinked red, and he smiled. “A fatal mistake,” he said.

“No!” Oliver shouted.

Oliver and Diggle fired at the same time, the shots sending the detonator hurtling through the air, but a tremor shuddered the ship’s hull a second later, from an explosion going off somewhere nearby. There was a moment of silence, the calm before the storm.

Then the walls groaned, and white water spewed across the floor, disappearing through the grating and into the cargo hold beneath their feet. There was a scream from below, and Slade glanced over his shoulder.

“Choose,” he said to Oliver, drawing his sword with a gleam of recognition at the familiar words. “Or both will die.”

* * *

Tommy Merlyn wasn’t having the best of days. Or nights, technically — messed up time zones and the unapproved usage of tranquilizers made it hard to keep track. But he definitely wasn’t hallucinating the person who’d swung in and shot an arrow at Slade Wilson, without batting an eye, cool as a freaking evil, ninja-trained cucumber.

 _Malcolm freaking Merlyn_ , otherwise known as his dad.

First off, _Malcolm?_

Second, was the rest of the Suicide Squad busy, or something? (They probably were, what with Amanda Waller’s deadline for reducing Starling City to a crater.)

Third, and this wasn’t even a question, but Tommy didn’t like the idea, not one little bit.

“Are you kidding me?” he said, even though he was pretty sure nobody could hear him.

Because Oliver and their friends were all dealing with a close-quarters fight against Mirakuru soldiers backed by their commander of supreme evil, who — as Felicity completely, one-hundred-percent predicted — had been hiding a psychopath ace card up his sleeve the whole time. Rigging the whole damn ship with explosives that were reason _numero uno_ for icy seawater raining down from above and flooding his cell up to knee-height.

Not good, very, _very_ not good.

Explosions were still going off somewhere in the ship, smaller than the first big boom, but the latest one sent the floor tilting up at a sharp angle, sending Tommy skidding towards the far wall. He snatched at the canvas netting just in time to stop himself from slamming full-force into solid metal, only for a white wave of freezing water to crash down on his head.

Basically, the whole ship was going sideways, and Tommy was running out of options.

Sara dropped onto his cell from above, and Tommy blinked the stinging water out of his eyes just in time to see a Mirakuru soldier come her way. She whirled as a blur of silver, and her Bo staff cracked into the side of his Mirakuru-enhanced skull so hard that Tommy heard bone crunch. But Sara wasn’t done; she wrenched his gun-toting hand backwards, got _both_ her legs behind his head, then hurled the whole combo down into the ground like it was Wrestlemania — assassin-style — capping the whole thing off with a cure syringe to the neck.

Very, very cool.

“Tommy!” Sara shouted, searching for him through the gaps in the cell. “Are you okay?”

Tommy shoved an arm above the water, hauling himself up by the canvas netting to higher ground.

“Knew you missed me,” he croaked, ignoring the stabbing pains from the ice-cold water pouring into his cell. “By the way, that move? This whole rescue mission? A-plus hero behavior.”

Sara smiled, a temporary replacement for the hug she’d give an idiotic brother who’d scared her half to death. “Promised myself I’d look out for you,” she said, wedging the end of her Bo staff into one of the gaps in preparation to pull. “I’m not going to lose someone I care about again.”

It was an incredibly nice moment happening in the middle of a terrible situation, until Tommy sighted movement behind her. “Sara, look out!”

Slade grabbed her from behind and hurled Sara clear out of view. Before he’d even stopped to savor his work, a black arrow whizzed past Slade’s neck, and Nyssa dropped in for the kill, her sword slashing hard and fast with a ferocity that raised goosebumps on his skin.

They were still fighting when the ship lurched again, throwing everyone off-balance as the hull took on more water, and Tommy lost sight of them after another wave crashed into him head-on.

Tommy had gone over his cell too many times to count, but there _had_ to be something, anything he could use to get himself out. He started yanking at the canvas, trying to disengage one of the crisscrossing strips. If he couldn’t get himself out, he could at least make sure the next rollercoaster dip didn’t send him flying into solid metal with skull-cracking velocity.

He thought it was a good plan, until someone landed on top of his cell again, someone that personified _ew_.

“Oh my god, pass,” he groaned.

“Tommy,” Malcolm crouched by the cell door, making him briefly reconsider the merits of a fall-induced concussion. “Are you all right?”

Water was still pelting Tommy from above, but he shook the hair out of his eyes and tilted his head back with an accusing stare, because there was no way in hell that Malcolm got a fuzzy reconciliation. “Why are you here?” he demanded. “You didn’t want me, remember? You called me weak, a disappointment, oh, _and_ you beat me to a pulp the last time we saw each other, you pluperfect asshole.”

“And you sent the League of Assassins after me,” Malcolm reminded him, unfazed by the insults. “Brought down a chopper and a few Mirakuru soldiers with your bow too.”

There was a gleam in his eye that might have been pride. Not that Tommy could remember what the real thing looked like, because occasions when Malcolm had been proud of him were few and far between, mostly related to preschool arts-and-crafts made with macaroni and dated way, _way_ back to before they’d lost his mom. Which made this kind of parental glow a special kind of sick.

_Hell. No._

“You tried to hurt Thea,” Tommy said harshly. “You wanted her to know the truth because it would help _you_ , not because she deserved to know. Because you needed a replacement kid for the one you didn’t want. Fast forward to present day, when you see me shoot an arrow and now you — what — want to make nice? You don’t get to do that, because that’s not how being a dad works.”

While Tommy had been giving him the verbal equivalent of a middle finger, Malcolm kept himself busy with the same thing Sara had been about to do, leveraging one of the square grates so that Tommy could get out. Which seemed heavy enough to give him some trouble, or maybe it was Tommy’s clear _nope-_ ing out of the situation. “Shall we discuss this at a more opportune moment?” Malcolm suggested, slightly out of breath from pushing. “After I’ve saved my son from drowning in a sinking ship?”

“No,” Tommy said, and repeated himself, louder, in case the chaos helped Malcolm miss the obvious. The one word he couldn’t take. “ _No_. You don’t get to call me that, because Robert Queen was more of a father to me than you ever were, and you’re the reason he’s dead. Save me, don’t save me, but we’re done. Stay the hell away from Thea, and stay the hell away from us.”

Whether Malcolm would have responded in kind, Tommy never found out, because bright orange flames exploded over their heads, raining burning debris from above — including fragments of red-hot metal hurtling towards the ground. The resulting jolt threw Tommy into the wall of his cell, and he ducked for cover as some of the debris hit a little too close for comfort. The water doused most of the flames, but when the cloud of steam cleared, Tommy couldn’t see Malcolm anymore. Which meant he’d either been incapacitated by the falling health hazards or he’d gotten out in time.

Tommy didn’t know which one he wanted more, but there wasn’t the time to pick through his father issues, so he hauled himself back up to the closest wall and squinted at the ceiling. Good news — the weight of the falling debris had dented the bars, leaving one end of the grate higher than the other, and a foot or so of wiggle room for Tommy to push. Bad news — making use of it was contingent on Tommy getting up to the ceiling, and parkour was _so_ not his thing.

Another bonus, Malcolm’s bow was still snagged between the bars, along with a quiver of arrows that looked awfully cure-like, but he needed to get past the cell to use them. Tommy scanned the walls, slick with numbingly cold water and any claustrophobic’s worst nightmare. But being _done_ with the hostage thing meant learning to save himself a whole lot more, which was why Tommy shut his eyes for a few seconds, concentrating hard on channelling Roy William Harper Jr. and his affection for unnecessary wall-climbing.

Slippery surfaces meant momentum was key, so Tommy broke into a run and didn’t stop. He slammed into the wall of his cell and hauled himself up, his fingers digging through the gaps in the rusting metal for handholds, and he kicked, making a grab for the ceiling.

His fingers dug into the crevice between grate and frame, and Tommy hung for a heart-stopping second before he managed to get his back against the nearest wall and his feet dug in to keep him from falling. Squashed sideways against the grate, his neck twisted to one side and shoulder braced against the ton of metal standing between him and not-drowning.

“C’mon, Merlyn,” Tommy said, working Malcolm’s bow between the grate to use as a lever. “Time to save yourself.”

Then he started to push.

* * *

Felicity used to like the movie _Titanic_. A pre-face fuzz Leo DiCaprio, redhead Kate Winslet and a sappy love story? Unashamed to say it had been her go-to sad movie, not to mention the subject of a tenth-grade physics paper where she’d definitively proved — using diagrams and meticulous calculations — that one extra person on that floating door would have been utterly and completely doable.

Her point being, she’d been obsessed with the movie at a stage in her life, but that would have to take a long, _long_ hiatus, because Felicity was in the hull of a sinking ship, up to her elbows in water, and hypothermia — or crushing debris — looked a whole lot more real than on her TV screen.

A wave crashed on top of Felicity’s head, courtesy of the holes blasted in the ship somewhere and the power of gravity, and she coughed out a mouthful of saltwater, grabbing the nearest wall for balance because the floor was tilted down at a fifty-something-degree angle and she still remembered — in vivid, unhelpful detail — what happened to the passengers in _Titanic_ who hadn’t grabbed onto something when the ship started to tip over.

But more importantly, Felicity had lost sight of her friends. Oliver had been alive and fighting Slade the last time she’d checked, bow and arrow against slashing sword and the ability to slice arrows out of the air. Despite the cure on Oliver’s hands, the most they were was evenly matched, and Felicity had to believe it would be enough.

A shape dropped at her from above and Felicity bit back a scream, but a second later, Diggle peered at her through the bars, water streaming down his face. “Just me,” he said. “You okay?”

Felicity could have squashed him in a hug then and there, if it hadn’t been for one pesky cell door. “My hero,” she shouted, over the sound of the water. “I knew all those push-ups you did would come in handy!”

Diggle grinned at her, dire circumstances aside. “Now do you have a genius way to get out of here, or am I just gonna start pulling?”

Before Felicity could answer, the ship lurched again, slamming her into the wall. Her vision went white for a second as the impact spiraled up her injured arm, but she clawed her fingers into the bars to keep herself where she was, breathing as deep as she could.

“Felicity! You okay?” Diggle yelled.

“I’m fine!” she answered, pulling herself up again. “And you’ll just have to trust me on the physics, but do you have a harness?”

“Yeah,” Diggle said, reaching for his belt. “Tell me what to do — in English, please.”

Felicity nearly grinned at the perpetual translation request. “Find a surface near the cell, a railing or something, that’s going to be a pulley. Then spit on your hands, or whatever guys do when they’re about to lift something heavy, because —”

“— that’s where I come in, got it,” Diggle said, throwing the harness over one of the sturdier-looking steel pipes with the girth of a tree trunk and hooking the other end to the cell door. “Hold tight.”

Felicity nodded, and Diggle started to pull.

* * *

Slade was laughing. The seawater stung Oliver’s eyes, lashing against his face like rain, the chill burning around his body and pulling him towards inertia, slowing down —

 _No_.

Oliver cracked his bow into the side of Slade’s jaw and drew back, only to have another of his arrows cleaved to pieces. Their weapons clashed together for a second time, and Slade turned his head to spit blood, breathing hard. “Your efforts only delay the inevitable, Oliver,” he said triumphantly. “The longer you try and fight, the more dire their circumstances become. Your only option is to choose, or they will both drown the same way you should have drowned in the Queen’s Gambit. Your closest friend, or the woman you love — _choose_.”

“Slade,” Oliver said through gritted teeth. “It won’t work. I’m done with your games.”

Slade forced him clear and slashed at his chest. Oliver plunged into the icy water and Slade’s hand closed on the scruff of his neck, forcing his head back. “You’re done,” Slade snarled, his voice bright with hatred, “when I say you’re done, kid!”

Oliver’s knee was on fire, lead-heavy and sending stabbing pains up his leg when he tried to move. One quadrant of the cargo hold was completely submerged, water rushing in and rising fast. Felicity and Tommy were still stuck in their cells, their friends were fighting, or hurt, and Oliver couldn’t think of anything — anything except the resolution that it _had_ to happen differently. Things couldn’t happen the same way twice, and he wouldn’t lose them the same way he’d lost Sara for five years, or worse.

The walls around them groaned again. The ship was tipping, this time at a different angle, and Oliver would have fallen if Slade hadn’t kept him exactly where he was, so that he could watch, so that he could feel powerless, at the moment when it mattered most.

“Ollie!”

His name was almost lost in the chaos, but Oliver focused in on the sound, his heart sinking when he realized what he was looking at. Tommy was wedged between the heavy iron grate and the ground, nearly hidden from view by the debris pinning him around the chest. His arms and shoulders were free, but there was pain on his face, and for a second, Oliver thought he was shouting for help.

“He’ll die unless you save him,” Slade taunted, clearly thinking that Tommy was trapped too. “Laurel Lance died under a collapsing building — can you bear to lose another of your childhood friends the same way?”

As Slade spoke, Oliver glimpsed the empty quiver lying near Tommy, the strap snagged on a sharp edge, one that looked a lot like Malcolm’s. Tommy caught Oliver’s eye again, and this time he nodded.

Tommy had a bow, and there was a chance coming, only seconds before the ship shifted again. “Slade,” Oliver croaked. “You see her, don’t you? Shado.”

Slade’s grip tightened at the back of Oliver’s neck, and he tasted rust when Slade wrenched his head up, sword to his throat.

“I know what it’s like to see ghosts of the people I love,” Oliver continued, forcing out each word in spite of the pain. “And someone once told me that the way to lay those ghosts to rest is to listen, to hear what they’re trying to say. The Mirakuru’s changed you, Slade, but somewhere deep down is the man who loved a pure, kind soul, and the Shado we both remember would _never_ accept what you’ve done.”

Oliver breathed out, calm setting in his bones like steel. “Slade, I’m asking you to stop this for her,” he said. “Please.”

The words, whatever they meant to Slade with the Mirakuru-induced hallucinations, stopped him short, and Oliver braced himself just as the ship gave a dangerous lurch. “Tommy, now!”

The arrow flew, but Slade would have only cut it to pieces, something Tommy knew as well as Oliver. Which was why Tommy hadn’t aimed for him at all.

Oliver caught the arrow inches from his face and twisted against Slade’s grip, ignoring the pain and chaos to drive the needle downward into his neck. Slade released him at the first shock of the cure, disbelief igniting into rage as he lunged at Oliver and swung a punch into his face. The unrestrained ferocity of it should have cracked his skull open, but Slade wasn’t on the Mirakuru anymore, and now the tables had turned.

The water was rising, and Oliver kicked Slade across the ground, losing him for a second beneath the white froth. But Oliver wasn’t letting him go that easily. The steely calm he’d used to suppress his anger was gone, and he slammed punch after punch into Slade’s face until the water around them swirled with red, not stopping for breath, even as Slade laughed, and laughed.

Oliver grabbed him around the neck, his fist throbbing, knuckles raw.

“You’re wondering if the Mirakuru made me hate you,” Slade whispered, his only eye nearly swollen shut, his lip split and bleeding. “We’ll never know, will we?”

“You paralyzed my mother,” Oliver said, shaking from something more dangerous than cold. “You kidnapped my sister and tore her world apart. You took my best friend and the woman I love. You killed innocent people all because you wanted revenge.”

It was a recitation of crimes, an echo of what he used to do as the Hood, during his first months of delivering justice to the people who’d wronged Starling City. Slade couldn’t have known it, or maybe he did, because his bloodied mouth parted in a crimson smile, laughter bubbling in his throat.

“Kill me, kid,” Slade whispered hoarsely, a trail of dark red snaking down his jaw. “Do it. You know you want to.”

_Moira._

_Thea._

_Felicity._

_Tommy._

_Sara._

_Roy._

Oliver saw all of them, the people he loved and cared about, and every single one of them hadn’t escaped Slade’s darkness. None of them had been safe as long as Slade still lived, and there was every reason to end it once and for all right now.

There was a dark irony to it, because five years ago, Oliver had chosen to kill Slade. Now it was a choice that he couldn’t repeat, even though Slade was at his mercy, and there was more blood on his hands — the kind that didn’t wash away — the kind that Oliver would never be able to forgive.

Slade knew it too, because he was goading Oliver to kill him. One final victory, one final chance to prove who Oliver really was.

A killer.

“I want to,” Oliver agreed, owning up to the weight of his decision. “But you deserve to pay for what you’ve done, and I haven’t played executioner for a long, long time.”

Slade’s enraged snarl was short-lived, because Oliver slammed a punch into the side of his head that knocked him out cold. For a moment, he stood in the water, staring down at Slade’s unconscious face, icy rain coming down on them from above.

Whatever relief there was at finally stopping Slade didn’t last, because the steel behind him gave a deafening groan, and a wave blasted onto the deck, plunging them into darkness.

* * *

Oliver’s head broke the surface. He’d nearly lost his bow in the sudden torrent of water, and he was holding onto the cell bars with one hand and Slade’s collar with another to stop him from being swept away.

“Ollie!” Sara was still in the water, a cut bleeding on the side of her face from a hard hit, but she seemed otherwise okay. “Tommy’s —”

“I know,” Oliver said, sighting Nyssa on the balcony above. “You and Nyssa need to get Slade out of here. We can’t lose him after everything he needs to answer for.”

Sara’s eyes burned with defiance, but Oliver held his ground. “Please. I’ll get everyone out, I promise. Make sure Slade gets to shore.”

Her hand was on his icy cheek before she slung Slade’s arm over her shoulder. “You promised, okay?” she said, and Oliver nodded.

“Oliver!” It was Diggle was shouting for him, crouched in front of Felicity’s cell. There was a bloodstain on his leg and a telltale slant to his posture that meant he’d been hit. Even with a fresh injury, Diggle had managed to get some of the grate open, but debris had blocked him from lifting the rest. The water level was close enough to the mouth of the cell for him to reach the surface, and Oliver couldn’t see anything except white foam.

“Felicity!” Oliver shouted, dropping to his knees beside the cell.

There was an explosive gasp, and Felicity pushed her head out of the water, clinging to the walls of the cell.

“I can’t shift the debris on my own,” Diggle said, grunting from the effort of keeping his footing and the grate from slipping. “The cargo hold’s filling up fast.”

Oliver wedged his bow underneath the grate and pushed hard, but it barely budged under the force of the rushing water. “Stay with me,” he said to Felicity, while Diggle shifted the pieces of fallen metal. “Felicity, you’re almost out, okay?”

Felicity had to keep her chin raised to stop herself from swallowing water, but she nodded. “Where’s Tommy?” she asked, and Oliver reached down to meet her halfway, gripping her sleeve tight. “Is he okay?”

“He’s pinned, but he got out of his cell,” Oliver said. “I’ll go get him as soon as you’re clear.”

Felicity’s face was completely drained of color and her teeth were chattering, but she still smiled at him from below. “I’m okay,” she said, and Oliver started to nod, until she caught his face with her fingertips and repeated herself. “Oliver, I’m okay. Tommy’s down there, and you have to get him out. You can’t lose him, so —”

She drew him close, but the nearest they could get was still inches apart, separated by metal and the rushing water, and Oliver felt it like an actual physical pain, knowing he couldn’t get to her. Felicity’s fingers pressed against his skin, shaking from something more than just cold, and she was crying when she whispered:

“ _Go_.”

There was nothing but concern and truth and _love_ in her voice, because Felicity would never have hesitated to make a sacrifice for her friends. But Oliver was the one who caught her this time, holding on tight. “I won’t,” he said. “Felicity, listen to me. I can’t lose you either, so don’t even try it.”

Diggle heaved again, pushing the last steel beam clear, and he nodded at Oliver, who braced himself, curling one hand tight around his bow. “I love you,” he said to Felicity, because that — the words and everything they meant — were the reason why he had to keep fighting.

“Now!” Diggle shouted, and Oliver heaved with all his strength.

The grate slid clear with a blinding surge of water and somewhere, somehow, Oliver felt a hand close around his own. He pulled on instinct, and Felicity slammed into him, the two of them nearly losing their footing. For a second, it was disbelief. Then Felicity’s arms were around his neck, painfully tight, her breathing short and fast against his ear. It took him a moment to realize that she was trying to tell him something, and —

“I love you,” she said, because they were still in this together, no matter what.

Oliver kissed her until it felt like all the air around them had burned away, and the only thing he knew was her, _safe_ , in his arms.

“You should’ve gone after Tommy,” she whispered, and Oliver shut his eyes.

“There’s no choice to make,” he said, in her ear. “And we both know Tommy would’ve killed me if I didn’t get you first.”

Felicity choked out a laugh, but the ship rocked violently again, throwing them to their knees. Oliver grabbed Felicity by the back of her jacket, using his bow as an anchor to stop them from sliding. “You have to get out of here —”

“Not without you!”

Oliver caught her face with one hand, because he knew how much he didn’t want to be separated from her, but his best friend was still trapped in the sinking ship, and he couldn’t concentrate on saving him if he was worried about her getting swept under too. “Go with Digg,” he said, making sure Diggle had her before he let go. “I’ll get Tommy. Get her out of here — _go_!”

Diggle was limping from the injury to his leg, and Felicity ducked underneath his arm to help bear his weight. Her slippery fingers clung tight to Oliver’s for a second more, until she had to let him go. Taking it as his cue, Diggle swung the grappling line onto the balcony above. “We’ll see you and Tommy out there!” he shouted, and Oliver nodded.

Diggle and Felicity swung up from the deck, vanishing through a torrent of water, and Oliver turned, searching for his best friend.

“Tommy!” he shouted.

The water glistened like black glass, and Oliver slid towards the lower deck, searching for Tommy in the chaos. The force of the explosions had blasted doors and rafters clear, a maze-like configuration of obstacles, and Oliver pushed at the debris, looking for the right cell.

“Tommy!” Oliver yelled, dislodging a piece of solid pipe. “T—”

A figure erupted from the water. “What the hell are you doing?” Tommy spat out a mouthful of water, gasping. He still had Malcolm’s bow, his knuckles turned white from the effort of using it when he must have been running on the last reserves of his strength. “Felicity’s still here, _go_ —”

“She’s out,” Oliver promised, kicking the pieces of debris loose. “And I promised I wouldn’t leave without the both of you. So shut up and help me lift this.”

Tommy snorted, wincing when the gesture hurt him — most likely from bruised or cracked ribs. “Five years of doing the salmon ladder…and you can’t heave this on your own?” he said. “Or do you need Felicity around…to show off?”

Oliver grabbed the side of the cell door and started to push, ignoring the burn in his back and shoulders. “You’re always calling me an idiot for being self-sacrificing,” he said, because he knew Tommy well enough to guess what he was thinking. “Don’t you start now.”

“Beautiful — bastard,” Tommy corrected, sweat streaming down his face. “At least — get the — insult right — you _moron_.”

Oliver fought hard not to laugh. “Together on three, okay?” he said. “One —”

Tommy stopped Oliver for a second, looking up at him with a gaze of steady blue, even as everything around them went to hell. “My least favorite words right now are officially _just in case_ , but desperate times and all that — you’re my best friend,” he said. “And I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing about what brought us here. I want — I want you to know that, okay?”

Oliver hated the possibility of _just in case_ as much as Tommy did, but what happened to Laurel and being too late was a shared fear triggered by the present situation, and Oliver didn’t want anything to go unsaid between them.

“I know,” he said. “Tommy, trust me, I know.”

Tommy nodded and gritted his teeth, suppressing the pain enough to help Oliver shift the debris. “Then let’s get this thing off me,” he grunted. “One, two, _three_ —”

They pushed together, and Oliver forced himself to keep going until the grate slid clear. A little too quickly, because Tommy yelped at the sudden loss of pressure, and would have dropped straight down into the frothing water below if Oliver hadn’t caught him around the forearm.

“I’ve got you,” he said, and Tommy grinned in relief, his hand still tight around Oliver’s wrist.

“Sinking ship, deserted island?” he said wryly. “Now I know how it feels to be you.”

“Tommy,” Oliver said, meaning it, “you’re better.”

Tommy’s smile was both disbelieving and incredulous, and Oliver heard him laugh.

One last time.

There was a deafening crash of a hole being ripped through steel, and another wave of water crushed Oliver’s back, slamming head-on into Tommy. He yelled, and Oliver fell forward, one hand twisted tight into Tommy’s sleeve, the other grabbing the bars as a handhold to keep them from slipping. The water was an icy shock, salt stinging his open wounds, but he shook his head to clear his vision, focusing in on the one thing that mattered. Because the only thing keeping Tommy from falling was his grip on Oliver’s arm, and he was losing it, fast.

“Tommy,” Oliver said desperately. “Tommy!”

“Ollie —” Tommy began, just as his grip gave out under the gushing water, and he fell.

Oliver grabbed for him, but the deluge was already carrying him downward, towards the far wall of the cell below.

“No!” Oliver yelled, as Tommy landed hard on the steel with a painful crack.

For a moment, Oliver was back on the Queen’s Gambit, realizing that Sara was halfway across the room and too far away to reach. Desperation as sharp and bitter as the taste of smoke, along with the realization that there was nothing he could do to change what was about to happen. But Oliver couldn’t tear his gaze away.

Just like five years ago, Tommy’s head turned towards the sound of Oliver’s voice, dazed from the impact, in the belly of a vessel fast going under.

For an excruciating moment, the best friends stared at each other, and Tommy reached his hand towards Oliver’s outstretched one.

Then the current sucked him under and he was gone.

“ _TOMMY!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **OKAY.** Before everyone freaks out, there will be an epilogue after this. Fair warning, it'll skip a few months into the future. I do apologize for ending it this way, but the way I see it, it dovetails with where Tommy and Oliver were respectively at the beginning of this fic. Oliver was "gone" at the start of the story, and now it's Tommy's turn. Oliver's going to be looking for him, and trust me, he's not giving up that easily. I'm happy to explain my decision in the comments, if anyone still has questions.
> 
> That being said, you can probably tell that I didn't actually kill Tommy off. I firmly believe in the philosophy that if you don't see the body on Arrow, the person ain't dead. You’ll just have to trust me on that one (*cough* Malcolm). Again, I'll address it in the epilogue.
> 
> Thanks for sticking with the story thus far. I've pretty much nailed down the epilogue, so expect that soon-ish. But if anyone has suggestions or reminders about things I might have missed, feel free to drop me a line!
> 
> Until the next update,  
> ChronicOlicity :)


	48. Epilogue (Part I)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last update, guys! Sorry it took a little longer than "soon", but I've been interning at a firm for the last three weeks and it's hard to write when you only get home waaaay past your own bedtime. I ended up splitting the thing into two parts because it would've been a behemoth to handle in one go. Also because I have a feeling it's my last hurrah, so I want to tie loose ends up and write a good ending to be proud of. To all the ten people still reading this, enjoy!

**_Two months later_ **

 

“Oliver, we’re counting down to fifteen minutes here,” Felicity said, turning from one monitor to another. “No pressure, but if we don’t stop those trucks, they’re gonna set off a chain reaction at the power station that’ll drop Starling back into the Dark Ages. And _no_ , in case you were wondering, they didn’t have Netflix back then.”

“Or central heating,” Diggle suggested. “Vaccines. Lifespans over forty. That kind of thing.”

“You know what I mean,” she answered, dropping her voice like they were talking in person instead of over screeching tires and gunfire across three separate locations. “When you’re talking to someone who lived on a deserted island, the usual scare tactics don’t work.”

“Are we doing a thing where we all talk about Oliver like he’s not here?” Roy sounded out of breath from running, zip-lining, or whatever the boys did to shortcut their way through town without actually touching road. “Cuz there’s some stuff I need to get off my chest.”

“I can’t watch this,” Thea said from beside Felicity, her fingernails chewed down to the quick. “I know it’s not the first time, but is it always —?”

“Yup,” three voices chimed in at once. All except for Oliver, who as per usual, seemed to have a whole world of other things on his mind during the mission.

Well, the _past-two-months_ kind of usual, ever since —

Felicity cleared her throat. “Oliver, ETA on the surprise attack?” she asked, checking on the tracker moving rapidly through the corridors of the power plant. Which would have been unremarkable, if Oliver hadn’t been dealing with ten hostiles at a time, armed thugs making sure the Villain of the Week’s villainous plan went off without a hitch.

There was a particularly painful yelp from Oliver’s side of the comms, above and beyond the usual background noise of crunching and snarls, that Felicity hastily brought up the surveillance feed inside the power plant.

Onscreen, Oliver stepped over a heap of unconscious thugs and reached calmly for another arrow. “Well, they’re not surprised anymore,” he said. “But I’m about to take down the payload. Just make sure the trucks don’t get any further than the loading bay.”

“How generous of you,” Felicity muttered. “John, could you maybe —?”

“— make sure he gets back in one piece?” Diggle finished for her. “Don’t worry.”

“Weirdly enough, I still am,” she said, and exchanged a look with Thea.

Despite spending plenty of evenings down in the Foundry, the latter was still getting used to the team’s _modus operandi_ of flying by the seat of their collective pants (now that was an image) when it came to saving the city.

But that was for later. Felicity patched herself into the CCTV feeds and the operating system of Starling City’s main electricity plant. Levels were already spiking, and it was taking everything she had to keep the strain on the system from going critical. “Oliver, they’ve rigged the central generator with blackout tech. As soon as the truck gets within range and their guy presses the trigger, it’ll bring the whole grid down. We’re talking about aftershocks and a _lot_ of explosions, so — y’know — try not to miss.”

“I —” Oliver ducked as machine gunfire went off behind his head and Felicity felt her blood pressure inch just that much higher at how incredibly _not safe_ this was, even for him.

“— don’t —”

The door to the generator room went red without warning, and Felicity was on it with a muttered curse, hands flying across the keyboard while Oliver shot at his pursuers.

There was a crash and Oliver rolled off the fallen door, catching the handlebars on the raised platform just in time to stop himself from plummeting forty feet.

“—miss,” he finished, and Felicity shook her head at how that wasn’t funny. At all.

Oliver dropped to the floor beside the central generator, dodging and returning fire without pausing for breath. Felicity kept one eye on him while she put up digital countermeasures to stop the thugs’ tech from remotely overloading the power grid, watching the team’s trackers converge slowly on the same location. “Guys, Oliver’s pinned down in the generator room,” she said. “You’re up. Knock it out of the park.”

* * *

Oliver turned at the sound of gunfire, echoing over the live hum of the generator. White flashed in the windows overlooking the main floor, and he fired a grappling arrow towards the ceiling, launching himself off the ground. The momentum carried him into a swing, and he crashed through the glass, landing on the roof of the nearest truck.

Kord Industries, stolen. Just like the alert said, the one Felicity had put in place for hi-tech thefts, a precaution based on their less-than-positive experiences with valuable and rare technology going missing.

Tonight was a strong case for keeping it.

The driver whirled at the sight of him. He’d been firing through the smashed windows at Diggle and Roy, joined by the rest of the thugs in masks. “What the —” he cursed, and the assault rifle was up in a second, leaving even less for Oliver to react.

His arrow struck the grip from the driver’s hands, and Oliver slammed him into the ground with a snarl. Roy took down one of the attackers with a single shot and reached for another arrow, but Oliver shot the masked thug he’d been aiming at and put himself in front of Roy, firing around the side of the black van where the team had taken cover.

Diggle gave Oliver a look over his Glock. “C’mon,” he said. “The kid’s here to learn.”

“Yeah, really?” Roy said in exasperation. “I can take care of myself!”

“I know,” Oliver said, his shoulders heaving. The faintest twinge of guilt, because he’d promised Roy more than that, promised that he’d continue to train, continue to fight. “I know, I’m sorry. It was — reflex.”

Roy’s accusatory look softened under his hood and the layer of dark greasepaint, because he knew who Oliver was thinking about. “Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, sneaking a look behind the van. “They’ve still got the numbers. Any ideas?”

Diggle dropped a thug with a knockout punch and ducked back out of the gunfire. “A distraction would be good, maybe one of those flashb—”

A shriek burrowed into their ears, making all of them wince and panes of glass blow outward in a rain of knife-edged shards. Oliver looked around in surprise, tracing the long shadow across the concrete, towards the small figure standing on top of the van with a long metal staff.

“Thought you boys could use a hand,” said Sara, smiling a little behind the mask. “Now, shall we?”

* * *

“I gave Lyla an update on the stolen tech,” Felicity said. “ARGUS agents are en route to take the gang into custody — they’ve been looking for the syndicate responsible for hi-tech thefts all over the country.”

“Thanks,” Oliver said, looking out over the rooftop at the restrained thugs below. “We’ll keep an eye out until they get here.”

“You okay?” she asked quietly. “I’m guessing you took a few hits back there.”

Oliver reflexively twisted at the waist, feeling his muscles ache in response. Kevlar weave or not, getting hit with military-grade weapons still hurt, and there was a fresh cut on his shoulder from knocking Roy out of a stray bullet’s trajectory. A bullet Roy was quick enough to avoid, but a chance that Oliver was having trouble taking all the same. “Sorry,” he said, just as quietly. “I…I couldn’t.”

“Yeah.” There was a pause, and the two of them were listening to each other breathe, past the static of the closed line and the miles between where they stood. Like they were alone, and she was right there with him. “Just remember that I couldn’t either, okay?”

Oliver nodded. “I know,” he said, because that was the mutually non-negotiable baseline. “I’ll see you back there.”

“I’ll have a med kit waiting,” she answered, soft and warm. “Love you.”

“Love you too.”

Sara was waiting at her side of the rooftop when Oliver walked back over, and she didn’t hesitate to hug him, no questions asked. “Hi,” she said.

Oliver hugged her back. “I wasn’t expecting to see you for a while,” he said. “You were here last month.”

“That was for Laurel,” Sara said. “I _can_ swing by for more than just visiting my sister, you know. Saving your ass, for example. You’re welcome.”

Oliver wasn’t quick enough to smother his smile. “Thank you,” he said, rectifying his mistake. “Where’s Nyssa?”

“Central City. I’m catching the train tonight to meet her there, we’re gonna see my mom, maybe sit in on a couple of her classes —” Sara dug her elbow into Oliver’s arm when he snorted at the thought of Nyssa al Ghul listening intently to one of Dinah’s medieval history classes without volunteering a few views of her own.

“— then we’ll both be back for the housewarming party,” she finished. “Dad’s kind of gotten used to the idea of us being together, and there’ll be free booze and food, I’m assuming…”

“Felicity’s not going near the kitchen,” Oliver murmured.

Sara grinned. “I love her, but she doesn’t need another one of her talents to be cooking.”

“Yeah.” Oliver ducked his head, smiling at his hands. “She has to leave something for the rest of us.”

There was a comfortable pause as Sara looked out at the night view and Oliver waited for her to say it, one of the reasons why she’d dropped by unannounced.

“You’re still coddling Roy,” she said, and he suppressed the impulse to jerk his head in denial. “Oliver, you promised him that he could learn, and what good is backseat-driving his training when we both know that’s not how it works?”

“We _do_ know how it works,” Oliver retorted. “It ends with a sinking ship off the coast of Lian Yu, and an empty —”

 _Grave_ , but he bit off the rest of the sentence. Because it was something else that didn’t need to be said.

The silver-white curls hid Sara’s face momentarily from view, and she didn’t speak until the hurt — a sharp, raw stab — subsided just a little. “I don’t blame you for what happened,” she said hoarsely. “I don’t blame myself. Or Felicity. I don’t blame any of them because it’s not their fault that Tommy chose to fight, or to save his friends. So you shouldn’t blame yourself either, because that’s what this is. You came back to be the Arrow, and I’m proud of you for that, but Roy’s back too. And this means something to him, means being more than just a reminder that you’re feeling guilty over other people’s choices. So respect that. Respect _him_.”

ARGUS vans were pulling up below them, but Oliver made no move to leave. Sara brushed his cheek before she turned to go. “You deserve to be happy, Ollie. Remember that.”

* * *

“What do you want?” Felicity said rudely.

It was the kind of rude that went with an indecently late hour, and knowing the guys were on their way back and wanting to avoid a collision-course with someone they hated just as much as she did. Like snakes in a crib. Or brussels sprouts in ice cream.

But like it or not, Felicity was the only person who could wrangle Amanda Waller, because apparently, super hacking skills were enough to make sure that the Head of ARGUS would stay civil. Even if she technically disapproved of Felicity’s life choices.

“Now, is that any way to greet someone?” Waller said, as if they were having a conversation in her office, not on a monitor that she’d hailed her way into. “Or is a hi-tech theft and a near-miss with citywide chaos the only way to get the Arrow and his team’s attention?”

“ _Partners_ ,” Felicity corrected. “And sure, doing the right thing by keeping bad guys off the street really deserves a mark in the _owes you a favor_ column. I’m almost surprised you didn’t give them the evil plan yourself and set them up as a trap.”

Waller only smiled. “The thought did cross my mind, yet here we are.”

“And we’re back to square one: what do you want?” she snarked back. “You threatened to level Starling City two months ago, we stopped you. End of story.”

“Hardly. Slade Wilson was a problem manufactured by the Mirakuru and some nasty personal history between him and Oliver, as I understand it,” Waller said sharply. “A problem ARGUS is currently doing your team a favor by keeping in super-max lockup on Lian Yu. Which I think we can agree is an undeserved courtesy, seeing as you planted quite the bug in our mainframe. You’re fortunate I have an appreciation for fine work, even if it gives me a headache.”

Felicity resisted the urge to smirk at Waller’s face-saving euphemism for her hacking. But a second later, she realized she wasn’t that much of a gracious winner. “I shut down your system,” she clarified.

“A minor side-effect from protecting your little city,” Waller said. “Starling’s not a hole in the ground, by the way. Congratulations. But that’s not what I’ve brought you here to discuss.”

“Killing puppies, maybe?” Felicity muttered.

Waller ignored the jab. “The Mirakuru in Mr Wilson’s system seems to have been neutralized, but given his unusually dangerous skill-set, Agent Michaels recommended super-max lockup, pending such time when a full neurological and long-term psych evaluation pronounces his return to full mental acuity.”

“Instead of tossing him into the Suicide Squad, you mean,” Felicity said, because she’d been with Oliver long enough and heard plenty about Waller’s methods to guess where things were headed. “I wouldn’t try, Amanda. He’s not a pet you can train.”

“We have a dozen engineers responsible for the Task Force X subcutaneous implant who would feel very hurt by that sentiment,” Waller said sarcastically. “But I wouldn’t concern myself with Deathstroke; I intend to take Agent Michael’s recommendation to heart.”

Felicity shrugged. “Great. Anything else?”

Waller’s expression was unreadable. “Seeing as we have a base on Lian Yu, we are of course monitoring the island closely. The wreck off the coast was searched two months ago, but we’ve kept an eye out for any…remains that might appear on the beach.”

Felicity’s fingernails dug into her bare arms, but she didn’t move, didn’t let her expression crack and the hurt show through. She was only glad that Thea was waiting upstairs for the others to get back, instead of listening to this.

“Nothing so far,” Waller finished. “My condolences.”

Felicity lifted her chin slightly, returning Waller’s flat gaze with steel. “Oliver was gone for five years,” she said. “But he wasn’t dead.”

Waller raised an eyebrow, looking very much like she wanted to contradict the statement. “As I said,” she repeated. “My condolences.”

Felicity raised her eyebrows. “If that’s all you came here to say, then we’re done.”

Waller’s mouth curled in a dangerous smile, and Felicity realized she’d done it — all of this — because she could. Because it was a reminder, some agenda going forward. “You survived Lian Yu. But before you, it was Oliver. And Sara Lance. If that isn’t enough to convince you that we live in a strange, volatile world, Slade Wilson and Malcolm Merlyn are proof of that world being infinitely more dangerous than most people would like to think. But you and your friends aren’t ordinary people, and you take on a great burden because of it.”

Felicity didn’t need to be near the team to read how they’d respond to Waller, because Waller wasn’t someone who dealt in sentiment and honor. Not as long as they fought for something that wasn’t her cause.

“Let me save you some time,” Felicity said, enunciating the words. “We’re not ARGUS. We’ll never be ARGUS.”

Waller raised an eyebrow. “But that doesn’t make us your enemy,” she said silkily. “Who knows? Maybe we can help each other, going forward.”

Felicity made a noise of pure sarcasm and reached for the keyboard, because as far as he was concerned, they were done here. “Goodbye, Amanda,” she said.

Another barbed look. “Always a pleasure, Miss Smoak,” she answered, meaning it about as much as she did.

The screen cut to black, and Felicity lifted her head, staring up at the ceiling as she exhaled a long, slow breath.

* * *

Thea pulled back from her hug, and Oliver did his best not to show her how badly his sides were aching. “I don’t like it when you go all _Rambo_ on missions,” she said.

A twinge at that, unrelated to a physical cause. “Sorry,” he said, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “It’s late. Mom’s probably waiting up for you —”

“— and I have an early morning meeting tomorrow,” Thea finished. “Donor thing for CNRI. We’re trying to plan a party.”

“Of course you are,” Oliver said, and she rolled her eyes.

The lightness of the moment faded when Thea hesitated, as though she was looking for the words to say something else. Oliver waited, because she was his sister and she’d done more than her fair share of waiting for him.

“We’re still on?” she asked finally. “Tomorrow?”

Despite the vagueness of the question, Oliver nodded. “Wouldn’t miss it,” he said, meaning it. “I’ll see you back here at three.”

Thea stood on her toes and hugged him tight, doing a masterful job at not wrinkling her nose from the smell of smoke and guns. Oliver bumped a rough kiss to the side of her head and watched until she’d met Roy in the corridor.

“You okay?” Diggle said, and for a moment, Oliver didn’t know what his answer was.

“Yeah,” he said, turning away to punch the code into the hidden keypad. “Fine.”

Whether Diggle believed him was another story. “Sara went to catch her train, huh?” he said, as the two of them made their way down the steps.

“Yeah,” Oliver said, sensing the incoming sagely advice. “John, I know. I know I should, but I just —”

“— need time.” Diggle nodded, gently bumping Oliver’s uninjured shoulder with his arm. “We know.”

The understanding in his voice made Oliver’s throat tighten. Felicity was downstairs, facing the computers with a frown knotting her eyebrows, but it faded away when she looked around at the noise, and their eyes met.

“Who was that?” Oliver asked, because there was only a handful of people in the world who could make Felicity look the way she just did.

Felicity shook her head slightly. “You’d think the Head of ARGUS — a super-secret spy organization built on collecting intelligence and espionage — would be able to take a hint,” she said, and Oliver knew he’d guessed right.

“Amanda’s persistent, I’ll give her that,” Diggle said, slotting his sniper rifle back into the rack alongside the others. “We bruised her ego during the Mirakuru invasion, and she wants the Arrow to know who’s boss.”

Oliver gave them a look that communicated how little he disagreed, but the thunderous expression cleared in time for him to give Felicity a kiss on the cheek in greeting. She smiled, folding him into a hug. “Hi,” she said, near to his ear, and Oliver smiled back.

“Hi,” he answered, and turned to Roy, who’d just wandered downstairs and was in the process of removing his gear. Tired and sweaty in his red hoodie, but looking like he’d had the time of his life.

“Good work out there,” Oliver said. “You would have handled them just fine.”

Roy shrugged, returning the red bow to the clear case next to Oliver’s. “Thanks,” he said. “Maybe next time I’ll get a perfect streak.”

Oliver put a hand on Roy’s shoulder, his gaze earnest. “Roy, I mean it. You did good out there tonight.”

Roy looked like he wanted to say something else, but it was gone a second later, quick and decisive. He took a step back, pointing at the ceiling. “I gotta go, Thea’s waiting. We have that meeting at CNRI tomorrow and I’m allowed to be an hour late to work if I bring coffee. The way she likes it, or stale donuts — her words, not mine.”

It was how Roy Harper — never comfortable with expressing his feelings — would say _no worries_. “Okay,” Oliver said. “Goodnight.”

Roy cracked a half-smile in Felicity’s direction and snagged a change of clothes off a nearby bench. Since he’d started going out on the streets in his red hoodie, he’d switched to wearing button-downs and trousers, though that probably had something to do with working at CNRI and not being able to look anything less than legitimate. “See you guys tomorrow,” he said.

Diggle bumped fists with the kid before he made his exit, and checked his phone. “Lyla wants me to pick up mashed potatoes and chicken tikka on my way back,” he said, grinning like it was the cutest thing he’d read in his life. “I gotta go. We’ll discuss ARGUS tomorrow?”

Oliver nodded. “Tomorrow.”

“Say hi to baby Digglet for me,” Felicity called.

Diggle saluted them on his way out. “Behave, you two.”

The door shut again, and it was just the sound of steam hissing from pipes, humming CPUs, and them. Felicity turned to Oliver, and his hand glided down the length of her back in an absentmindedly soothing motion. He still had his mask around his neck, and he slipped the strap off his head, weighing it in the palm of his hand.

It was a thoughtful moment, a balance of responsibility for what it represented, and the uncertainty that came with training someone else to follow in the Arrow’s footsteps. Roy was learning, but he wasn’t the first person Oliver trained, and after what happened to Tommy — it meant more, infinitely more — that Oliver had been able to come back. To keep going.

None of it changed the fact that he was learning to live without his best friend, and it hurt. Sometimes it hurt so much that he could barely breathe, even thinking how Tommy would have been proud.

Felicity must have known what Oliver was thinking, and this time she was the one to run her palm up his back, pressing gently to loosen the tension in his shoulders.

“We should patch you up,” she prompted. “Home?”

He nodded. “Home.”

* * *

“What did Amanda want?” Oliver asked suddenly.

Felicity didn’t take her eyes off the suture she was pulling through the cut in his shoulder, nudging her glasses up with the back of one hand. Something about suturing — the sharp needle, probably — made it hard to talk and close up torn skin at the same time, and at the rate Oliver was going, Felicity preferred to get the latter done first.

“The usual,” she murmured, gently tilting his arm towards the light by the bed. “Mind games. Implicit job offer with a side of threatening.”

“She should know you don’t scare easy by now,” he said, sounding proud and absentminded at the same time.

“Sometimes I wish you did,” she answered, and Oliver didn’t say anything at first, staring at his feet.

“Felicity —”

“I know why,” she said, before he could remind her. “I _know_ , Oliver. But that doesn’t mean I have to just sit here while you act like you have nine lives and bullets bounce off you. They don’t, and what you’re doing — I’m worried. I’m worried you’ll forget that it’s not normal, that it’s not — _frack_ —”

She’d tugged a little too hard and the cut in Oliver’s arm had decided to retaliate, crimson welling at the raw edges of ragged laceration. Biting her lip, Felicity reached into the steel bowl sitting between them on the towel, applying pressure to the skin with a wad of bloodstained gauze.

It wasn’t a fight, not technically, because the thing about fights was that the two people involved had to be on two different sides, but that wasn’t what this was. Because Felicity and Oliver weren’t disagreeing that this — what he was doing, acting like he was the indestructible Terminator in the field — was dangerous, more than the usual baseline for them. That it was unsustainable, that it was being brought on by something stronger than a sense of right and wrong. That it was guilt.

Survivor’s.

Both of them, in their own way.

Oliver’s eyes were on her face, and she felt the brush of his knuckles against the back of her neck, sliding underneath her hair to find the knot of tension that had been there since she sent him out of the Foundry. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, and his mouth was at the whorl of her ear, whispering the two words until they started to blur together, and Felicity reached up to curl her arm around him, feeling her eyes sting.

“I love you,” she whispered back. “But you promised me. You promised you’d come home.”

 _I_ am _home_.

 _That’s not what this is_.

Oliver didn’t try any of those things, the untruths that would smooth over what was really going on. A problem that neither of them had a solution to, except time. The reassurance that they’d be there, right there for each other, and for all its imperfections, that was something defiant and hopeful all on its own.

After everything, Felicity believed in Oliver, and that was enough.

* * *

Icy black water churned around him, stinging his skin like a thousand cuts.

_You’re my best friend. And I wouldn’t change a goddamn thing about what brought us here._

It was a storm; lightning and thunder, the world turning sideways.

_Tommy, you’re better._

Metal groaned, and it wasn't thunder that shook the ground. Explosions, fire and smoke blasting through steel, sending debris tumbling around him.

Oliver strained to reach his best friend, feeling his muscles burn in protest.

Tommy’s trusting stare, dazed, blood smeared down the side of his face from the fall. Oliver saw him move, seconds slowed painfully into minutes, suspended on a knife-edge. Tommy reached for Oliver, his mouth forming a word —

The water crashed into him, and he was gone.

“ _TOMMY!_ ”

Oliver’s eyes snapped open. It was still night, judging by the lack of sun peeking through the bottom of the curtains, maybe three or four in the morning. Erratic and visceral, his nightmares. They’d stopped waking him every time he closed his eyes, but multiple times a week on an unpredictable schedule was still far from comforting.

The only thing predictable about his nightmares was what they featured, and it was always that same scene, same as the other moments — horrible, terrifying, and _past_ — he couldn’t change, no matter how much his subconscious wanted to try.

Tommy would always slip from his grasp, and he would always land, with that awful, _painful_ sound. Oliver would reach (his fingers flexed now, unthinkingly) for his best friend, straining as far as he could reach, but the water would always crash in between them, and when it cleared — Tommy was gone.

Oliver sat up, slow and careful. The clock on the nightstand ticked, and somewhere through the windows, a police siren wailed. It was Starling City at night, and Oliver hunched over for a minute, his hand shielding his eyes.

It was easier to concentrate in the dark, and Oliver focused on the sound of soft breathing next to him, until his heartbeat slowed and he didn’t feel the adrenaline buzzing in his limbs anymore. Felicity was still sound asleep, turned towards him with her arm brushing his side. Their bed was a snug fit, but they’d somehow never discussed getting anything bigger than the cot in the Foundry, or Felicity’s old one. It suited them, sleeping close to each other, a wordless reminder that they were both safe and sound. One of the first things they’d established when moving in together was the standing _OK_ for either one of them to wake the other in situations like these to talk, until they both dozed off again.

But Felicity had been busy at Queen Consolidated, and the last thing he wanted to do was wake her when she’d been pulling late nights. There was also the small issue of Donna Smoak’s impending visit, and seeing as Felicity’s stress levels tended to skyrocket whenever her mother came into town, there was all the more reason to let her sleep. So Oliver leaned over to return her half of the covers that had ended up on the floor, running his hand gently up the side of her bare leg before he draped the duvet back in place. She didn’t stir when he grabbed his shirt off the floor and slipped quietly downstairs.

If he couldn’t go back to sleep, he might as well do some work.

* * *

It was the middle of the night, and Felicity was feeling her way down the staircase with bleary-eyed sleepiness, using the exposed brick wall in lieu of a banister, her bare feet padding quietly on the cool steps.

Nightmares sometimes did the trick, bad dreams of black water and freezing death, but they weren’t the reason why she was heading downstairs. Oliver’s side of the loft bed had been left rumpled and empty, which meant one thing at this time of night.

Felicity found him in the downstairs office; heard shuffling papers through the gap in the door left ajar, not nearly enough light for someone working at an ungodly hour. It was a routine by now, and instead of pushing through the door, she hit the kitchen first, flicking the switch on the coffeemaker in the kitchen. Seven minutes for a fresh pot, that was how long Felicity stood against the counter, shivering a little from the air-conditioning and her choice to sleep in an oversized T-shirt without shorts.

Mugs of coffee in hand, Felicity made her way back to the office and gently eased the door open with her foot. The room was still a work in progress, what with their busy schedules and Felicity’s abundance of stuff-she-hadn’t-thrown-out, so there were a couple of cardboard boxes pushed up against the wall and spaces on the shelves. But there was a soft blue-and-cream rug under her feet, and Oliver was sitting on it now, instead of at the desk and office chair.

The laptop was open in front of one knee, files spread out in a neat and expanding radius around him. Oliver looked distracted, tired too, but mostly far away from her in thought patterns that had to run their course, no matter what.

“I’m trying to think if you’ve really slept a whole night in our bed,” she remarked, and Oliver’s gaze found hers from across the small room. “Feels like most nights you end up down here.”

Oliver dipped his head a little, acknowledging the truth to the statement. “Hi,” he said. “Sorry, I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Being your live-in Girl Wednesday means you get to wake me up,” she said, prodding his leg with her toe. “Not just for fun stuff.”

Oliver shifted to make space for Felicity, and she picked her way around the files to pass him his coffee, cupping her mug between her hands. Her back was to the bookshelves, same as him, bare feet sinking into the rug. The walls of the small study were lined with bookshelves, and sitting on the carpet with the lights turned low, her shoulders against something solid and immovable, it felt almost like a bunker. A place Oliver retreated to because it was steady ground, because it was closed and safe.

It was a vast improvement from retreating to a deserted island in the middle of the North China Sea, and this time, Oliver was letting her in. Felicity drew her knees up to her chest, sitting side by side with Oliver, and surveyed the spread of reports, grainy pictures and rumors, jumbled into encrypted files and lines of black and white code.

Questions and half-answers and more questions still, but the one thing they had in common — apart from being frustratingly vague — was the purpose they were directed towards.

Finding Tommy Merlyn.

It had been two months since Lian Yu, and ARGUS never found the body. _Bodies_ , including Malcolm Merlyn. Twelve hours, ARGUS crew and the League of Assassins, the former searching the wreck and the seabed, the latter combing the island for signs of life. Nothing. 

For normal people, people who weren’t them, who hadn’t seen what they’d seen in its belief-challenging glory, not being able to find the bodies — even one that had a track record in playing a ghost — meant a quiet funeral and burying an empty casket in Starling City cemetery.

But they weren’t normal people, and to them, _missing_ meant something very different from _dead_.

Oliver kissed the side of her head and murmured a _thank you_ for the coffee. Felicity slid one of the files off the rug, carefully studying the magnified surveillance footage and satellite photos of the area. He’d circled one of the figures in red, a blur to the camera, with nothing that might have triggered Oliver’s instincts except for the dark hair, and the build. Not exactly a straight shot, as far as visual ID was concerned, and the person they were looking for had plenty of experience in being a ghost.

“I woke up thinking I might have missed a lead in the Istanbul reports,” he said, by way of explanation.

“Mm. There _were_ a couple of accounts I flagged the other day,” she said thoughtfully, and Oliver pulled the laptop closer to him, bringing up the numbers. “Possible dummy holdings, shell corporations hiding old Merlyn Global Group assets. But what would Malcolm Merlyn be doing in Istanbul?”

Oliver exhaled, looking through the neat lines of currency in various and confusing denominations scrolling down the screen. “Nothing good.”

“Thinking we should make a trip?” Felicity asked, silently wondering if there was a Queen Consolidated subsidiary in Turkey.

Oliver kissed the side of her head again and reached for his coffee. “I’m pretty sure you used up your vacation days flying all over the world with me this summer,” he said dryly.

Felicity turned, her bare legs pressing against the side of Oliver’s thigh. “Haven’t you heard?” she said, leaning forward like she was telling him a big secret. “I’m the CEO of a Fortune 500 company. I can take a few personal days.”

Oliver gave her a look. “Being CEO is exactly why they need you here,” he said. “Seeing as you still haven’t found a VP to replace —”

“— She Who Shall Not Be Named,” Felicity finished for him. “And my reticence is called learning from my predecessor’s snafus. Which is a convenient segue into why Human Resources needs a better screening system for job candidates. Y’know, so they don’t turn out to be backstabbing psychopaths with evil master plans to tank the family legacy. Still haven’t figured out how to put that into a psychometric test, but it’s a work in progress.”

Oliver did a very good job of keeping his facial expression placid, despite the obvious — and deserved — dig at his tenure as CEO. “I know I’m not exactly the authority on kosher behavior as far as Human Resources is concerned, but I don’t think you can ask that in an interview.”

Felicity snapped her fingers. “And the manhunt — or womanhunt — for VP continues.”

A smile flickered across Oliver’s face, and they drank their coffee together in comfortable silence. But when he reached behind to set the half-empty mug on a shelf, Felicity did the same with hers and looked up, waiting.

“Oliver,” she prompted gently. “I know you’re having nightmares.”

Oliver’s head dipped back, his throat and Adam’s apple exposed as he stared up at the ceiling. “Turkey, Nepal, Bialya…” he said, listing the countries by heart, pins on their metaphorical case board, curved lines and red crosses over exhausted possibilities. Chasing down ghosts, something Felicity had personal experience with, seeing as she’d spent last summer doing just that.

Only this time, it wasn’t because Oliver had disappeared after the Undertaking.

“Am I going crazy?” he asked. “A part of me _knows_ Malcolm, knows what he’d do to disappear, to get what he wants…but I saw Tommy fall, the water — it pulled him under — and —”

Felicity reached up to hold Oliver’s face, because she knew. She knew why he’d be downstairs in the middle of the night, why he breathed sharp and quick in his sleep, why he was careful, so careful with Roy and Diggle and everyone around him…

Why he tossed and turned in his sleep, why he ended up in the corner of their apartment on most nights, chasing down leads with her help and wondering if he was losing his mind. Because Oliver was used to being the one out of reach and hidden from view, the one being _gone_.

Because losing someone like Tommy Merlyn — even if Oliver didn’t believe he was really gone — had to feel like losing a piece of himself, a scar that never really healed, an ache from a phantom limb…

Felicity opened her arms. “Come here,” she said, and Oliver leaned against her, his head warm and solid against her chest, shutting his eyes.

Felicity held him, stroking his hair and listening to him breathe. “I know Tommy,” she said quietly. “You do too. He never gives up without a fight, because he’s _strong_ , Oliver. He’s your best friend and the two of you…have a connection. It’s something I can’t explain, and I don’t think you can either. But it means being so, incredibly alike in all the best ways. One of which is staying alive, _surviving_. No matter the odds.”

Oliver ran his thumb across the back of her hand without speaking, and Felicity pressed a little more, because they both needed to hear it. “You told me two months ago — after Lian Yu — that you’d keep looking for him,” she whispered. “Tell me why.”

Oliver leaned into her touch, breathing deep as he thought of his best friend. There was pain, and vulnerability, but also something loyal and true. Hope, even in the darkest of times. Felicity loved Oliver for it, loved that side of him that he was learning to trust, because it meant he was growing, changing — however gradually — to someone different from the Hood, the lone survivor on the island.

“Because…he never stopped looking for me,” he said, finally. “All those years I was gone, he never stopped. He knew the chances I’d survived the wreck, but as long as there was a _chance_ in hell, he’d never give up.”

Felicity smiled. “Right,” she said. “So you’re not giving up on him.”

Oliver smiled back, resting his forehead against hers. “Thank you, Felicity.”

“Girl Wednesday, remember?” she teased. “Anytime.”

* * *

Dust motes swirled underneath a pale wash of sunlight when Oliver opened the blinds. It took a second for his eyes to adjust, for the familiar sight of the Verdant office to come into focus. Nothing had changed; the desk, steel racks stocked with bottles at the back of the room, down to the couch covered in shirts and discarded ties and old blankets. Left exactly as it had been for the last two months, and covered by a layer of white dust.

Keys jangled from the chain hooked around Thea’s finger, and she stood in the middle of the office, looking younger than ever as she took in the state of the neglected room. Verdant hadn’t been open since the Mirakuru invasion, and Starling’s near miss with annihilation. The club had been Oliver and Tommy’s joint project, but Oliver couldn’t bear to reopen without his best friend, and neither could Thea.

Only in Thea’s case, she had a better reason. She spent most of her time these days at CNRI, recently reopened and in desperate need of staff and donations. Grief and Oliver’s little sister used to be a destructive combination, a hurricane directed at herself and everything that happened to cross her path. For whatever reason, this time was the exception, and Oliver knew that Tommy would be proud.

Not so proud of the way Oliver hadn’t cleaned up the office, or reopened the club, even though he was still looking, still looking for clues as to where his best friend could be. Malcolm Merlyn and Tommy Merlyn were both MIA, a dead man and a fledging hero respectively.

Because there weren’t any bodies to bury, because they weren’t dead.

“You still sure about this?” he asked.

One of them had to break the silence eventually; Oliver just decided to spare Thea from having to do it herself.

Thea straightened her shoulders and took a deliberate step towards the shelves, running her hand along the dusty metal until she found what she was looking for and set it back upright. A photo frame and a familiar picture — the New Year’s Eve party at Verdant, after the countdown and a complete overflow of champagne, Tommy insisting that everyone crowd in for a photo —

 _Tommy swapped places with Felicity at the last moment, leaving her squashed against Oliver’s side, the two of them still flushed from standing outside in the cold, snowflakes melting in the rush of white breath. Music blasting from the speakers, a horrible song on a playlist only Tommy would have chosen to usher in a brand new year. “It’s_ Uptown Girl _!” Tommy yelled over the noise, as though he’d sensed what Oliver had been thinking._

 _“_ Uptown _what?”_

_“Smile, jackass — it’s the New Year!” Tommy said. “Felicity, take Ollie out for a spin later, dancing I mean, unless —”_

_“_ No _, Tommy,” Felicity and Oliver answered at the same time._

_A skip to his heartbeat, a flutter that had nothing to do with being irritated by his best friend and everything to do with possibility, of a fresh start and kissing Felicity’s cheek in the lightly falling snow, feeling as though anything in the world had the right to happen._

_Completely by accident, Oliver caught Felicity’s eye and a smile spread across his face to match hers, and the crowd pushed in around them, making the only way to stand arm in arm with each other. Tommy laughed like he was having the time of his life,_ _hugging Thea and mussing Oliver’s hair with one hand, and somehow everyone was grinning into the camera lens just before the flash went off_ —

The memory was as bright and blinding as a firework, and Oliver blinked hard. Thea’s eyes — green as Moira’s and just as steadied — found his from across the room, and she didn’t look away, a small determined smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“Ollie,” she said, and he understood.

 _I miss him too_.

Oliver knew it wasn’t the right thing to do, to blame himself for what happened to Tommy. This was something else. Some less selfish reason. Quiet moments like these that he took for himself, to remember Tommy, to hope he was safe, _alive_ , wherever he was.

Space was okay. Time was expected. A part of Oliver hadn’t wanted to walk into Verdant again — apart from the Foundry in the basement — until he had a solid lead on his best friend. But today had to be the day when he faced what he’d been avoiding for months.

Acknowledging that Tommy wasn’t back, and his efforts weren’t doing half as much as he wanted them to.

Oliver looked around the empty room. _I’m sorry_.

* * *

Maybe this was how Tommy had felt, those five years Oliver had been gone, and the summer after his first year back — after Laurel. Oliver opened the desk drawers, half-prepared to find contraband of the category he’d prefer to forget as a best friend, but it was mostly just ballpoint pens and an alarming amount of spare change.

“I’m going to recycle these,” Thea said, holding a small box of office papers, outdated bills and paperwork that had a way of piling up. “Anything else I should bring down?”

Oliver shook his head, and Thea flashed him a quick smile before she left the room, leaving the door open behind her. The leather office chair creaked when Oliver sat forward, about to shut the drawer and move on. Except —

He saw a white envelope sitting at the back of the drawer. Something he would have left alone, if it hadn’t been for the name written on it. The sight of the word _Ollie_ — addressed to him in Tommy’s messy scrawl — was a punch to the gut, and Oliver stared at it for the longest time, wondering if he could face what was inside.

A part of Oliver didn’t want to touch it, because he wasn’t ready, and it wasn’t time. Excuses supplemented by a staring contest with a plain envelope, in the middle of a deserted office. Eventually, Oliver picked up the envelope, only meaning to look. Somehow it became him opening the flap with shaking fingers, unfolding the paper and spreading it out. The first thing he saw was the date at the top right hand corner. Two and a half months ago, after Slade had first appeared in Starling. It seemed like a lifetime had passed since then, but Oliver remembered everything with cutting detail. They’d argued — him and Tommy — a memory that tightened the knot sitting in Oliver’s throat, and he braced himself for angry words as he scanned the lines below. Somehow, in spite of his determination to get through it as fast as he could, found himself slowing down to read.

 

 

 

 

> _Dear Ollie,_
> 
>  
> 
> _Hi._
> 
> _If you're reading this, it means that you're clearing out my desk, which means one of two things: you’re looking for some spare change (psst, get me a piggy bank for Christmas)…_
> 
> _Or I'm not around anymore._
> 
> _If it’s the first thing, stop reading, you nosy bastard._
> 
> _If it's the second thing: sorry._
> 
> _Not "_ sorry I messed up _", or "_ sorry you made me do this _", but sorry that I couldn't stay behind like you wanted me to. That's not who I am, and that's not who I've been for a long time. It's going to sound trite, but I want you to know that it was my choice, because chances are, you're blaming yourself anyway. Right?  
>  _
> 
> _So, a little context. I'm writing this after you and I have just had a huge, epic fight. I’m also assuming that we fixed everything, big fight inclusive, so there’s a chance you might be a little foggy on the details. Short version: Roy’s on the loose with the Mirakuru in his system, and he said a lot of things to you that aren't true. But some of them are. We fought because you found out what I've been doing, training with Sara and all that. I didn't wait for your okay before I went out on the streets, not because I don't trust you, or because I don't think you're a great teacher (bruising aside). It's because you have a blind spot when it comes to the people closest to you. You never want them to get hurt, and given the choice, you'd throw yourself on that grenade. But you're forgetting one thing — it's not up to you. I decide what happens to me, and the stupid things that I choose to get myself into are the furthest thing from your fault._
> 
> _That's kinda why I'm writing this. Because we fought, and I remember the last time that happened, and since I don't plan on stopping, I just wanted to make sure you have this...in case I don't come back. It could have been either one of us who died in CNRI that night, and I don't want you to go through the same thing you went through when we lost Laurel.  
>  _
> 
> _ Don't blame yourself. _ _Say it with me. Say it in Russian, Chinese, in all the languages you know. Say it until you start to believe it, then do. Because it's not your fault, and because it's not your fault, I want you to stay in Starling. Or travel the world. But don't shut yourself away on that island — I mean it literally and metaphorically. There's a world of good things just waiting to happen to you, and the last thing I want is for you to think you can't be happy because I'm not here._
> 
> _But can I give you a little advice? Some good things are right under your nose, and as of right now, you and Felicity are still doing that infuriating dance-around-each-other thing, mostly because you're a moron. Still. _
> 
> _Go get the girl. I don't care what you're doing, but go get her. Tell her how you feel, because I know how you feel. Even Google Earth knows how you feel. Because it’s obvious, you dummy. You love her, and that’s amazing, because love makes us who we are. I want you to stop believing that you don't deserve to be happy. When you were hiding out on Lian Yu, I followed you because I thought you deserved a shot at being happy, and I may not be around to kick some sense into you anymore, but guess what? You still do. So take it, because she's your shot, Oliver. Try not to mess it up._
> 
> _Last, last thing, I swear. I hate funerals. I hated yours, I hated Robert's, Laurel’s, Sara’s, my mom's. I hated all of them, because they can't change the fact that I never got to say goodbye. I lost my best friend once, and speaking from experience, it sucks. I kept looking for you while you were gone, because a part of me thought that maybe — maybe — you made it off that boat. It might come as a little surprise, but I'm asking you not to do the same thing. Don't look for me. Don't stop and stare because you think you saw my face in a crowded room. Don't fly halfway across the world chasing a ghost. You've done plenty of that already, and now it's time for a big step forward._
> 
> _I want you to live. I want you to be happy, and I want you to be Oliver Queen. You're my best friend, you're my brother, and I love you. No matter what._
> 
> _See you on the other side,_
> 
> _Tommy_
> 
>  

Oliver folded up the letter and slipped it back into the envelope, turning the chair to face the sun. Maybe it was the dust in the room making his eyes water, but his vision blurred, the shadows surrounding him giving way to blinding streaks of light.

“Tommy,” he said quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THERE'S A PART II TO THIS. PLEASE READ ON.
> 
> Hey, here's an evil suggestion. Re-read the chapter (especially the letter) while listening to "Wait" by M83. 'Cuz I did while writing it.


	49. Epilogue (Part II)

The air was cold underground, because the bleached, sterile light from the fluorescents was a poor substitute for the sun. Oliver took this in with detached interest, noting the dry tang, the recycled, machine-filtered air. The space felt hermetically sealed, though ARGUS would never have told him if it was. There were higher-ups somewhere fed up with Felicity Smoak breaking past their security — Oliver didn’t see much of a point in striking another nerve by looking too interested in the workings of their detention protocols.

The steel door shut behind him with an echoing crash, the mechanisms inside it whirring to life as security re-armed itself, shutting him inside the concrete prison, if only for a little while.

Oliver faced the blank steel long after the sound had died away. Steeling himself to face the person he’d wanted to kill, who he’d imagined killing, now safe and sound and out of reach. Because Oliver had put him there.

There was a faint rustle, a low creak of bedsprings in a thin mattress. “Hello kid,” said Slade, and Oliver turned, keeping his expression blank even as his old mentor stepped closer to the cell bars, his single eye gleaming.

“Welcome back to the island.”

* * *

There was a chessboard inside Slade’s cell. The pieces were dull and ugly things, clear splinter-proof plastic on a board fixed to the small table. Books too, pale and unbound, without staples or edges that Slade could use as a weapon. The walls were rough, stone and concrete blended together to cobstruct a prison, the natural environment of Lian Yu making itself plain, even where ARGUS had chosen to put down roots. Location aside, Oliver could tell Slade had been eating, however bland the food was. Nutrition wasn’t a problem; Waller was too interested in the possibility of Slade Wilson as an asset to let him waste away.

In a strange, convoluted way, Oliver trusted that about ARGUS, about letting them of all people take him. Part of the reason was because they had the experience to deal with the kind of dangerous that Slade was, and ARGUS was the most likely to keep him alive because there was a possible use for him.

Slade Wilson couldn’t die. That was too kind for him.

“Hm,” Slade said, interrupting Oliver mid-thought. “The food’s not worse than that chicken you tried to cook — the one I shot for you, remember? Lightning storms, typhoons, feral wolves, we survived. But your cooking…your cooking nearly did the trick at killing us.”

Oliver was silent, and Slade huffed a laugh to himself. “Now what is the point of these visits if you just sit over there, not saying a word?” he wondered aloud.

“Maybe I was in the mood to visit the zoo,” Oliver said, and watched amusement flicker across Slade’s face at the barbed response.

“You still hate me, kid,” he said, pushing off the cell bars to sit on the narrow bed. “I know because I hated you. Would it surprise you to hear that I’ve buried that hatred?”

Oliver studied Slade, keeping his thoughts hidden the same way he would have if he’d been wearing the hood. The mask. “Yes.”

Slade lifted his shoulders. “I made you a promise, kid. A promise I kept,” he said, and Oliver warned him with a single look not to try. Not to gloat. “I’m sorry it had to be Tommy Merlyn.”

In Oliver’s mind, the chair he’d been sitting on went spinning into the wall, raising a puff of dust where the steel bit into stone. In his mind, he grabbed Slade around the collar and slammed punch after punch into his face until his teeth showed in a bloodied smile, the same way they had on the sinking ship two months ago.

But Oliver didn’t move, his shoulders straight and tall. Because Tommy wasn’t dead, and Oliver felt it. Because he had Tommy’s letter in his jacket pocket, and even though what Tommy had asked of him — to live, to leave him behind — was something Oliver had no intention of listening to, there _was_ something that Oliver knew he needed to do.

So Oliver looked Slade in the eye, making it count. “You didn’t keep your promise, Slade. Because I didn’t become a killer, the one you said I’d become to stop you. Because my city is still standing. Because I came back home. Because I haven’t lost sight of who I am,” he said, enunciating the words so Slade would hear the gentle bite in them. “Because Felicity’s still by my side. Because Tommy’s not gone, and I’m going to find him.”

Slade’s smile took on a small, sardonic edge. “Still seeing ghosts, kid?”

“No.” The chair scraped softly on the floor when Oliver stood, walking up to the cell. Slade rose as well, and they stared at each other through the bars, dark and light, the gray in between. The twisted past and emotions, revenge that had to be buried, in order for Oliver to become someone Tommy — and Felicity, and Diggle, and the people who loved him — knew he could be. “Because you’re my ghost, Slade. And it’s time I let you go.”

It was Oliver’s turn to smile. Then he took a step back, and another. As soon as he got close enough, the hidden gears inside the only door came to life and swung open behind Oliver, leaving a tantalizing glimpse of the long corridor and the way out. Oliver lingered, standing in the path of Slade’s only escape, the freedom he’d been denied. Slade had curled his hands into the metal bars, his smile wolfish and far, far from defeated.

“Don’t get too comfortable, kid,” he warned. “Because I won’t be down here forever. You know that as well as I do.”

Oliver looked over his shoulder. “Goodbye, Slade.”

The enraged snarl reverberated off the stone and concrete, and Oliver pulled the door shut with a single, decisive movement, sealing the sound away. Sealing Slade away from the world he’d tried to burn.

_Goodbye._

* * *

Something was on fire, still. Or at least smoking, and not in the barbecue or salmon kind of way. Felicity lifted a lid from one of the crock pots and peered inside, mostly to make sure she hadn’t actually started a fire using beef ribs and Alfredo sauce.

Reason number one why Felicity had fond memories of her childhood diet.

_Not._

What possessed her to let Oliver out of her sight for an impromptu trip to Lian Yu, instead of keeping him as a culinary chaperone, Felicity would never know. In all fairness, Oliver had checked to make sure she didn’t want to reschedule, or at least shuffle things around so she could tag along. But Felicity had been to remote islands in the North China Sea enough for one lifetime, and some part of her was more than a little keen to avert the clash of two worlds as much as humanly possible.

AKA the world where people maintained total conversational propriety versus the world where fast-talking, enthusiastic squealing and/or accidental innuendo was the norm.

Further AKA: when Donna Smoak, her effervescent single mom, landed in Starling City.

“Oo,” Donna said, sliding a casserole dish from the oven, a pair of home-brought, neon pink mitts covering her perfect manicure. “I think that’s _no_ to the meatball pie, sweetie.”

“The what?” Felicity said, facing the blackened mess of what looked like chargrilled golf balls sitting in a bed of gray sludge. “What color was that supposed to be?”

Donna was playing with one of her glittery earrings while she scratched out another item on the list of potential party food. They were zeroing in on twenty-four hours before the small housewarming get-together, situated at the awkwardly _late_ end of the spectrum compared to when normal people threw those things. Because houses were best warmed when the couple in question had just moved in.

But clearly Donna was still going all out, complete tardiness aside. “Oh, you remember meatball pie. I used to make it for you — beef and mashed potatoes. You loved it.”

Felicity blinked, spatula in hand so she could start scraping the burned mess off Oliver’s favorite casserole dish. “I must have repressed it after the second emergency room visit,” she said. “Mom, I think we should stop cooking. And by _we_ , I mean you.”

Donna’s very blue and very mascara-ed eyes batted innocently at Felicity in surprise. “But sweetie, it’s a housewarming party,” she said, waving her pencil around like it was a wand. “You _have_ to make something for the guests, it’s like…think of it as christening the kitchen.”

Felicity cracked the lid on the slow cooker to make sure the insides had stopped billowing smoke. “I think we’ll be going to a funeral if we don’t follow the potluck concept,” she said darkly. “Besides, Oliver and I are just doing this as a… _formality._ Kind of. Since we’ve been in the apartment for two months.”

Donna giggled. “ _Oliver and I_ ,” she quoted, missing the point completely, as per usual. “Listen to you, being all cute about your boyfriend. Oh, I can’t believe you were hiding him from me, as if there’s any reason to be shy. Have I told you how handsome he is, sweetie? I mean, he cooks, he’s rich, oh and when he walks in after his morning _run_ —”

The doorbell rang and Felicity practically lunged for it. “Save me,” she said, even if it was Javi the UPS guy.

Only it wasn’t Javi.

“Hey kiddo,” said Quentin, holding two gigantic vases of flowers under his arms that didn’t look like they were from the grocery store. “Bad time?”

“Uh, I think the SCPD might frown on their best captain moonlighting as a flower delivery guy,” Felicity said, and belatedly realized that she was still standing in the doorway. “Sorry, I mean — come on in. Then explain.”

While Oliver had literally been rock bottom on the list of Quentin Lance’s favorite people, that changed over the summer for obvious — yet unexpected — reasons. Instead of falling back into old habits at losing someone he loved, Quentin kept himself busy at work, where he’d recently been promoted to captain for his response during the Mirakuru invasion. It took Oliver stopping by with coffee for a couple of weeks — just because — until coffee became break times, and break times eventually became the occasional lunch. _Sans_ throwing plates at Oliver’s head. Not exactly BFFs, but it was peaceful coexistence, and Quentin seemed to like Felicity just fine, enough to haul two giant flower vases up on his day off.

Quentin also looked unfazed by the unrequested babbling, turning sideways to make sure he didn’t bang the expensive-looking flower arrangements on the frame. And Felicity wasn’t kidding about the _expensive_ part, what with the blush-colored lilies and yellow hydrangeas — were those actual tree _branches_? —

“Before you ask — though I guess you kinda did — Thea sent me ahead with these,” Quentin explained. “She’ll be here tomorrow with the rest of the party stuff, but somehow she thought the Harper kid has a knack for trampling living things by accident, and they’re _both_ tied up at CNRI, so I volunteered.”

“They’re gorgeous, thank you,” Felicity said, taking one of the vases from him, which did actually weigh a _ton_. “How’s Sara? She RSVP-ed that she was coming to the party — with a plus one — but she didn’t exactly say when.”

Compared to a few months ago when just the mere allusion to Nyssa would have raised a vein in Quentin’s overcrowded forehead, seeing how Sara's girlfriend kicked ass and was genuinely, protectively, in love with his daughter had changed things, to the point of occasional family dinners where absolutely nothing was said about assassins and the job description. “Sara’s stopping by Central City to visit her mother first, but apparently I’m not supposed to ask how they both got through customs without bringing in half of Homeland Security.”

Felicity laughed, thinking he’d made a joke until Quentin shook his head slightly. “I wish I was kidding about that one.”

“Right,” she said, because _awkward_. “Moving on, can I get you a dr—”

The rest of her question was immediately drowned out by a very loud splash and a squeal.

“Felicity, baby,” Donna said, holding the dripping kitchen sink nozzle out in front of her, “I think I pressed the wrong button on th— _oh_. We have company?”

Quentin had gone quiet, which may or may not have had something to do with the fact that they’d never been introduced, what with the extremely brief nature of her last visit. Or the obvious _Bombshell_ look her mom sported on a regular basis. Maybe the splotches of water on Donna’s sunny yellow (and _tight_ , but she was blocking that part out) dress.

Donna was still dripping from the sink spray accident, but she tottered forward on her heels, taking Felicity’s arm. “Sweetie, who’s this?” she asked.

“I — me —” Quentin blurted, before Felicity could answer “— hi, I’m Quentin. Lance. I’m a friend of Felicity’s. And Oliver — he lives here too, tall, billionaire, kind of looks like a serial killer in the mugshot — _not_ that I’m saying she lives with Ted Bundy — sorry, you’re…?”

“… _Donna_ ,” said her mom, holding out her de-oven mitted hand. “I’m Felicity’s mom.”

Quentin shook it. “Hi,” he said, and Felicity watched with horrified fascination as _both_ their faces lit up.

Because her brain was hardwired not to notice anything remotely romantic when it came to someone who shared her DNA.

Oh _god_.

Felicity set the vase of flowers she’d been holding onto the nearest available surface and reached for the other, because the last thing she needed was for Quentin to drop it on his foot, or whatever her mom’s pheromones made guys do (usually it was something cute and dumb). “Why don’t I take that,” she muttered.

“Did I hear right?” Donna asked. “You’re a captain?”

“Yeah — uh — police captain,” Quentin said. “You’re Felicity’s mom, wow — I —”

Felicity wondered if it was actually possible to kill herself with fancy flowers. Maybe if she was allergic to pollen, which sadly — she wasn’t.

“And you’re coming to the party tomorrow?” Donna said, and Quentin nodded, a definite improvement over the sentence fragments. “Oh, I don’t know if you’d be interested — or if it’s an imposition — but I’m not really from around here, and if you have some time, I don’t think I’ve really had a tour of Starling City.”

“What?” Felicity said, because she distinctly remembered spending a whole weekend at the tourist hotspots with Donna and Oliver, even an actual _Rockets_ game because her mom liked that the players wore tight white pants and got all sweaty.

Oliver had bought Felicity an extra-large bucket of buttered popcorn and a baseball cap to make up for it, but still.

“Mom, you’ve already seen th—”

“— I’d love to show you around,” Quentin said, because somewhere between opening the door and him noticing her mother, Felicity seemed to have developed the power of invisibility.

Donna fluffed her hair again, blushing like she was sixteen and about to go on her first date, which made Felicity either the cliched dad with the baseball bat or the proud mom snapping pictures. “Oh, but I’m such a mess…” she said, looking down at herself. “Maybe I should change.”

Felicity was very aware that she had ricotta cheese smeared on one elbow, and some mashed banana down the front of her shirt, and by contrast, the abject lack of anything resembling a stain on Donna’s outfit. Not even squashed pasta underneath her shiny pumps. Maybe it was all the years of waitressing at casinos — her mom had developed the superpower of avoiding food-and-beverage-related messes.

“Are you kidding? Ms Smoak, you look _amazing_ ,” Quentin said, and Felicity contemplated taking a bite of the carcinogenic meatball pie, just to save herself the excruciating pain that was this entire situation.

“Donna, please,” her mom said, beaming. “Sweetie, will you be okay without me for a couple of hours? I promise I’ll pick up dinner.”

As if Felicity was four years old and the one in need of babysitting, but Donna punctuated her question with the whole doe-eyed thing and wide mascara eyes. Felicity sighed inwardly, because her mom’s best boyfriends-slash-dates didn’t even come _close_ to sergeant-sorry-recently-promoted-captain Quentin Lance, and Quentin going on a fun date for the afternoon was just the bare minimum of what he deserved, after the last few months he’d had.

“I’ll be fine,” she said, and snagged Donna’s purse off the nearest chair. “Don’t worry about dinner, I’ll get takeout or something. They have these things called _delivery menus_ and cell phones, you know.”

“Lasagna,” Quentin said suddenly, and Felicity wondered if she was meant to understand. “There’s a great little Italian place near the tourist spots, real neighborhood place. They do — uh — really great lasagna.”

“I _love_ lasagna,” Donna breathed, and Felicity shook her head, opening the door for them.

Donna mouthed _I love you_ to Felicity behind Quentin’s back, and Felicity forced a smile, waving like a pageant runner-up. Right before she closed the door, Quentin’s detective skills must have kicked in, what with the number of burned things sitting in the loft kitchen, because he asked:

“Is something on fire?”

Felicity shut the door on Donna’s giggle, and breathed a long, slow sigh of relief, facing the quiet apartment. It was a Saturday, and there was plenty of time before the party, one whole day. She could open the balcony door to air out the apartment, not to mention start the dishwasher once she got the inedible culinary attempts ( _thank you, mom_ ) into the trash.

Still. Her mom was on a date with Quentin Lance.

“I need a drink,” she said to herself.

* * *

“Oh my god, I can’t watch this,” Felicity said, tugging the blanket up to hide her face.

Thea looked confused, glancing between Felicity and the TV over a handful of M&Ms, popcorn and salted pretzels. Movie night trail mix, basically. “Okay, the last time you looked like that, we were watching Jack Nicholson try to chase his family through a frozen maze. It’s a Nancy Meyers movie,” she pointed out. “Granted, not one of Meryl Streep’s finest moments, but since when is _It’s Complicated_ on-par with _The Shining_?”

Felicity checked to make sure Donna — in fluffy pink pajamas after her date — was still presiding over the fresh batch of popcorn with the salted caramel sauce all the way in the kitchen. “You’d find a movie about middle-aged retirees getting it on as scary as _The Shining_ if your mom was going out with Quentin Lance too,” she hissed, and Thea almost inhaled a blue M &M from laughing too hard. “That’s not funny!”

“It kind of is,” Thea wheezed, reaching for her phone with her free hand. “Hold on, I have to Snapchat Roy. Keep watching the movie — pretend I’m not here. I want to get that unfiltered look of pure horror.”

Felicity threw a pillow at her and she ducked. It bounced off the front door when it opened at the exact right (or wrong) moment, crashing dangerously close to the fresh vase of party flowers on a side table.

“A near-casualty of war,” Thea said dramatically, a piece of pretzel in her hair.

Felicity clambered off the couch in a hurry while Oliver shut the door behind him, holding his travel bag and looking much better than someone who’d stepped off a long, very dangerous and turbulence-ridden flight really should have. “Hey,” he said, letting the bag drop to give Felicity a hug, both arms around her tight.

“Missed you,” she whispered, and felt him smile into her cheek.

“Oliver!” Donna had a spatula covered with caramel sauce, and Felicity snatched it out of her grip just in time to avert a sticky crisis when her mom gave Oliver a hug and kiss on the cheek. “How was the business trip, honey?”

Oliver inclined his head. “I managed to wrap everything up,” he said. “It was a good time to part ways.”

“With an old business partner,” Felicity added, caramel spatula in hand. “That’s good?”

It was a tentative question, one that Oliver answered with a small smile. “It’s good,” he said, and then Donna was insisting she could help with his bag — _one_ bag — while Thea said Oliver needed a grilled cheese sandwich that none of them except Oliver could conceivably make without burning, and Felicity was finding it hard not to laugh by the time she managed to get her live-in boyfriend up the staircase, so he could shower the plane ride and island trip off him.

“I love you,” he said, leaning down to kiss her. “I’ll tell you all about it tomorrow.”

The movie had started back up again, Donna and Thea in front of the TV, making this a quiet moment just for them. Felicity nodded, nudging her forehead against his. “I love you.”

* * *

Movie night had gone late, and then it was breakfast with her mom and Thea (while Oliver made the French toast), them realizing that the disaster cooking experiments had emptied the fridge and there was nothing to cook for the party. Cue Oliver volunteering to go out shopping, Donna offering to help with a bag or two, Felicity to clean up the house to make it semi-presentable, and Thea to take care of the rest of the decorations.

Felicity had outpaced her schedule for cleaning up the house, and was currently reaping the reward. She set her glass of wine carefully on the side of the tub and flipped the page in her book. The bathtub in the loft was the exact right size for someone as small as she was, which meant that Felicity could prop her ankles up against the rim if she put a towel behind her neck, something she couldn’t do with those obnoxiously big ones from pornos or hotel ads. Maybe it was the book-lover in her talking, but a miniature swimming pool was reckless endangerment of reading material that didn’t have inbuilt waterproof capabilities.

Granted, it was the height of summer and she still had her cast on for another week (doctor’s orders), but a few layers of saran wrap around her left arm and leaving the door ajar to the empty bedroom was a small price to pay for time-traveling romances involving Scotland and redheaded men in kilts.

Felicity made a mental note to add the TV show to the Netflix watch list.

Water dripped quietly from the faucet, rippling gently across the foamy surface. The bathroom mirror was fogged up with steam, and Felicity took deep, slow breaths of the scented air, her chin tilted back, thinking.

It was peaceful here.

She heard the door open downstairs and stayed quiet, listening for voices — until she heard the keys drop into the porcelain elephant by the kitchen, and relaxed into the lavender-and-verbena bubbles. “I’m up here,” she called, going back to her book.

Oliver took a little longer to show up, and she could hear him putting things away in the kitchen, taking food out of the grocery bags. Ice cream, her only request, and whatever else they’d forgotten to buy for the party. Probably booze and corn chips, because everything else was going to be homemade — and most likely edible, since Felicity wasn’t going anywhere near the cooking process.

Felicity slid her finger between the pages to keep her place when Oliver came up the stairs. “Thanks for going to the store,” she said. “You get extra boyfriend points for the monthly scorecard.”

Oliver walked up to the bathroom, leaning his shoulder on the side of the door. “Good news is, we’re not out of mint chocolate chip,” he said. “You had a good day?”

Felicity nodded, just realizing that she couldn’t hear her mother downstairs. “Where’s my mom?”

“She got a call when we were leaving the store,” he explained. “Dashed off. She said it was something left over from yesterday.”

There was a maybe-sorta wary look in his eye, and Felicity realized how Donna’s sudden exit probably appeared to him, what with her cortisol levels and all. Granted, her mother vanishing in the middle of Starling City might have been a little worrying, except she had an unfortunate idea of what she might’ve been up to. “Don’t worry,” she laughed. “Cross my heart, I did not lure my mother away and send her on a last-minute getaway to Bali. Though let the record show, I was _very_ tempted. Want some wine? It’s good.”

The heat and chilled wine was an understandably difficult combination to refuse. Oliver picked up the glass and Felicity went back to her book, if only for the dramatic effect. “Oh, and Quentin stopped by with flowers yesterday — courtesy of your sister, party planner of the century — and my mom was there. Long story short…they went on a date yesterday, and they’re probably on a date right now. This exact moment.”

Oliver nearly inhaled the moscato. “W-what?” he said, and Felicity was smiling, but only because she’d been stuck with that revelation for the last day and it felt genuinely amazing to have someone else look so profoundly disturbed.

Like her boyfriend. Right now. Imagining Felicity’s bubbly, cocktail waitress of a single mother on a date with the surly, no-nonsense, dad-like figure that was Quentin Lance.

“I know,” she said, setting her book safe out of the splash zone on a shelf. “Make that face for another twenty-ish hours, and you’ll be right where I am now.”

“Your mom?” Oliver repeated. “Lance? Your m—”

“— and the worlds collide,” Felicity summarized, flicking water with the tip of her toe. “I guess you’re never too old to act like you’re in _Summer Nights_ , minus John Travolta and the eighties hair. Well, actually, in my mom’s case — big hair’s kind of her thing.”

Oliver had a hand on his chest, looking vaguely queasy. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to say.”

Felicity laughed, because misery and incredibly mixed feelings loved company. “Well, onto less nauseating topics, are you going to catch me up? What made you decide to visit the island?”

Oliver shifted on the edge of the tub, leaning his shoulder against the tiled wall. “I went back to Verdant,” he said quietly.

Felicity sat up a little, her smile fading. She put her elbows on the porcelain, moving closer to Oliver. “Thea mentioned it, but she said you guys just cleaned up. Did something else happen?”

His shoulders moved, an approximation of a shrug, minus the carefree side of it. “I found something in the desk.”

Oliver reached into his back pocket and pulled out an envelope, and Felicity was careful to hold it away from the water. The sight of Tommy’s handwriting on the letter made her hesitate, and she looked up at Oliver, but his hand slipped to the back of her neck, resting against her skin. It was an _OK_ communicated without words, and Felicity took a deep breath before she started to read, the side of her head leaning on his thigh.

The words made her smile, because it was so, _ostensibly_ , Tommy, that even while he’d been on the outs with Oliver, he hadn’t meant for it to last. Because there was something bright and pure about Tommy Merlyn, and the only thing he'd ever wanted was for his friends to be happy. It was something so true to who he was that Felicity felt as if he was right there with them. In a way, he really had been, because the last thing any of them wanted after coming back from Lian Yu was to forget. Not now, not ever.

“He loves you,” she said simply. “You’re his best friend.”

Felicity’s curls were twisted out of the way with a clip, but some of it trailed loose at the back of her neck, damp from the bath. Oliver’s fingertips traced warm lines in her skin, and she brushed her lips to the back of his hand, waiting for him to tell her what was on his mind. “I’m thinking about reopening Verdant,” he said. “Speedy’s busy at CNRI, but I’m not at Queen Consolidated anymore. It started out as an investment with Tommy — maybe it’s time I tried running it. Seriously tried, I mean. Not just as a front for the Foundry. What do you think?”

Felicity wanted to smile, but she pressed her lips together, keeping as much of a sphinx face as she could. “As long as you want to, then I want you to,” she answered. “But what brought this on? I thought you were waiting.”

Oliver’s eyes were on the letter, the one she’d read, the same as him. Where Tommy told Oliver not to look for him. A crease appeared between her eyebrows, because reopening Verdant seemed like a step in that direction.

“What about Istanbul?” she asked, keeping her tone neutral. “Malcolm?”

Oliver met her gaze, looking almost surprised. “I’m not giving up,” he said. “But it’s past time I started taking Tommy’s advice. Some of it, anyway.”

_I want you to live. I want you to be happy, and I want you to be Oliver Queen._

“And the island?” she said. “What does Slade have to do with everything?”

“I let go of the ghost,” he said simply. “I let go of Slade Wilson.”

Felicity caught her breath, because that — of all things — was unexpected, but right. Something Oliver had decided for the better, and she could feel it. Something good. “As long as you’re sure,” she said.

Oliver ran his thumb down her cheek, and tipped her face gently up to his. “It was time,” he said quietly, and their lips touched.

It went on for a long, long moment, until Felicity pulled back a little, feeling hazy and drunk on something that wasn’t wine. “Should we cancel?” she asked seriously. “If you’re not —”

“No,” Oliver shook his head, smiling as he moved closer again, making up for the space she'd put between them. “We’ve already been in the apartment for two months. If we keep pushing the housewarming party back, we’ll look stupid.”

Felicity considered the statement. “Not if we put out enough free booze.”

“That’s very true.”

The front of Oliver’s shirt was getting damp, and Felicity’s hand left a smudge of bubblebath down the side of his cheek. But she tipped her head back and kissed him, long and lazy and luxurious, time stretching long in front of them.

“You know…I’m not supposed to get my cast wet,” she said, drumming her fingers teasingly against his chin. “Doctor’s orders.”

Fitting the both of them inside the bathtub was a memorable failed experiment, and Felicity was about to remind Oliver of the impossible logistics when he grinned. Before she could react, water was spilling out of the tub, bubbles floating onto the tiled floor, and she was being swung up into his arms. Her skin was slippery, and she caught Oliver by his shoulders, clasping the back of his neck while he carried her towards the bedroom, the both of them grinning like teenagers getting their first thrill of freedom. They were a mess of damp kisses, heat and smothered laughter, but Felicity felt nothing close to self-consciousness when Oliver was like this, light and sure and _himself_.

So she shut her eyes and held on tight, willing moments like these to last forever.

* * *

“Hey,” Oliver said.

They were lying in bed under the late afternoon sun, burnt orange slanting across the tangle of limbs and bare skin. He’d lost track of time since they’d tumbled into bed and everything after that, quietly basking in the afterglow, communicating through gestures — lazy with affection — instead of words.

Felicity lifted her head from where it’d been tucked underneath his chin. “Hm?”

“I was thinking,” he said. “About my mask. I know Barry made it, and you—”

“—are wondering about the strange timing,” Felicity murmured, nipping at his ear. “I _love_ that you’ve stopped shattering whatever you’re holding when someone mentions Barry Allen, but still.”

Oliver pulled her obligingly on top of him, tipping his head back so that her lips could wander over his throat. “D’you think you could make another one?” he asked. “But…red. For Roy.”

It was one of the few times he’d seen Felicity break off from a kiss, though he hadn’t expected her to be laughing. “What?” he asked.

She rolled off him, sinking into the pillows, and pointed with her chin at the dresser by the bed. “Bottom drawer, under the blue sweater.”

Oliver reached down, feeling underneath the neatly folded sweaters until his fingers encountered the stiff edges of a…box. As small as the one Barry had passed Felicity to give to him on New Year’s Eve.

He didn’t need to look to know what was inside. “How long?” he said, looking over his shoulder at Felicity.

She put her arms around him from behind, fingertips trailing along his bare chest, the heat of her exposed skin against his back. “Since I decided to have faith in you,” she answered, whispering the words like a secret. “It’s pretty easy to do that, you know.”

Oliver turned his head and claimed her mouth for a kiss, pulling her into his lap. She returned the favor, her legs pressing against his sides, cradling his face in her small hands. It was all stolen breaths and beautifully inarticulate sounds, but they didn’t need words. They had each other, and that was something strong and sacred, having Felicity in his arms after returning from the island. Holding each other, scars and vulnerabilities and secrets laid bare.

It was something that no one could break, and Oliver knew it. Now, he knew it.

* * *

“Is it a housewarming party if someone else lets the guests in?” Felicity asked, trying to fit her shoe — a wine-red pair of high-heeled Mary Janes that wouldn’t kill her to stand in — onto her foot.

She was still upstairs in the master bedroom with Oliver, but she’d gone out for a peek over the side of the balcony, and there were most definitely guests moving purposefully around the living room. Mostly Thea ordering Roy around with heavy things and Diggle moving cases of booze behind the kitchen island (doubling as a bar for the night) while Lyla arranged the glasses, one hand on her five-month belly. Donna and Quentin had been standing over the dining table (temporary buffet station), _way_ too close together, laughing about something manifestly unrelated to the veggie sticks and sweet potato hummus. It also gave Felicity’s extremely mixed feelings another tug towards _damn it, you guys are cute_.

Leave it to Donna Smoak to meet the perfect guy by accident, while presiding over a culinary catastrophe to boot.

Oliver was buttoning up his shirt, but he broke off midway to glance at his watch. “We’re not late for another twenty minutes,” he said, sounding both resigned and a little miffed that his punctuality was going unrewarded.

It made Felicity wobble over — other shoe still in hand — to kiss him, and Oliver smiled against her mouth, making a little noise in his throat that reminded her how they’d spent the bulk of the afternoon. Which had most definitely, undoubtedly, and beyond-questioningly _not_ been setting up for the party.

She also felt his hand on the zipper of her dress and caught his wrist, laughing. “We are _not_ going to be late.”

In lieu of a verbal counter-argument, Oliver nuzzled at her throat with definite purpose, and Felicity arched backwards onto the bed, careless of wrinkling her dress or his half-buttoned shirt. She’d lost her shoe, and Oliver was giving her a pretty good reason to lose the other one.

“I should’ve listened to you and cancelled the party,” he said against her neck, and Felicity pushed him against the pillows, putting her weight in a highly strategic place for the purposes of keeping Oliver underneath her.

Sure, they had issues keeping their hands off each other even on a normal day, but having her mother as a house-guest for the week meant holding back out of necessity, at least until more reasonable hours in the day. So _yes_ , maybe Felicity’s private displays of affection were a little — what was the word — hungrier than usual. Not that Oliver seemed to mind. At all.

“How much — _mmf_ — time — did you say — we had?” Felicity said, between kisses.

Oliver pushed her hair back from her cheeks, if only to get at the underside of her jaw again. He hummed in response to her question, sounding very distracted. “Enough,” he said, visibly unconcerned by the prospect of being late.

Felicity smiled, because she could get used to this. “Right answer.”

* * *

Not for the first time in Oliver’s life, he was late to a party. He reached the foot of the staircase with Felicity’s hand in his, aiming for an inconspicuous entrance in the middle of the chatter and music. That hope lasted about five seconds before he heard the clink of a glass, and Diggle was standing behind them with a very cold beer.

“There you are,” he said, smiling. “I was just thinking about sending a distress signal — leave it to Oliver Queen to be late to a party in his own place, right?”

“Oh yeah,” Felicity said seriously. “Real problem with this one. I’m thinking about adjusting all the clocks in the apartment back to make sure he’s on time.”

Oliver’s hand was in the small of her back, and he adjusted his facial expression to make sure Diggle wouldn’t find out — if he hadn’t already guessed — why they’d been delayed. Although technically, Oliver would have been early. He’d just decided there was something better to do with that time, a fact Felicity clearly remembered, because she cleared her throat and brushed a curl out of her eyes. As though it hadn’t been spilling around his face and neck barely five minutes before, and he hadn’t pushed up her skirt to —

Felicity stood on her toes to kiss Diggle’s cheek in hello. “Thanks for helping set up,” she said. “You and Lyla really didn’t have to.”

“Happy to help,” Diggle said. “Besides, I couldn’t let Oliver overload the bar with Russian vodka. Tennessee whiskey, something normal people _actually_ drink.”

“Very funny,” Oliver said sarcastically. “Speaking of, should we —”

“— snag ourselves some drinks?” Felicity suggested. “Why, doctor Queen, I think you’ve read my mind.”

Oliver pressed a rough kiss to the side of Felicity’s head and let her tug him towards the bar, where Diggle uncapped a beer for him and Oliver one-handedly poured Felicity a glass of red wine.

“Hey,” Diggle said, lowering his voice, as if it was a secret between the three of them. “I’m happy for you two. All that dancing around each other…I’m glad it happened. _Finally_.”

“You mean in a shorter time frame than _forever and ever_?” Felicity guessed, leaning her side against Oliver’s. “I’ll be honest — and it’s only because of the wine, not how much I like you guys — but I didn’t think it’d happen so soon either.”

Oliver nodded. “Neither did I,” he said. “But I think we know why.”

Diggle and Felicity didn’t speak, their smiles growing quiet and contemplative, thinking of the same bright spark, the same infallibly warm, tenacious presence that was the only thing missing from the party.

They made sure there was a glass of champagne sitting untouched on the countertop when Diggle held out his beer for a toast. “To Tommy,” he said.

Oliver tapped the neck of his bottle against Diggle’s, and Felicity’s wineglass, the three of them bonded by something strong and unspoken, a silent hope that they’d find him, sooner or later.

“No shop talk for tonight,” Felicity said firmly. “ARGUS intel, data reports and satellite scans can wait.”

They drank again, and Diggle was the first person to break the silence, by gesturing towards the fireplace at Donna and Quentin. “So what’s going on there?” he asked, and Felicity nearly choked on her drink.

* * *

“Oliver, sweetheart,” Moira said, reaching up from her wheelchair to touch his arm. “The apartment looks lovely. Very welcoming, and the view is _spectacular._ ”

Oliver kissed her cheek and did the same with Thea, who was sitting on the arm of the couch by their mother, a plate of finger food balanced on her knee for sharing. “Thanks for coming, mom,” he said. “I know you’re busy, so you being here — it really means a lot.”

“Nonsense,” Moira said, glancing behind her at Walter Steele with a little shared smile. “Work is just work. Mayor’s office or not, nothing could keep me away from this.”

“Your mother’s very proud of you, Oliver,” Walter said. “She’s not been able to talk about anything else.”

Thea’s green eyes gleamed with mischief. “Her big boy’s finally grown up and moved out,” she teased. “Of course mom’s throwing a party.”

Oliver gave his sister a playful nudge and held out his hand to Walter. “I’m glad you could come, Walter. Thank you…for everything.”

“I wouldn’t have missed this for the world,” Walter answered warmly. “You’re family, after all.”

Oliver returned his smile. Far from a quiet recovery, Moira had been asked to step in as interim mayor, after the sudden death of Sebastian Blood during the Mirakuru invasion. City Hall had lost four aldermen, the majority of City Council, and the District Attorney, making Moira Queen — the favored choice for mayor by Starling City before her withdrawal from the race — the ideal choice to reassure citizens that the city was on the mend.

That being said, becoming mayor had nothing to do with Walter, a man in private industry. Except for how he’d never left Moira’s side, not since he stepped off the plane from London, one of the first flights to get in after the air traffic embargo had been lifted on Starling. Not since he’d accepted her offer and stepped down from his position as CFO at Starling National Bank to become Chief of Staff at City Hall.

Oliver had a feeling they — Walter and Moira — might make things official, _again_. And soon, but that was neither his business nor Thea’s, even though he did intercept a glowing look from his sister as she watched the two of them together.

There were more fine lines in Moira’s face, still graceful and unshakable, and he knew that she was thinking about more than just the housewarming party, surrounded by friends and family, her son and daughter.

Moira took their hands, Oliver’s and Thea’s, holding on tight. “We had plans for you both, your father and I, but I am _so_ unspeakably proud that you chose your own paths, that you’ve become the people you are today,” she said. “Thea, you turned a hobby into something very special indeed, and now you’ve moved on to CNRI, where I _know_ you’ll do wonderful, wonderful things.”

“And you, Oliver,” she said, and the pause she left after the words spoke volumes about the Arrow and what she was thinking. “My beautiful boy.”

Oliver nodded, because he understood. “He’d be proud of you,” Moira said very quietly, cupping his cheek in one hand. “Because you’re living your life.”

“I haven’t forgotten him,” Oliver promised, and Moira nodded.

“Neither have I,” she said, with a small, bittersweet smile. “I love you both so much.”

Thea laughed, drying her eyes on a paper napkin. “Mom, Ollie’s moving in with Felicity,” she joked. “You’re supposed to save that kind of speech for when one of us gets engaged.”

Moira leaned the side of her head against Walter’s arm, laid protectively around the back of her wheelchair. “Oh, who knows?” she said softly. “Now, where _is_ Felicity? I’d very much like to meet her mother.”

* * *

Felicity wasn’t sure whether it had been Donna’s idea or Thea’s to put down a Twister mat for the housewarming party, but she was hard-pressed to think it wasn’t a mild stroke of genius, because of the comedic gold that was Cisco Ramon trying to beat Sara Lance and Roy Harper, both wunderkinds in the art of contortion and not losing at any kind of game ever. Oh, and all while Nyssa al Ghul (yes, it _was_ weird seeing her in normal clothes) and Caitlin Snow watched from the sidelines, the latter refereeing and the former asking questions about the odds of a plastic spinner and whether the game was some kind of passive sparring.

Officially, Nyssa Raatko was Sara’s girlfriend, born and raised in Russia and a professional mixed martial arts fighter, so hopefully Caitlin wouldn’t think the questions were out of character.

But Felicity took her glass of wine over to the balcony, where McKenna was standing by herself, looking out at the city. It wasn’t hard to guess why she wanted a little distance, even though she was far from a stranger at someone’s party. Slade Wilson’s poisonous thinking would have put Felicity squarely in the position of blame, because she’d gotten out of the ship and Tommy hadn’t, but one of the promises she’d made to Tommy was about guilt. There was a strong argument to be made that it applied to the circumstances, because shutting herself off and blaming herself for something Slade had done — it was the furthest thing from honoring Tommy in his absence.

So Felicity stepped outside and carefully shut the glass door behind her, dulling the sounds of the party from inside the apartment, even though the light cast along the slate balcony was warm and golden, stretching their shadows into the deep blue night. Back at her old house, she used to hear the cicadas through her screen door, but now it was the sound of cars rushing past on the roads and the electric hum of a living city.

“Not a big fan of Twister?” she asked.

McKenna looked around with a smile. “Hey,” she said. “Great party. I just needed some air.”

The summer air, even at night, could politely be described as soup. But cooler soup, like gazpacho. “I can tell because you’re standing out here,” Felicity said, semi-seriously. “Balmy summer night and all.”

“Closest I’ll get to a vacation in Bali,” McKenna said, and took a sip of her beer. “I’d make myself a drink in a pineapple, but I was always a sucky bartender.”

“Don’t forget the paper umbrellas,” Felicity suggested, and McKenna chuckled. “I heard about the promotion — sergeant, wow. Look at you, boss lady.”

They were standing elbow to elbow at the railing, and McKenna exhaled, looking down at her chest as if the badge was hanging around her neck. “Thanks,” she said. “I never thought I’d be back here after I got shot, but I guess life has a way of throwing curveballs.”

“Tell me about it,” Felicity said, because _understatement_. “And other stuff too, you know. Which is my super-subtle way of telling you that I’m here to listen.”

McKenna played with the label on the beer bottle. “My friend at Interpol says the last search was a dead end,” she reported, her voice oddly flat. “I’m reaching out to the Federales down in Mexico, but it’ll take a while to get a response. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy, still looking for clues when everything else is telling me he’s not coming back, and only my gut says he is. Because the last time we saw each other, we promised we’d talk, and we never did. Because Tommy Merlyn’s stubborn enough to flip the bird at death if it means he’ll get the final word, and there’s one hell of a final word with the way we left things. But I don’t know, maybe…maybe I’m losing it.”

Felicity smiled at the very accurate description of Tommy. “You’re not going crazy,” she said quietly. “It’s called holding out hope. Believing in someone you love, and you love him, don’t you?”

McKenna smiled at the night sky. “He drove — _drives_ — me nuts, but I do.”

“Good,” Felicity said. “Because he’s not gone. Because he’s one hundred percent that stubborn, and he’s stronger than the Tommy Merlyn from a year ago. Part of that’s because of you, whether you realize it or not.”

McKenna turned her head, her chin resting on her forearms. “You say that kind of thing to Oliver?” she asked.

“Every single day,” Felicity admitted, and McKenna nudged her with a real, warm laugh.

“Thanks, Felicity,” she murmured.

Felicity gave her a nudge back. “That’s what friends are for, right?” she said. “Now I think that you and Sara could really team up to give Roy an ass-kicking at Twister. What d’you say?”

McKenna made a face, considering the offer. Then she reached down and pulled off her heels, snagging the straps on her finger. “Lead the way.”

* * *

“ _Snarfle_ ,” Roy said in his sleep.

He was sprawled out on the couch and snoring, exhausted from an extended battle of Twister against Sara and McKenna, and even Oliver was finding it hard not to laugh, or at least follow his sister’s lead and snap a picture of his face (drooling) for future purposes.

“I’ve got this,” Thea whispered, a throw blanket over her arm.

It was late, and most of their friends had gone home for the night. Oliver had just returned from seeing his mother and Walter off, Donna stepped out for coffee with Quentin (so incredibly strange), and Diggle was helping clear up in the kitchen.

“Thank you,” he said, giving his sister a kiss on the forehead.

“Don’t stay up too late,” she answered.

Oliver stopped by briefly to check on Diggle before he headed to the dining area, where Felicity was sitting cross-legged on a chair, talking to Lyla with a plate of leftover spring rolls and chips between them.

“Hey,” Felicity said, wrapping an arm around his waist when he walked up. “You okay?”

“I’m great,” he said. “Can I borrow you for a minute?”

Lyla winked and slid one of the serving plates off the table. “Take your time,” she said. “I think Johnny could use some company.”

“Well that was subtle,” Felicity muttered. “What’s up? And before you answer that question, we _do_ have a bunch of friends staying over for the night. That sounded a lot weirder than I meant it to.”

Oliver kept a straight face. “Little bit,” he said. “Don’t worry, I want to show you something upstairs.”

Felicity clearly thought he’d meant inside the loft, because when he got to the front door, she looked around. “Wait, where are we going? Please don’t tell me _upstairs_ was a euphemism.”

“The roof,” Oliver said simply.

“We have a _roof_?”

It was a short flight of steps through a nondescript stairwell, and Oliver pushed open the steel door at the top to a gust of cooling night breeze, leading Felicity by the hand towards the raised platform at the side of the roof.

“Oliver,” Felicity said, as she took in the picnic blanket spread over the asphalt, the wine bottle and waiting glasses, their crystal-clear insides reflecting the warm orange glow from the lanterns he’d scattered around the space. “What did you —?”

“Belated housewarming,” he answered.

Oliver knew Felicity was afraid of heights, but that fear had nothing to do with looking up at the night sky and enjoying each other’s company — in private. Clearly Felicity appreciated the concept, because she was still smiling like she couldn’t believe it when she took his hand and climbed up onto the platform.

“I thought we could do something a little more quiet, just for us,” he explained. “I know it’s not exactly drinking wine by the fireplace, but…”

Felicity toed off her heels and picked up the wine bottle, sinking to her knees while she read it. _Chateau lafite Rothschild_ , 1982 — one of her favorites, and the exact label they’d been drinking at her house when Oliver realized how much he wanted it. The possibility of a life with her, for all its chaotic moments, interspersed with unforgettable warmth and laughter and… _love_. How he’d forgotten there was any kind of home outside of the one he’d fallen into with Felicity, the one he’d chosen in every step he’d taken — however halting and imperfect — since then.

Her head jerked up. “You remembered,” she said, a little breathlessly. “Just how much of a romantic are you?”

Oliver kept a straight face, considering her question as he poured red wine into their glasses. “I remember the way you looked when I walked into your office, I remember that you had a blue police box mug —”

“— Tardis mug,” she corrected, between a sip of wine.

“— sitting on your desk,” he continued, trying not to laugh, “and you had a pen —”

“— which I was _chewing_ , Oliver —”

“— it was red,” he said, and she stopped, uncharacteristically at a loss for words.

As though it was unbelievable that he might have remembered everything about her from the second they’d met, as though he could have forgotten the first person since the island who reminded him what it was to be human. To do the unlikely and seemingly insurmountable task of not just surviving, but _living_.

“I love you, Felicity,” Oliver said, and it was the most uncomplicated thing in the world to him, because he meant it. With everything he had. “Now and always.”

Felicity’s lips were slightly parted in surprise, and still without speaking, she set down her glass and moved towards him. Oliver shifted to let her in close, until she was kneeling between his legs and her hands cupped his face, tilting it up to hers. His eyes were closed, utterly trusting, and the only thing he could hear was the sound of his heartbeat before she leaned in to kiss him.

Oliver ran his hands up her back and gently guided them down to the blanket, wine and summer in the taste of her mouth, kissing her until they were short on breath. “That was my way of saying I love you too,” she murmured, when they pulled apart. “And I do, Oliver. Whatever happens.”

They were lying side by side now, Felicity’s chin on Oliver’s collarbone, and he gathered her close with a smile, pressing a kiss to the back of her hand before he let it rest against his pulse. A breeze drifted softly across the rooftop, stirring Felicity’s hair, and he heard her breathe out. “I love looking at the stars,” she said, and he felt the whisper against his throat. “My mom said it was the only reason she agreed to take me camping, but she loved it too. She bought a book so she could recognize the constellations. Cassiopeia, Ursa Major, Orion…”

Oliver smiled at the fondness of Felicity’s childhood memory, the beauty in knowing that Felicity loved watching the skies. The night was a rich, deep blue, with the faintest scattering of pale stars, but it didn’t come close to stargazing outside the city, lying on their backs and taking in the expanse of boundless dark far, far away from the glare of the city.

“When I was on the island, the better nights were the ones when I could look up through the trees and see the stars,” he said. “They reminded me of when my dad would sail us out into the middle of nowhere, way out from the city, so he could teach us — me, Tommy and Speedy — about the stars.”

“Sounds like we both have good memories,” Felicity murmured.

Oliver made a wordless noise in agreement. “It’s a long summer. I was thinking we could make some memories of our own,” he said thoughtfully, and Felicity’s face appeared above him, framed by the sky.

“What exactly are you asking me, Oliver?” she teased.

Oliver ran his fingers through her hair while she traced the corners of his smile. “Say you’ll come with me.”

Felicity’s response was to wind her fingers through his, pressing a kiss to the back of his hand the same way he’d done with hers. “I’d go anywhere with you,” she whispered. “Sure you don’t have any regrets?”

Oliver shook his head. “Someone told me I deserved my shot at being happy,” he said. “And I am.”

* * *

**_Two Months Ago_ **

 

“ _Choose, or both will die._ ”

Water. Furious and relentless, driving him under before he could even lift his head. Over and over again, all while the salt stung his skin and blinded him.

The water choked the breath from his lungs, crushing him against an immovable surface with painful force.

He remembered being trapped, held down by a mass of twisted metal until he could barely breathe, his worst nightmare, which only made the pain worse.

Light, shining at him from above, the possibility of escape. Close, too close.

Then the fall.

“ _TOMMY!_ ”

The water pulled him under, and Tommy Merlyn lurched awake with a hoarse gasp, a hand clutching his throat as if he was still choking on seawater instead of air. The surface beneath him gave way and he slid clumsily past the sheets — he’d been lying on a bed — and landed hard on the floor.

Tommy hissed between his teeth at the pain, like nails driving into his side, splitting his chest. There was a thick layer of bandages wound tight around his torso, for cracked ribs or worse. It was hard to see with the light stabbing into his eyes, but something about his surroundings — the dryness of the air, the heat, the utter absence of noise — told him he was somewhere very, very different.

Somewhere unknown.

A door opened behind him, and Tommy turned to look over his shoulder. The effort made him wish he hadn't, his sides throbbing, sweat sliding down his back, but all of that faded when the silhouette in the blindingly bright doorway came into focus.

"Ollie?" he said.

“Not quite,” said Malcolm, as calm as if he’d known it all along. “You're awake. Good.”

As if everything was going according to plan.

“I should…I should be dead,” Tommy said hoarsely. “What did you do to me?”

“Saved your life,” Malcolm answered. “I’ve been out of tighter spots before, and thank goodness for that, or you would have drowned at the bottom of the North China Sea, which — take it from me — isn’t the best way to go.”

As out of it Tommy was, that set off a small alarm bell in his head, powered by nothing but sheer instinct, growing louder by the second. Because Malcolm didn’t do anything without a reason, and Tommy had the worst feeling like he wasn’t going to like it.

“Where…where the hell am I?” he asked, breathing hard.

Malcolm took a step towards Tommy, but made no move to help him up from where he was sprawled on the floor. "The battle on the cargo ship and your skirmish with the Mirakuru soldiers in Starling City exposed some very serious deficiencies in your education," he said. "Oliver may have tried his best, but his fatal flaw is his inability to see past his ego, his weakness for human sentiment. He lacks the conviction to be a symbol, to be something more than just a man behind a mask. He's never lost everything, _everything_ except the iron at his core. Luckily for you, here I am. You're my son, Tommy. We've both lost everything, but I'm still your father, and I intend to do what I should have done from the start."

"I haven't lost everything," Tommy said, forcing himself to stare at Malcolm with fierce defiance even though he was close to passing out. "And you're insane if you think I'm going anywhere with you."

Malcolm's smile was ice-cold, as though Tommy hadn't spoken at all.

“Now that you’re awake,” he said. “Shall we begin?”

 

**\- FIN -**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So first off, thank you, thank you, thank you for reading! Especially to the people who found the time to drop a line and let me know what they thought of the story. Writing's hard, and you guys made it that much easier. As you know, this started out as a one-shot prompted by a friend of mine and tireless cheerleader Bruni, who's on Tumblr and Twitter as segsibongsoon. There were definitely more people interested in the idea than I'd thought, and if it answered your question about what season 2 might have been like with Tommy around, yay.
> 
> I probably should have mentioned this earlier, but I'm taking a step back from writing, so leaving the story here may seem like a dick move. To be honest, I love a happy ending as much as the next person, but ending it here a) is sorta-really what the show would do, if this were the end of a season going into the next, and b) as I said before, it dovetails with where Oliver and Tommy were at the start of the story, which makes sense to me.
> 
> Anyway, you know that Oliver would eventually find Tommy, and that's the important part.
> 
> Last thing: Enjoy Arrow and Olicity in whatever way works for you, here's hoping everything will be awesome for them going forward. It's been lovely, and at times not so lovely, but I'm proud to end it here.
> 
> Cheers,  
> ChronicOlicity

**Author's Note:**

> There's definitely the potential for continuing this one, (with more Oliver Queen) but it's first and foremost a present for an incredibly awesome person. Hope you enjoyed it! :D
> 
>  
> 
> **Edit:  
> **  
>  Wow, guys! Honestly was not expecting that kind of reaction to a one-shot. I guess we all miss Tommy Merlyn, eh? Anyway, I do have some ideas bouncing around in the old cranium, and Chireusette has definitely OK-ed them. So I guess there's no reason not to go ahead and write a little more :D


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